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“Yeah,” I say. “That was a confusing way to wake up.”
Emily waves a hand. “For real though, are you okay? What did the doctor say?”
“I’m banged up but fine. Probably a concussion, but I don’t have any troubling symptoms.”
“Good.” She flops backward onto the couch. “I would murder you if you weren’t okay.”
“You realize that defeats the purpose, right?”
My best friend stares at me with a blank face. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
The rest of us burst into laughter, and it’s like that’s the last of the energy I have. “You guys keep drinking. Keep having fun. I’m going to sleep for a while.”
“Of course, Di. We’ll be here if you need anything, okay?”
Everyone agrees, and Julie jumps up. “I’ll make you a cup of tea.”
I’m about to protest, but a cup of tea actually sounds amazing. “Thanks.”
The clothes that Emily grabbed from my suitcase are good, but I change into something a little lighter while Emily hovers. “You okay, Em?”
“You’re seriously asking me that? You almost died!”
“I didn’t though.”
“Still.”
As soon as I’m in the bed, she’s working on the blankets. “Are you tucking me in right now?”
“Yes.” She makes a face. “Don’t argue.”
I catch her hand. “Em, I’m fine. The doctor just said I need to rest and recover. It’s your bachelorette weekend. Please go have fun.”
She sighs. “Okay. But it’s not as fun without you.”
“I’ll be back in no time,” I say, but I’m already falling asleep, my body not giving me a choice.
In the distance, I hear her close the door, and then and their voices as they probably start talking about me. But the last thing that I think of before fading away is Leo’s lips on mine.
6
Leo
In the time it takes for me to drive back to my house and then walk back to the office, I manage to get my body under control. Given that thoughts of Diana are pressing into my mind on all sides, I’ll still need that cold shower after our meeting. But at the very least, I won’t have a hard-on in front of my best friends. Something to be grateful for.
Hudson and Asher are already in the tiny office that we share in the main building, though it’s rare for all of us to be in here at the same time. It’s a chaotic space, papers covering the desk and nearly pushing out of the filing cabinet in the corner.
Not only are they both here, they look grim. The way they both turn and look at me when I walk in sends a chill down my spine. What the fuck?
“Why do I feel like I just walked into a firing squad?”
“Is she okay? The guest?” Asher asks, and it’s not lost on me that he didn’t answer the question.
I nod. “Yeah. Pretty much an all clear from the doctor. Rest and monitoring. We’ll be fine.”
“That’s good,” Hudson says.
“I agree. Now can you please tell me what the fuck is going on, so I don’t feel like you’re both about to murder me and dump my body in the river?”
Asher chuckles and rubs a hand over his face. “We’re not going to kill you, Leo.”
“But we do need to talk to you,” Hudson says. “About the money.”
The second payment on the land for Blue Mountain Wilderness Lodge is due in a week. Nerve wracking as always, given the size of the payments, but nothing out of the ordinary. “What about it?”
“Your portion isn’t in the account yet,” Asher says. “And that’s never happened before.”
Hudson holds out a hand like he’s holding me back from something. “We just want to check that everything is okay before it’s too late to fix it.”
Shock rolls through me. I blink. And another time. “What?”
My friends look at each other. “You didn’t know?”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “I had no idea.”
I generally don’t like to talk about money, and they know that. Because I come from a wealthy family, and I’ve never been particularly comfortable with that. My whole life I’ve made a point of trying to make my own way. Working through school and forging my own path.
My family has never understood it, and constantly tries to give me money that they view as mine, but I never take it. That is, until we started Blue Mountain.
Opening a property like this is both a huge investment and a huge risk, and I didn’t have the money to contribute. So I made the decision to take a loan from my family for the portions of money that I needed for the land. They insisted that the money was a gift and that I didn’t have to pay it back.
I’m still planning to, though.
An uncomfortable thread of anxiety swims in my gut. The money has never been late before. My family’s accountant is the best, and he’s on top of his shit. What happened? Is something wrong that I didn’t know about? I have to fix it. And fast. A week isn’t a lot of time to fix things with money of this magnitude, but I’ll do it. I won’t be the reason that Blue Mountain fails. Or loses its property.
