Chapter 19
CHAPTER 19
Brandon
I stare at the closed door.
What did I expect? For her to throw her arms around my neck and thank me for the opportunity? Or a promise from her to be the best fake fiancée a man could wish for? Or perhaps I thought that there would be a repeat performance of what happened on the beach—my ego convincing itself that she literally couldn’t get enough of me.
I should never have asked.
I knew it was a terrible idea, but I’ve always trusted Sam’s advice in the past, so why should he let me down now?
Glancing left and right along the street, at the unremarkable houses with their neglected front yards and their drunken lopsided mailboxes, I weigh my options. I’ve blown it with Rose, but I should at least apologize to her and part on amicable terms, even though it’s unlikely that we’ll ever cross paths again.
I face the door. My finger hovers over the doorbell, but I don’t push it. Best for all concerned if I walk away and erase the conversation that just took place inside her living room from my mind.
I turn away. Turn back again. Glimpse a neighbor’s curtain twitching a few doors along and force myself to walk along the bumpy path and back to the sidewalk without a backward glance.
I dismiss my driver—I need to walk, clear my head, get some caffeine into my veins.
Eyes lowered, one foot in front of the other, I head towards Central Park and try to apply Julia’s filing system to the thoughts scrambling over each other inside my head.
No one told me why Rose left the island, and I didn’t get a chance to ask her, although I can guess. My mother took one look at the two of us on the porch, damp, and covered in sand, and her instant reaction was to avoid a scandal. I can picture it now: the raised eyebrows and pursed lips, the cold, emotionless instruction for Rose to get herself cleaned up.
An image of Rose’s shirt being ripped apart springs to life inside my mind. I did that . She had me so aroused that a shit load of throbbing concussion couldn’t compete with the throbbing in my cock.
Until that night, sex on the beach was the name of a cocktail I avoided whenever I checked out a bar menu. It was something that happened to teenagers, kids getting drunk and frisky on cheap alcopops, and shoving their hands inside each other’s pants. It didn’t happen to people like me.
Only, it did.
And I can still feel her lips wrapped around my hard-on, still feel her teeth rubbing against me, and her hair stroking my chest and abdomen as she moved.
Jesus, fuck. I’d had blowjobs before. So why…? What was so special about this one?
The booze maybe? The sound of the waves licking the shore? Or did Rose spike my drinks with something that wiped me out so she could take advantage of me?
I dismiss this thought with a grunt as I take advantage of the green man and cross the road, dodging a woman dressed in Lycra and pushing a baby stroller. I literally just offered Rose Carter a million bucks and she turned me down. What happened on the beach happened because we were both caught up in the moment, and neither of us had the willpower to stop it.
I can’t face going to the office. My tie is suffocating me, and my shirt feels as though it shrunk in a hot wash the last time it went into the laundry.
Another image flashes into my head. The feel of the sand beneath my knees as I pounded into Rose knocks me sideways, and I dodge the flow of pedestrian traffic by dipping into a small local café.
I order a double espresso to go, extra-hot, without making eye contact with the barista, a young Latina woman with a gold hoop through her septum.
The first time I had sex—more fumble than fuck—I walked around high school with a grin on my face for days. And it wasn’t the only time. Every new position, every new orifice, every new sensation was mulled over, examined with a sexual microscope and added to a tally stored inside my overactive teenaged imagination until they became the norm. Until new experiences occurred less and less frequently.
So, why am I now pacing the sidewalk, an espresso in my hand, an erection in my pants, and an image of Rose’s moonlit breasts in my head?
An email alert pings on my watch. It’s from Julia.
I swallow a couple of Tylenol, wash them down with coffee, and unlock my phone. I need to get Rose out of my head and get it back in the game.
I open the call log and hit the button on Julia’s number. She answers on the second ring, efficient as always. “Brandon, when are you?—”
“You’re fired.”
Pause.
“Fired? Brandon, please don’t do this. I had no idea?—”
I kill the call. That’s how easy it is to cut the driftwood out of your life. Lock your cell phone, keep walking, one issue at a time.
Julia had been useful, for a while, but no one is indispensable.
I erase the image of Rose’s lips from my mind and move on to item number two. Carlos Russo. What do the Russos want? If it’s war, they won’t have to push me any harder, but it doesn’t add up. The only reason they’d have set me up for the fall of a lifetime was if they wanted something in return, so why haven’t they contacted me with their demands?
If Julia was an implant, they’d have had ample opportunities to fish around for information, so why now? Why me and not Damon? If they scraped the surface, they’d have found a whole heap of dirt on my careless brother that my parents would be only too happy to see covered up with a life-changing sum of money.
I enter the park and toss my empty cup into the trash can.
A young couple is heading my way, fingers entwined, smiles lighting up their faces. They’re sharing earbuds, listening to the same song.
Why didn’t I ask Jennifer to play happy families with me until this all blows over? It would’ve been so easy to rekindle what we had when we first met. But I already know the answer—too many people know about her past, the people who count anyway. The press would’ve gone to town with that one.
Rose was the unknown option.
My phone vibrates. Thirty-six missed calls from my mom. Three from Jennifer, and a message: Just checking you’re not lying in a concussed heap surrounded by conch shells and key lime pie . I smile at that one.
“Mom.” I keep my voice neutral when I return her calls.
“Where are you, Brandon?”
“New York.”
“You should’ve stayed. I’ve handled the situation.”
The situation? I spot a flock of pigeons being fed by a family with little kids. Keep walking.
“She has a name.”
Pause.
“Whatever were you thinking, Brandon?”
“I was drunk.” I can almost hear the cogs turning in her brain, clicking around to the crux of the conversation.
“We can’t afford a scandal, not on top of everything else.”
It’s a skill, keeping every shred of emotion from your voice, one that my mother learned from socializing with other wealthy wives and self-made philanthropists. It isn’t something she picked up as a kid growing up in downtown Chicago.
“I’m working on it.”
“It mustn’t go any further, Brandon.” There’s no background sound on the other end of the line. My mother is either in her room, studying her reflection in the mirror, or she’s strolling around the gardens of the house on Ruby Island, enjoying some ‘alone time’.
“Further?”
She releases a sigh, like parenting grown-up sons is even more tiring than parenting teenagers with testosterone hurtling around their bodies. “I’ve seen the photos. Fortunately, your father hasn’t picked up a device since he arrived.”
It’s Ruby Weiss’s version of a verbal warning.
“I don’t want her selling her story to a glossy magazine.”
“And what exactly do you think her story is, mother?”
“Does it matter?”
“Why don’t you ask me if it was consensual?” I clench my free fist, suppressing an image of the buttons pinging from Rose’s shirt. Her pale skin. The fair hair between her legs. The tight wetness as I rammed inside her.
“Do your father and I need to intervene?” She won’t ask the question because then she won’t be able to ignore the answer.
“No. Everything is under control.”
There’s more to come. I know my mother well enough to understand that she won’t be able to leave it there. She’ll want assurances, timescales, a plan of action for her to follow step-by-step so that she can pull me up if I meet any hiccups along the way.
“Brandon. You won’t do anything silly, will you?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I want your father to enjoy his retirement. He has earned it.”
The line goes dead.
I keep walking.
My father never officially retired—when he handed over the running of Weiss Petroleum to me, he didn’t say, “You’re on your own now, son. Your mother’s orders.” Despite my mother’s claims that the company’s finances are handled efficiently by Burton Montpelier Chartered Accountants, I know that my father never removed his finger from the button. If a figure doesn’t add up, he’s the first to know about it.
Which is why I set up a separate company to handle the takeover of Ron’s affairs.
But does my mother understand what retirement would do to him? A man like Harry Weiss doesn’t switch from spreadsheets to planting seeds in his backyard overnight. He would crumple and fold like a deflated dinghy.
Another alert. A message from Sam: Call me .
“Tell me you’ve got good news, Sam.”
“I have news.” He omits the word ‘good’.
“Hit me with it.”
I can see the penthouse suite of Weiss Tower. I could keep right on walking, hail a cab, drive until the city is behind me and crash out in a roadside motel, but there’s too much going on inside my head, and no Julia to keep everything in order.
“Carlos Russo.” Sam has something—it isn’t like him to pause for dramatic effect. “Ever heard of America Falls?”
“Nope.”
“Neither had I. Carlos Russo is a bigshot in Idaho these days. Bought up a load of listed buildings, poured money into the community, set himself up as a regular Santa Claus. Everyone loves him.”
“I’m assuming this is going somewhere.”
“That’s on the surface,” Sam continues. “The folks in America Falls are happy because the place looks picture-postcard pretty again, so they turn a blind eye to the shadier dealings going on inside their National Heritage buildings.”
“Such as?”
“Such as, stuff that doesn’t concern us. You spoke, I listened. I found a guy who hacked into their CCTV footage at a large warehouse. Listed building, right on the edge of the falls. One that Russo uses to store cartons of fuck knows what. I’m not interested. But I was interested in the visitors old man Russo received a couple weeks ago.”
“Go on.”
“Ron Valentine.”
I enter Weiss Tower, the air conditioning hitting me at the same time as the name of my father’s closest friend. A shiver runs down my spine.
“Morning, Mr. Weiss.” Sarah’s smile wavers behind the front desk as she takes in my appearance. Fuck. I didn’t think I looked that bad.
“You still there?” Sam’s voice buzzes at me from my cell phone.
“Yeah.”
My head is pounding—the Tylenol isn’t even touching the sides of this baby. I hit the penthouse suite button on the elevator panel, and my stomach lurches.
“Ron Valentine wasn’t alone, Brandon.”
“I gotta go.” I end the call as the elevator glides to a smooth stop on the top level of the tower.
Julia has already vacated her office—one less thing to deal with right now.
I avert my eyes from her neat room with the computer monitor squarely facing the seat pushed under the desk, the abstract wall art, the potted palm in the corner. I’ll need to replace her, but that’s a problem for another day.
Removing my jacket and hanging it in the closet built into my office, I slump into my leather seat and pop another couple of Tylenol. Complete bed rest, the doctors said, symptoms can last up to two weeks. Try telling that to someone who doesn’t have a corporation to run.
My phone dances on the desktop. Another message. This time from an unknown number.
This is Rose. I’ll do it .