The Broken One (Corisi Billionaires, #1)(4)

Judy shook it. “Deal.” She turned and folded up her diagram again. “You need to watch me again soon so you can update me on your progress.”

Alethea laughed as she stood. “Absolutely. Good meeting. Now how about we go downstairs and watch a movie so I can maintain my cover as your babysitter?”

After gathering up her work, Judy followed her out the door. Alethea went with her to her bedroom so she could deposit her papers. They were walking down the grand staircase when Judy asked, “Auntie Alethea?”

“Yes?”

“You already know where my father’s family is, don’t you?”

Alethea smiled—neither confirming nor denying.

So cool.

I’m going to be like that someday.





CHAPTER TWO



* * *



HEATHER

It wasn’t my best moment. Not much used to shake my confidence. In college my housemates had consistently put me forth as the spokesperson whenever our landlord was upset with us—which happened more than I care to remember. People in authority don’t intimidate me; I learned how to take care of myself early . . . and that life was a lot easier when one didn’t break the rules.

If I had to claim a weakness, I’d say it was that I had a problem saying no. I knew what it was like to have no one to turn to, and I couldn’t knowingly leave anyone else in that situation.

That was how I’d ended up running with a wild crowd in college. Brenda and I had shared a room freshman year, and she had been a hot mess. If I hadn’t woken her, she would have slept through every one of her early-morning classes. She had been gorgeous, though, and that explained many of her problems. She had been constantly invited to parties, and there had always been a man trying to be her very special friend. It had looked exhausting.

Despite how different we were, or perhaps because of it, we had gotten on well. When she’d moved out the following year, I’d gone with her into a crazy, bed-hopping-coed situation. One I had been part of and not at the same time. I hadn’t been a drinker and had spent most of my days in my room studying, but I still smiled when I looked back at that time. Brenda and I had needed each other. She’d kept me laughing, and I’d made sure the bills were paid on time. Oh yes, and I’d talked the landlord back into liking us each time he’d threatened to toss us out.

That was me—the fixer.

After college I had become one of the rare tax preparers who enjoyed poring over people’s prior returns for errors. I was not above doing some pro bono. Nothing felt better than finding a few extra dollars for those who needed it the most. That kind of attention had brought me enough clients to start my own accounting business.

I’ve also always been a bit of a prepper. If an asteroid hit the planet, I knew where the global seed banks were located, and I had a plan for how to get there—just in my head. Writing it down would be crazy. I just knew that life had a tendency of sucking big-time, and the better one prepared for those bumps, the easier they were to survive.

I hadn’t prepared, however, for the heartbreak that came along with parenting. My four-year-old daughter was sobbing in my arms, and I didn’t know how to make it better. “I want Wolfie.”

“We’ll find him, Ava,” I promised, even though I had no idea where he’d gone. It had been a good day until I’d pulled into our driveway. None of the parenting books I’d read had instructions for what to do the moment she’d looked frantically around the back seat of my car and announced that her stuffed wolf—the one she slept with every night, the one she didn’t get into the car without—wasn’t still with her.

I’d torn my car apart, unearthing stale french fries, melted crayons, and sticky things that had me instantly reaching for hand sanitizer, but no Wolfie.

“I want Wolfie,” she said again in a broken voice that tore right through me.

When it came to crunching numbers or knowing tax law, I was confident with my skills, but this was bringing me to the edge of a panic attack. What would Brenda have done? Would I ever feel like I knew what I was doing?

I wasn’t supposed to be a mother . . . not this young.

A few years after we’d graduated, I’d held Brenda’s hand in the delivery room and welcomed Ava into the world. I’d signed a paper agreeing to take care of Ava if anything ever happened to Brenda, but I’d never imagined that she would die from an infection she’d caught in the hospital or that Ava’s father would have been so eager to sign away his rights to her.

In her short life, Ava had already lost so much—I should have tied Wolfie to her arm . . . or to the car . . . I don’t know. Something.

I took a deep breath. “I know you do, hon. He’s not in the car, but I remember putting him next to you. At least I think I do. Do you know where he went?”

Her dark hair was plastered to one side of her face when she raised her head from my shoulder. Tears spilled from her deep-blue eyes. “He wanted to stick his head out.”

My chest tightened. “Ava, did you open the window?”

“Maybe.”

I shifted her higher on my hip, so we were eye to eye. How had I missed that? I’d received a call from a client whose question had turned out to be more complicated than I’d anticipated, but I hadn’t spoken to her for long. It only takes a moment. That was a lesson I’d only learned about a thousand times since taking Ava home from the hospital. She was gifted at proving that life was full of surprises no matter how well I planned. “I won’t be mad. I just want to find Wolfie for you. Did he fall out the window?”