AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Once the press gets wind of that Halliwell inheritance, those statistics might change,” I warned her.
She winced. “Ay-yi-yi. As if that guy hadn’t screwed with my life enough. He had to unload that particular truckload of bricks onto my head, too.”
I laughed at her. “I bet you’re the only person in the world who has ever looked at two hundred billion dollars in that particular way. Load of bricks, huh?”
“When you’ve been staring death in the face for yourself, your sisters and the man you love? Yes, actually. That’s the moment that you understand what two hundred billion dollars of ill-gotten gains is actually worth. Which is to say, not worth shit. And it’s a full-time job for a whole army of number-crunching, bean-counting accountants who need to be managed and monitored. Which is not how I ever wanted to spend my days.”
“So delegate,” I suggested. “You want that money spread where it’s most needed, right?”
“Yeah, sure,” she said, her voice doubtful. “Delegate how?”
“Ethan knows this woman, Raine Lazar, in Seattle. She runs a top-rate philanthropic organization, the Grace Foundation. She already has the army of bean-counters ready to go. They’ll help you. You can unburden yourself of Halliwell’s legacy with no trouble at all. They’ll know just what to do with it. And they are totally on the level. They do great projects, all over the world. You can pick and choose.”
She relaxed slightly. “You think? And then we can relax?”
I looked over to where Reggie and Holly played at the water’s edge in their bathing suits, giggling and squealing as they outran the foaming surf. “I don’t know,” I said. “Just because Halliwell is dead and SmokeScreen is wiped out of existence, that doesn’t mean that the world is suddenly a bed of roses. It’s still full of danger. All the time. Particularly if you have kids. Relaxing still scares me to death. Sorry.”
Cass took a sip through her straw, smiling. Then she draped her lithe body over mine, reached for my margarita, and put it in my hand. “Take a sip,” she urged me.
I did as she said. It was nice. Ice-cold, tangy and sharp, with the slight burn from the salted edge. She rattled her ice cubes, set down her glass, and cuddled closer.
“It scares me, too,” she said. “But the trick is, we might be scared, but we just don’t stop. We just keep at it, scared or not. We’ve had practice, right?”
I thought about it and took another drink. “True thing.”
“I happen to know first-hand that you function spectacularly well when you’re scared. Catapulting ice sculptures, flinging knives, sniping from helicopters. You rock.”
“You’re pretty damn impressive yourself when it comes to that, babe.”
She shrugged that off. “So let’s just go up to the room while the girls go to their dance thing. We can passionately congratulate each other on how incredibly brave we are.”
“Yum.” I was smiling like a fool. “Sounds like fun.”
“Remember this one thing,” she said. “Write this down. On the bathroom mirror in lipstick. Every good thing that comes your way? You deserve that thing. Got that?”
“Got it,” I said dutifully.
“And every bad thing that comes your way?” she went on.
I waited. “Yeah? What about every bad thing?”
“Fuck that thing,” she said crisply.
I let out a crack of startled laughter and pulled her close. “God, I love you.”
