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I remain quiet, watching him openly admiring me. Heat swarms my body under his gaze.
“I like the look of your neck when you swallow…” he comments, as he takes a small step toward me. I remain still, too shocked to move a muscle. My heart pounds out of my chest.
“I like the way your tongue swipes your lips, tasting every last drop of coffee I make you,” he continues, taking another step. My stomach dips.
“There are many things I like to look at…” he pauses, his eyes locked on mine for whatever he’s about to say next, “but I am more of a doing man, than a talking man.”
I’m silent for a moment, my breath caught in my chest.
“Should we make a start then?” I stutter out, so unlike myself. If he continues to look at me like he currently is, I am certain my underwear will disintegrate right here in his kitchen.
“Let’s go,” he says, flashing me his smirk as he turns, and I follow him down the hallway to the boxes, coffee in hand, trying my hardest to stop my hand from shaking and spilling it everywhere. God, just his talk gets me all worked up. I need to get a grip. And it doesn’t take long, because as we enter the room, I get exactly that, a hard dose of reality slapping me across the face.
“I swear there were less boxes yesterday,” I moan as my eyes run across the still piled-high paperwork along the wall. The ones I got through yesterday are in a different spot, looking comically small in comparison.
“Do you think I can do some from my office this week?” I ask. I want to try to still be at my office Monday through Friday.
“Why? You don’t like coming here?” His eyebrow cocks in question. Not this again. We’ve already been through this.
“There is more space, and I think I would work quicker,” I say as justification, seeing how flexible he is when I’m not being completely honest. He knows damn well why I want to be in my own office. I have other things to do, a business to rebuild.
“Let’s see how we go today,” he says, moving a box toward me, encouraging me to start.
“Fine,” I sigh, sitting on the floor, opening the lid and starting the process.
Hours later, I roll my head to relax my shoulders, which are now stiff after sitting in the same position for so long. I look over at Nico, who is leaning back a little more relaxed, reading through a log book from my father’s private jet, one I would be extremely confident in saying is incomplete or at least missing some vital information. My father’s jet was his pride and joy, but he had a few other aircraft as well, so unless we find all of the plane logs, the information Nico gleams may not be overly fruitful.
Opening the next box, I shuffle through. Sorting each document, then reviewing the contents before sorting them into immediate actions or just simply cataloging for a later date. I pause as I see some information from a winery. At first glance, it’s just an invoice for cartons of wine, my father constantly filling his cellar with the latest and greatest wine from Bordeaux or something.
But given it is French, I pause to take a closer look.
It is an invoice for a large shipment of wine. A lot for most people, but my father never did anything by halves so it’s probably a drop in the ocean for him. There is nothing else of interest on the invoice, but the more I stare at it, the more I feel it’s important. Though I can’t put my finger on why.
My eyes flick to Nico, and I see him engrossed in some other paperwork, so I don’t say anything. It’s probably nothing. I put it in the pile to review further and keep digging.
Deeper in the box, I find some older flight logs, mostly for his helicopter, the one he would take to business meetings up and down the East Coast. Mostly to the Hamptons, where he would often go, leaving me at home with the hired help as a young teenager. I flick through the logbook, New York, Washington D.C., Boston, the cities repeated every month or so, for his various board meetings, no doubt.
I notice some numbers scribbled on the inside cover of the logbook in pencil, very light and faint, but they are there. I grab my phone, take a photo, and then put them in the search to see if they represent anything.
“What have you found?” Nico asks, and I glance up at him briefly before looking back at my phone.
“Nothing,” I say as my search pulls up a blank. “I was looking to see if these numbers mean anything, but nope, just scribbles.” I point to the logbook, and he gives me a nod, going back to his papers.
Nico’s phone rings, breaking our silence, and he sighs and rubs his head.
“Hey, Sofia,” he says, and I look away to try to focus on my box, not wanting to eavesdrop on his conversation. But I am curious, since Sofia was the name on the screen of his cell when I looked last week. My shoulders tense, in a way they really shouldn’t, but I can’t help the jealous ball that starts to form in my gut, making me feel a little unwell.
The next box I grab ends up being one full of more family history, as I see photos and newspaper clippings galore. My eyes are glued to the contents, no longer paying any attention to Nico and his conversation as I get on my knees and start digging through. I feel a mix of excitement and anxiety as I begin to look over it all, wondering what I might possibly uncover about myself.
I see a photo of my father, one that looks staged, as he sits behind his desk. From memory, it was taken by a business magazine who put him on the front cover almost a decade ago. He looks strong, broad, and in total control. He is wearing a suit and tie, and looks every inch a billionaire businessman. The only odd thing is the cat in his lap.
“Kitty,” I murmur out to myself, remembering the cat we had when I was younger. Turns out, I am allergic, but my father, for some reason, absolutely loved that cat. It went with him nearly everywhere he did. Which meant I had to keep my distance all the time for fear my throat would close up and I’d break out in hives.
I put down the photo and pull out some of the newspaper clippings. A few of them are the same, about my father making some business deals and such, and then I see one of him and another man I remember being one of his closest friends. It is Dr. Wakeford, a heart surgeon and Catherine’s father, who died a few months ago around the same time as Daniel, I believe. I saw him a few times around the house. Both he and my father were widows, his wife having died years earlier in a car accident… And that’s when I pause. My breathing falters.
A car accident. Both of their wives died in car accidents.
I stare at the image, feeling my breathing starting to get out of control. My hands shake, my heart beating so fast I’m suddenly lightheaded.
