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“Which makes you more qualified than me to come up with a plan, so I’ll take it.”
Mr. Dez’s responding laughter was cut short as someone opened the door and entered the room.
I steeled myself and stood up, turning around to find AJ standing in the doorway. I’d already considered this particular leaf shed, but when in Rome.
Or Fortuna.
As we engaged in a stare off, not even one ounce of the familiarity I used to experience in his presence warmed me. I may have known his dark-blue eyes and blond hair well, but they weren’t mine.
“AJ,” I sighed, suddenly done with this whole thing. “I have something for you.” I pulled the crumpled contract from my back pocket and unfurled it as I walked over to him. “Did you really… conspire—” I briefly glanced over at Mr. Dez who nodded encouragingly. “—with my grandmother to falsify this contract?”
He scoffed. “Lady Luck was our responsibility, our project, and you were trying to ruin it.”
I threw my hands in the air, the paper fluttering with the movement. “I do not understand you people. You could’ve replaced me easily! Most of it is just standing there and trying not to smile so that crazies don’t rampage! Why not replace me?”
I guessed the rage was back.
“That’s not true. Everyone knows you here, and it’s part of the culture. It wouldn’t be the same with anyone else.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “And I didn’t conspire with your grandmother. She’s the one who paid me to get gone on Christmas after she found me leaving the Virgo suite.”
My thoughts slammed to a halt before ratcheting up to double time.
AJ’s new Rolex and designer suits when he’d come back to Fortuna, Grandmother seeming unsurprised by his departure….
I shook the contract between us before stuffing it into the pocket of his suit jacket, making sure to meet his startled gaze as I gritted out, “You can shove this up your ass. I quit.”
44
VINH
Iopened the houseboat door to a soaked Bree with a grocery bag dangling from her fingertips. My welcoming smile disappeared as she stood there and made no move to enter. I reached out and grasped her upper arm, urging her over the threshold before taking the bag from her hand and setting it on the booth table.
She remained motionless, clothes dripping on the entryway floor and her hair plastered to her face. I knew today would be hard for her, but this seemed, for lack of a better word, bad. I guided her into the bathroom, and she nodded her consent before I stripped her wet clothes off and threw them into the shower, making a mental note to deal with them later.
Laundry was a whole thing when you lived on a boat.
I toweled her off and wrapped her like a burrito before guiding her to the bed and situating her on the edge. I kneeled in front of her and brought both my hands up to her face, pushing her hair behind her ears, my worry intensifying by the second.
“Tell me.”
She closed her eyes in pain, the first silent sob from her chest breaking my heart in two, and the first cry from her mouth piercing my soul. I rearranged us so she was sitting across my lap in bed and me with my back propped against the headboard. I stroked my hand down her hair and back as she pressed her head further into my chest, taking great pains to silence herself. I gripped the back of her neck and massaged the tense muscles there, my other hand gripping her thigh. “Tell me,” I repeated, coaxing.
With one more heaving breath, she sat up slightly and looked at me, the utter heartbreak in her eyes plain to see, and did as I asked.
It all poured out of her—starting with her grandmother’s betrayals, then to the idiotic Junos, Fortuna, Lady Luck, and even something about her father, who apparently was presumably still alive and out there somewhere, living his life.
The thought made me sick.
The cabin was dark, the sun from the heavy sun shower finally tucking behind storm clouds as Bree’s sobs quieted.
“If my grandmother is capable of those things, what else has she done? I can’t stop all the what-ifs circling my mind. And there are a lot.”
“I don’t know, Bree. But I do know that you’re here now, and you’re safe. And you were beyond brave today.”
“I don’t feel very brave.”
“You were and you are. I’ll keep telling you that until you believe it.”
She grimaced down at her towel. “Maybe I’ll be more inclined to believe you after a hot shower and some clean clothes.”
