The Bluff (Graham Brothers, #2)(32)

The tension in the room is unbelievably thick, like the middle of July on a cloudless day, standing on hot pavement. Chevy casually makes his way over to me, though he doesn’t need to pass me to get to the door.

“I thought we had an understanding about my sister,” he says, before bumping my shoulder with his on the way out.

There is exactly one beat of silence before everyone starts yelling at me. I feel like I’m alone on a castle wall, flaming arrows being shot from a horde of orcs below.

Dad puts two fingers between his teeth and whistles so shrilly the dogs begin to bark. But it shuts all the humans up, and Harper quiets the dogs. Before Dad can say anything—and he definitely looks like he wants to—my sister stands and walks over until we are toe to toe.

I may have a good eighty pounds and six years on Harper, but she is terrifying. The key is to not look afraid.

“Those weren’t the real designs, you big dummy.”

It takes a moment. My brain is scrambled with a cocktail of emotions.

“What?”

“It was a joke. You do know what humor is?”

A joke? I don’t see anything funny about it, and knowing this does little to tone down my anger. It does ramp up my guilt though. Because the designs weren’t a little bit off. They were the complete opposite of what I would want.

“I’ll send you an email with the actual mock-up,” Harper says. “Which Winnie would have shown you if you hadn’t gone all anger management on her. It’s gorgeous, and I bet it’s exactly what you had in mind. Not that you gave her much to work with. Frankly, I’m shocked at how completely her real design has you stamped all over it. Especially considering the way you seem hell-bent on being an obstinate—”

Harper pauses here, and I have several guesses as to choice words she wants to say. But she looks to Tank, whose one raised brow is a reminder of how he trained us all to keep our mouths clean.

“Flaming donkey turd,” she finishes. “You’re a real flaming donkey turd, James. Check your email. Goodnight.”

With that, she spins on her heel, Chase, Collin, and the dogs following behind. Chase only shrugs. We all know I dug this hole myself.

And what a hole I dug.

Later, after I’ve been thoroughly lectured and reprimanded by my dad, I head back to Pat’s, the silence in his loft doing nothing to calm the nerves jumping under my skin.

I pull open my laptop first thing and find two emails. I open the one from Winnie first. It’s simply a forward with the hotel confirmation, sent maybe ten minutes after I fired her. I hate the way a stone settles in my belly at the message, which has no hint of the woman who knows how to rile me like no one else.

If only she hadn't tried to prank me tonight, when my fuse was short and my patience for other people exhausted completely. Though, being completely honest with myself, I would have flipped at any time. I’ve always been too serious, or so I’m told. Whether this is the way I’m wired or a product of my life and my role as the oldest, I don’t know.

It’s not like I can change it. This is who I am.

Winnie doesn’t know me well enough to understand I don’t take jokes well. Then again, Collin was the one who pushed. He should have known better. He does know better. Then again, my family seems constantly interested in how they can loosen me up.

If only they understood the pressure I carry with me always. Especially now.

The weight of starting this business, of scaling up so large, so quickly and with startup capital from my family—it weighs on me constantly. The pressure is constant, unabating.

Tank, Collin, and Pat invested about equally, with Harper and Chase putting in a little as well. I stand to lose the most financially, with my personal everything on the line. If this fails, I’ll have to sell the house in Austin. Probably my bike too. I’ll end up on Tank’s couch permanently, like some punk kid.

More than that—I’ll have disappointed my family. And while I’m by no stretch a people pleaser, I’ve always taken the role of protector and caretaker in my family. Losing their investment because Dark Horse fails would be the opposite of that.

Still, this knowledge does little to assuage my shame over how I spoke to Winnie tonight.

You pushed her too, I remind myself. You pretty much demanded Winnie show you. Between you pushing and Harper pushing, you forced her hand. You also gave her nothing to work with—that’s on you.

Hesitating for only another few minutes, I open the email from Harper. She spends the first paragraph reminding me what a jerk and idiot I was.

Once you realize how wrong you were, grovel on your belly. If you need tips, call Pat. He clearly knows his way around winning someone back when he’s behaved like an idiot.

My youngest brother lives with a perpetual foot in his mouth, so he’s definitely the one to consult IF I needed help in making amends. Which I’m still not one hundred percent sure I want to, even if I should.

I use the login and link Harper sent to open up the real mock-up Winnie did. My breath catches in my throat, along with a coal-sized lump of regret.

In short, it’s like the woman crawled around inside my brain and took the design I never could have put into words and breathed it into life.

I stare. Then stare some more. I scroll and click and read the sample website copy she wrote, which is, again, like it’s been culled straight from inside my head. Only better, because we all know I don’t have a way with words.