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One of my father’s handpicked gentlemen, Ashland Rucker, speaks up about the proposal we’re gathered here to vote on. “If we play our cards right, page twenty-one explains that the fourteen secondary investors amass a potential of seventeen-million by this time next year,” he pauses to clear his throat.
He continues droning on about this investor and that one. Projections for third quarter and fourth quarter, and how they already have five companies interested in joining the venture with Fairchild Resorts Group.
I tilt my head with a raised brow. “You know the technical mumbo jumbo goes right over my pretty little head, Ash,” I say. “All I need to know is if we’re gonna make a shitload of money or not.”
Ash nods excitedly, meanwhile his eyes evolve to a deep emerald hue. “Oh yes, Sir, we’re gonna be loaded,” he replies ravenously.
No sooner does Ash finish responding, when Francine raises her hand to cut in. “Let me be clear, here,” she whinnies at the same decibel of Mr. Ed. “As I glance around the room, there’s not a single person here who isn’t interested in lining their pockets a little more,” she adds. “Why not just put this to a vote already?”
A tinge of greed paints Francine’s tongue like that fat fuck who’s guilty of sedition at the capitol. Father couldn’t stand her from the moment she wedged her foot in the door, akin to some vacuum salesman from the seventies. But by the time everyone inducted her onto the panel of board members, his clout ran about two raised hands shy of being able to vote her off the island.Literally. The bitch needs to go back to the cave in Northern Montana from where she came.
I battle a crackle in the back of my throat, probably from all the greasy bacon I consumed this morning. Since Kragen didn’t finish his, I couldn’t in good conscience let a thing like that go to waste. While my board members continue their pre-vote banter, now is as good a time as any to check in on the little darling.Perhaps he’s just as thirsty, and could benefit from a Fresca straight from Kahlúa’s personal mini-fridge.
There’s a reason I’m being pulled from the vote, I just don’t know why at this precise moment. Surely it must be my Daddy instincts firing away within me, screaming at the top of their lungs to check on Kragen. I offer a wave as the new Fairchild summer intern brushes shoulders with me in the hallway. Kahlúa’s post is right out front of our top-floor suite. She appears busy answering a couple of ringing lines as I shimmy behind her office chair, bending over to investigate my beverage choices. To be fair, they’re technically mine since the company pays for them.
“Aloha, Mr. Reid,” Kahlúa greets me, in between parking the phone calls. “How’s Nani doing?”
A smile warms my face. I just love it when people care as much about my dog as I do. “She’s been doing swell, mahalo,” I reply, swiping a can of ginger ale from the top shelf of her fridge.
Every hair on my arm raises straight up once I reach the halfway point leading to my office. I’m not sure why, but something tells me that perhaps this may be a reason the universe or something yanked me straight from voting on the Turnkey Investments proposal.Oh my God, is Kragen okay?Usually my Daddy instincts are never wrong.
About four feet from the door, I can hear clacking keys of a computer keyboard. And since everybody else’s door is shut, it’s most likely coming from my desk.Which is weird, because I don’t recall giving the boy access to my computer. Not with the wealth of proprietary information stored on our servers.
As my feet land closer, accompanying the occasional keyboard taps are voices.Wait a hot fucking minute, that’s Francine’s horse pitched guffawing for sure.If I don’t recall letting Kragen play on my computer, then I most assuredly didn’t provide him with my password to the Fairchild mainframe.
I waste no time at all remembering my breakup with Wade. Parting ways with him caused me to change that particular password. I’d only given it to him, because should anything have happened to me, he’d need access to important documents.Kragen likely found it on a piece of paper hiding behind the picture of me and Nani. But how in the hell did he know my main computer login?A raucous grunt escapes my throat at once, as I step forward to reveal myself in the middle of the doorway.
Kragen Darling’s not so sweet face raises to catch my incensed stare. A partial look of fright mixed with shame can be read from one cheek to the other. The boy claims he can help me from making the biggest mistake of my life. Yet I have zero idea what it’s supposed to mean. The only mistake I feel has been made, is the fact that I put trust in another young boy. Especially when I should have left him under my chauffer’s supervision.FUCK!!
* * *
It’s already well past six at night. Try as I may, grabbing my growling stomach isn’t going to achieve the result I need. Yet I’m left to wonder how a person could eat when they’re so infuriated, that even their own shadow pisses them off. I turn out the bathroom lights of my hotel penthouse, shuffling into the bedroom with what would be a scowl on my disappointed mug.I don’t know who I’m most mad at. Kragen or me. You told yourself you’d never date a younger guy again. Not after Wade.
I toss my entire body on the bed’s plush surface. The phone in my hand lurches sideways, landing just underneath one of my pillows. Precisely the same one which my Banana Boy had his head on this morning.Banana Boy. More like a fucking rambutan with its thick, dangerous spikes protruding around a layer of skin.As I shut my eyes, all I can recall is a fight which ensued out in the sitting area once I finished voting on our business proposal.
Kragen shimmied through the main hotel suite door with a sour look on his face. I could tell that I’d upset him by my level of fury. But there isn’t a snowball’s chance in Hell that I’d voice my detailed frustrations in a public place such as the office. I tossed my keys onto a buffet table after slamming the door shut. Though in hindsight, I can imagine ‘throwing with great force’ is a far more accurate description.
My rage evolved to a fine boil after the short, awkward commute from my corporate offices to the Kuhio Beach location. It was finally time to break the radio silence between Kragen and myself, and force the truth straight out of him.
I shouted so loudly, I’m certain guests in the lower floor could’ve heard me. “What the fuck were you doing snooping?” I asked, all the while hurling my wallet across the room.
“I’m so incredibly sorry, Reid,” he replied, surely terrorized at himself for violating my trust. “There’s another reason I’m here,” he added, planting both palms above his birthmark.
“Annndd???” I retorted, in as much intrigue as peeved.
A silence filled the void between Kragen plastered up against the door to my penthouse and myself, standing halfway across the sitting room. In that moment, I didn’t know how many more words would come from my own mouth.
I’ve always wondered when the day would come that I found a paparazzo snooping in my office. Not some hot fuckpal from Grindr. And what did he mean by there being another reason he’s here? ‘Here’ as in ‘the islands’ or ‘here’ existentially? All I knew is the boy needed to start spitting out some words before I lost my utter shit in its entirety.
“Reid,” he blurted, extending his arm. “I’m an investigative journalist for The Patriot’s Examiner and—”
I interject him full stop with a nasty scowl. “You’re fucking paparazzi?” I ask, shaking my head in full disgust.
“No no, that’s not exactly—” he tried responding, but I didn’t afford him the chance before laying back into him with an assault of colorful vocabulary.
“This entire weekend was some ploy?” I asked, catching his reddened stare. “You’re being paid to snoop into my life, Kragen,” I added, resting one hand on a hip. “That basically makes you paparazzo scum,” I drew a short breath. “Christ, did our connection mean any-fucking-thing to you?”
Kragen couldn’t respond. In fact, he didn’t return one iota of eye contact. All the boy could do was stare off to the side, as if he were ashamed of what he did. I caught him on his bullshit, and he knew it pissed me off to no end. He turned around a second later, opened the door while shooting a sorry expression over his shoulder, then immediately walked out.
