Page 35 of Business vs. Pleasure

It took several hours, a nap, and two bottles of wine for the story to come out. Not the whole thing, of course, but enough to get the gist across. Elodie had never wanted to know the details of what August did, but she also didn’t ask him to lie about it. Her husband, Paschal, would prefer not to know anything about August and Ricardo’s chosen profession, but that wasn’t an option for him. He was a surgeon, which was just too useful to ignore under certain circumstances. Lucky for him, he was working a night shift tonight.

He was also frequently an inconsiderate asshole who deserved to be unnerved, but Elodie wanted him, so August couldn’t literally cut the nerves out of him, much as he’d sometimes like to.

Elodie gazed into her glass of wine as she considered the tale August had finished spinning for her, almost all of it genuine. She didn’t need inconvenient details like the bitter way Bremmer’s blood had tasted or how genuinely bad August felt for Rachel, whose social standing was absolutely in the toilet now. When she glanced up at him, a sympathetic slant to her mouth, August was pretty sure she could infer it all anyway.

“Well,” she said, keeping her voice low so it didn’t carry over the sound of Ricardo cooking in the kitchen. “What a mess.”

“You’re telling me. My suit will never recover.”

“I’m not talking about your suit.” Elodie leaned over and put a warm hand on his arm. “Are you two all right?”

Oh, how the tables turn.

It felt like only yesterday that August and Ricardo had been putting the fear of, well, themselves into his brother-in-law over his treatment of Elodie. The two of them had worked things out, because they loved each other enough to put in the effort, but August had asked himself—and his sister, more than once—if it was really worth it.

Now here she was, questioning the health of his relationship. And he couldn’t even tell her it wasn’t warranted.

“I think so,” he said quietly. “At least, I want us to be.”

Elodie waited in silence, like the ambush predator she was, and eventually August had to fill the void.

“It is absolutely embarrassing how gone I am for him,” he told her, careful to make sure Ricardo couldn’t hear this because his ego simply didn’t need it. Besides, he knew it all already. “I love everything about him, from the way he snores all night long to his awful taste in champagne. I watch football because he likes it. I know his team’s cheers, I know their match schedule, I plan our trips abroad around their damn season.” And because it was the easiest way to see Ricardo’s family. “I love his incredible competence, I love his stupid face, and I love his grandmother so much I’d like to steal her.”

“L’Avia is wonderful,” Elodie agreed, having met the diminutive matriarch of Ricardo’s family at their wedding.

“I know, she’s so tiny and sweet but she’s made of steel, and she passed that on to him.” August was aware he was gushing, but he couldn’t help it. He needed to focus on the positives right now. “He’s just… the best. When I’m with him, when we’re together, I feel complete no matter what we’re doing.” He ran a hand through his hair. “So finding out he felt like something was missing from his life rattled me. It’s still rattling me.”

He couldn’t look at the jobs they’d just been through with an impartial eye at this point. Had they really been as bad as he felt they had, or had it seemed extra awful because he’d been blindsided by his husband’s urge to do them in the first place? If they’d gone well, would he have any doubts at all right now?

“Hmm.” His big sister hummed before taking another sip of Chardonnay—too okay for August to love, but he followed suit as he waited for her to speak. “If there’s one thing I’ve come to realize as I’ve made my life, it’s that the worst thing I can do in almost any situation is overreact. When I let my first impressions or initial reactions control me, I risk setting in motion a chain of events I can’t undo.

“Our last acquisition almost fell through because the first time I met the CEO for a meeting, he was screaming bloody murder into his cell phone. I thought he was an asshole.” She smiled for a moment. “And he was being an asshole, but the person he was screaming at was trying to deny coverage for a life-saving surgery for his daughter, so I understood. But if I hadn’t been patient enough to wait for him to explain, I would have lost out on a good deal.”

How very…corporate-minded of her. But August got what she was getting at. “You’re telling me to keep calm and carry on?” He snorted. “Have you met me?”

“I’d never expect you to be calm, but I know full well that you can pull your punches when you want to. Is it worth pursuing things for the sake of your pride?” She shrugged. “I can’t say, as I’m not in your shoes. But the simplest thing for you to do at this point would be to ignore the ratings and live a long and happy life with Ricardo, free from assassinations.”

That would be simple…but given that someone had tried to break into their house, it wasn’t quite possible. There was still a mystery to solve there, and with the omnipresent server. The RateYourHit debacle, though—well, she might have a point.

There wasn’t a real rush to get home, though. Karmena was more than just a gardener and Heritage site guarantor. She was a former Interpol agent who’d retired to Malta herself a decade ago and knew far more about their origin story than was probably safe, but she was also reliable to a fault. As long as they let her have her way in the garden and keep their ancient tree alive and well, she would let them know if something on the property looked shady or out of place.

And that didn’t even count the scores of fail-safes they had in place within the house itself. Karmena didn’t have access to the interior of the mansion, and she knew better than to try.

But the thought of letting NightPigeon take the lead on RateYourHit burned like a gunshot. August might not have been eager to get back in the game at the start, but he’d chosen to do this, and he would be damned if he let their reputations shrivel due to a few bad jobs. Especially since it was clear there was more going on here than bad luck.

“As for Ricardo,” Elodie went on after a moment, “yelling at someone can be good for the soul, but it usually doesn’t solve anything. He already seems appropriately chastened, from what I’ve seen. I wouldn’t worry too much.”

August frowned. “But if I can’t give him everything he wants, then⁠—”

“You can’t,” his sister interrupted smoothly. “It’s a fallacy to think you can. No one person can be everything to another. That’s not healthy if you’re not an infant. You’re not in control of what Ricardo thinks and feels, and trying to take responsibility for either of those things would be foolish.”

She sighed and drained her glass. “Just be there for him. Listen to him when he needs to speak and give him the grace to recover from his mistakes. Expecting him never to make them and then being surprised when he does is the biggest mistake you could make, under the circumstances.” She stood, fluffed her dress out so it fell smoothly to the floor, then headed for the kitchen.

Ricardo called them for dinner soon after that, ladling out fragrant fricandó into Elodie’s artisanal gold-rimmed bowls before switching them over to a red wine that would go better with the meal. “Enjoy,” he said as he sat down with them. They used the table in the kitchen instead of the monstrosity in the formal dining room, and the intimacy of being with his two favorite people at the same time made August smile.

“Mmm.” Elodie hummed with delight after her first bite. “That’s fantastic. And thank you again for cooking, it’s so thoughtful of you.”

“De res,” Ricardo said, not quite meeting her eyes. “It’s the least we can do after invading your privacy.”