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“To pay you for what, Nessa Anne? Existing?” I throw my hands out to my sides, looking around the darkened room. “Look at the state of it.”
“You’re boring me,” Nessa Anne snaps. “Please go back to the hole you crawled out of, brother.”
I leave the room and jog up the stairs, looking around the landing. I quickly cross to Molly’s room. Pulling out my wallet, I slip five hundred pounds into her textbook, knowing out of everyone, she will be the most responsible with it.
Then I leave.
Scarlet
At five p.m., I arrive at the penthouse. With time to kill before Mason arrives home—Mason who, as always, seems to be missing my every call—I make use of myself and wash the three dishes he’d placed in the dishwasher, put on a load of washing, and then dust the few pictures I know he keeps in his home office.
It’s where I find the image of Lance Sullivan.
I never knew how close he was with my brother, but the fact I’m holding an image of himself, Mason, Charlie and Elliot as they sit on the back of our boat in the lagoon in Bora Bora, tells me that he’s someone that’sveryclose to him. My brother and Elliot wouldn’t take anyone they didn’t consider family to the lodges. They’re sacred and one of the few places we have to visit that doesn’t hold painful memories.
I replace the image on the shelf and walk back out into the living area. The penthouse is nothing that I’d ever desire for myself, yet the fact my brother lives here, and the love he has for this city, it makes a part of me love it just as much.
“Christ, Scarlet. I could smell you from the elevator. Is that lemon?” I watch as he rounds the entry foyer and strolls into the open-plan room, a silly smile on his face.
“Mase!” I beam, concealing my toothy grin behind my closed mouth.
When he drops what I presume is a suit bag on the floor and opens his arms for me, I rush and hug him.
As he envelops me in his arms, my throat grows tight. “It’s been so long.”
“Yeah,” he says, all gruff, his head resting on top of mine. “Happy birthday, Scar.”
“What’s the plan? What time is the car getting here? I called you, by the way. Why don’t you ever answer?”
He chuckles at my fifty questions and pulls back. “I left my phone in the office this afternoon.” He looks down at me, a guilty look masking his handsome face. “I tend to leave it in the office in the evenings and over the weekend.”
“You don’t have a separate phone for work?”
He looks between us, and I catch him working on a swallow.
“Oh. Right.” I have my brother’s work number.
Shit, I’m going to cry.
“Get your phone. I’ll give you the number—”
“I need to get dressed. Just call up when the car’s here, yeah?” I need to be on my own. I don’t cry very often, and after my lapse in the elevator just yesterday, I want to be out of this situation immediately.
“Scar, the car isn’t arriving until seven thirty. Have a drink with me.”
I’m already turned and making my way toward the staircase when he calls out to me again, and I expect it. “I’m sorry. I don’t….”
Knowing he won’t finish, I ease around and face him, looking down from the middle of the stairs at my brother, who for all his flaws, I adore more than anyone on earth. Small lines crease the corner of his eyes—he’s thirty-one—and I know it isn’t from that winning smile. Life can be cruel sometimes. “I’ll never be mad at you for how you choose to handle your pain, Mase. You have nothing to apologise for, and I’ll love you regardless.”
Then I run up the stairs and into the spare room, where I sit on the bed for an hour, staring at the horribly stark white wall in front of me.
I hear a knock as I’m fastening the clasp on my bracelet and poke my head around the walk-in wardrobe door. “Come in.”
Mason enters the room, and I go back to my task.
“Looking very dapper,” I call out as I hear the door click shut.
“Dapper,” he murmurs, and I know one of his thick brows will be raised. “I suppose I do.” He rounds the door and stops short on the threshold. “Wow.”
