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I manage to stay seated for another few minutes before another excuse to call up Harley—check in, make sure she’s OK—drives me to head over to Landon’s office.
On the way there, my phone rings. It’s Maurice.
“Hate to be the bearer of bad news, kiddo,” he says.
It’s always caught me off guard how my accountant sounds like an Italian mobster with a mouthful of food, but he does the job damn well.
“What do you mean?” I ask him.
“These taxes you sent me that your brother tried working on,” he rasps. “Is the boy mentally handicapped or what? I don’t know what the original documents were like, but whatever he’s muddled with and you’ve sent me is complete shit. And I mean complete shit.”
I groan. “You don’t mean—”
“Hell yeah you’ll have to send me the original documents. In full. Can’t be more of a shitshow than what I have in front of me. It’ll take some time though, for sure. Gonna cost you a pretty penny too. I’m going to slash my fees in half because you’re like a son to me and there’s no better lingonberry pie than the one your mama sends my family every year for Christmas, but damn, Greyson. You better get that brother of yours straightened out. I could’ve made more sense out of shredded scraps of seven different translations of the Bible than this shit.”
I clench the phone harder. “Got it. I’ll have the files sent to you this week. Thanks.”
“Ah, it’s what I do. You take it easy, kiddo. And be careful, these young lionesses can eat you for breakfast if you aren’t careful.”
I suppress my next groan. “You mean you—”
“Saw the papers this morning, afraid so. Not to say that I trust the Star more than my klepto aunt after she’s visited and I’ve some missing silver and she claims to know nothing about it, but still. Talk travels, and people often don’t give a rat’s ass about ‘The Truth’.”
I exhale. “True. Thanks again, Maurice. Time for some major damage control.”
“Amen,” Maurice says. “And tell that dipshit of a brother of yours to come see me if he wants to learn how to decode figures and numbers the right way, instead of throwing them around like Jackson Pollock paint on a canvas.”
“Will do,” I say, hanging up.
When I knock on Landon’s door, I find that my fist is pounding with way more force than necessary.
“Whoa, try to bash in my door, why don’t you?” Landon says with an easy smile as he opens it.
“Maurice called,” I say. “You fucked up.”
Landon’s face clouds over. “That’s what you’re opening with, really?”
I stride in, spinning around to face him. “You had one job… and you not only royally fucked it up, but you cost the company precious time and money by doing so.”
Landon lifts his chin to jeer at me. “Hold up—I cost the company precious time and money? How about your little tryst with the cinematographer girl? You think it looks good having Storm Inc.’s name in the tabloids after all the drama we’ve had about Dad and his tax evasion?”
“That situation is dealt with,” I say tersely. “Right now, we’re talking about you.”
Landon throws up his arms, his muscles showing through tensed and huge. “You weren’t here, Greyson. I got lost, I’ll admit. Transferring all the info to the computer and trying to make sense of everything, I took some liberties I probably shouldn’t have. But you weren’t here. You went gallivanting off to Costa Rica, having fun at playing the producer and banging some chick, while the rest of us were stuck here without a president.”
I open my mouth, then close it.
Fuck. Landon’s right.
All of me is raging and I want to pound the walls, his desk, take him by the shoulders and shake him until he shuts the fuck up. But he’s right. I have failed him. I’ve failed everyone, Harley most of all.
“Maybe I wasn’t there how I should have been,” I admit, “but still, you were supposed to be the president while I was away.”
“Me, right.” Landon barks out a laugh. “The guy who was maybe open to the position but knew next to nothing about it, and who was already bogged down with the full-time job of muddling through the company taxes. Shocking I fucked that up.”
I stand there, glaring at him, unsure what to say. I just want to yell. At someone, something, anything. I just want her back.
“And this scandal…” Landon continues, shaking his head.
I shake the thought out of my head, force my voice to a measured tone. “That situation… is dealt with. She’s been fired.”
“Oh, has she then?”
“She has. And Maurice will fix the taxes while we repay what we can. The crisis should blow over.”
“Good,” Landon says, sinking back so he’s sitting on the edge of his desk. “Just don’t pin this on me. You were supposed to be here.”
