Casanova(6)

“Why? Because everything revolves around you?” She snorted and hopped off the table. “Brett Walker, you’re such an asshole. No wonder she doesn’t want to talk to you without knowing you. She can probably smell your arrogance a mile off.”

“Fuck off.” I threw a pen over my shoulder in her general direction. It clattered to the floor, so I took that to mean I missed my target.

Oh well.

I didn’t care.

I pulled up the spreadsheet to look over the accounting stuff and tugged the folder Dad gave me toward me. Comparing his hand-written log with the digital one his assistant kept, I found a mistake within the first few days of the month.

That was gonna go down well. Like a bag full of shit on someone’s head.

I tapped my fingers against the laptop as I looked. The next few lines blurred into one, so I looked away. I wanted to blame my hangover, but I knew it was more than that.

Camille saw Lani.

Actually saw her.

It wasn’t just hearsay that she was back or the general knowledge that she was. She was back in Whiskey Key for real. My sister was a bitch sometimes, but she wouldn’t say that to screw with me. She knew how much it damn near killed me when Lani disappeared into nowhere.

I didn’t even ask her anything. Did she know where Lani had been? Where was she living? What did she do?

Fuck—why did I care? She didn’t care about me. I had no reason to care about her except an old friendship that obviously meant nothing to her then.

I didn’t care.

That was my story and I was gonna stick with it if it killed me.

Maybe I’d believe it if I did.





Family dinner.

I fucking hated family dinner, especially when it involved my grandparents. Not that I didn’t love Pops and Nan, but it was six p.m. and I still had the same goddamn hangover as I did this morning. My bed was still calling my name too. I’d taken me the best part of the day to get through the finances and triple check it because my mind kept running into Lani.

“I don’t know why you have the assistants log finances,” Pops said, setting his cutlery on the sides of his plate. He reached for his glass of Merlot. “This is the third one to mess it up.”

“I know that,” Dad answered, not looking up from his plate. “I don’t have the time to log those things before they go to the accountant.”

“You could get a better accountant who’ll do it for you,” Camille chirped up.

Dad cut her a look, shutting her up.

“She has a point,” Nan agreed. “You could do that.”

“And spend money on something that could be done in-house? Pah.” Dad took a mouthful of wine. “The girl was supposed to have accounting experience. There were nine errors.”

Mom heaved out a deep breath next to me, but she didn’t say anything.

“Who found them?” Pops asked, picking his cutlery back up.

“The least likely source,” Dad drawled, glancing my way.

I chewed my mouthful of lamb without talking. He didn’t really want me to talk. I knew that. I was still in his shithouse for The Thing.

Pops looked at me with his eyebrows raised. “You found them?”

I shrugged a shoulder, swallowed, and then said, “Ask Dad. He’s the one who emailed me a spreadsheet, slapped his folder into my chest, and told me to check it. The mistakes were there to be found.”

“I don’t know why you don’t give the job to Brett.” Mom delicately sliced into her lamb. “He cleans up the mess every time. Why not eliminate the mess?”

Silence rang out through the room.

Thanks, Mom.

“Because,” Dad ground out. “He’s as reliable as a two-year-old driving a car.”

“Yet every month, I’m the one who cleans up the accounts,” I said in a low voice. My jaw tightened, and I looked down at my plate.

Nobody talked for a minute. In fact, nobody did a damn thing for a minute.

“One chance,” Pops said, finally breaking through the silence. “Give the boy one chance to prove himself.”

“He had that.” Dad picked up his wine glass and raised it in front of his mouth. “And look where it’s gotten us.”

“We are not discussing The Thing,” Mom said sharply. “We are discussing the immediate issue and that is you can’t hire an assistant with mathematical skills to save your life, William. Just as well, because your son has more than enough of them, and they’re not being used.”

Camille scooted her chair back. “Excuse me. I need to—”

“Sit down, Camille.” Mom didn’t even look at her.

She did as she was told, slowly lowering herself back to the chair and sliding it forward. Nan reached over Pops and patted her hand with a smile.

“He’s unreliable, Mae, and you know it,” Dad finally replied to Mom. “We’ll be having this conversation in a month.”

“He might prove you wrong.”

“He is sitting between you,” I snapped.

Pops banged his knife handle against the table. Everybody turned toward him at the head of a table without a word. He surveyed us all with his cool gaze, its harshness not impacted by his older age in the slightest.

His gaze was as chilling as I remembered it being as a child.