Stitched Up in You (Monster Bae #3)

Chapter 1

BERNADETTE CRENSHAW

“Harold, do you mind if I call you Harold?” I ask my grandmother’s accountant, my voice concerned and placating over the phone as my fingers dance across my keyboard and hack into his company’s IT system.

This man has been swindling my grandparents for years, but if I can keep him on the phone for a few more minutes, Harold will be rethinking his life choices very soon.

“Miss Crenshaw, I told you to call my office later this week. This is highly irregular,” he replies, his voice low and hoarse.

The file I’m reading says he’s over eighty but still hasn’t retired from the accounting firm, which is super old to still be taking calls and making deals. Then again, I did call his direct line that’s usually only accessible through his secretary’s office. Oops.

“Aww, I’m so sorry to interrupt your golf day, Harry.

Surely, you can take some time to look over the account for me?

” A smirk lifts the corner of my mouth when I hear the old guy stutter.

I lean back in my grandfather’s oversized winged-back desk chair and glance up at my laptop screen showcasing all of Harold’s firm’s misdeeds. There are a lot.

I adjust the phone onto my shoulder and tug down my sweater over my naked thighs.

My life is going to be such a drag once I fire this guy.

So much to set right because of greed, and all I want to do is take a spa day and maybe read my book.

But no, instead here I am, dealing with a corrupt geriatric.

He proceeds to rattle off excuses as to why I will need to call his office once his most likely overworked and underpaid secretary is available to help me, as my fingers continue to dance across my keyboard, clacking loudly in my ears like sweet music.

I sit back in the chair, pushing my favorite blue cat eyeglasses up my nose, and glance out the large bay window overlooking the tree-lined street of the city. At least it’s pretty outside today.

Harold keeps babbling, but I tune him out when my bank account alerts me that my family’s assets with his firm are well and truly saved, only for my eyes to almost roll into the back of my head when he starts rambling about how close he was with my grandfather in his heyday.

I snort a laugh and cross my eyes dramatically. “Oh, I know. You’ve been such a good and loyal friend to my grandfather, haven’t you?” I ask in the sweetest voice I can muster, cutting him off mid-tirade about how young people don’t know how to do business these days.

If Grandaddy were alive, he’d most likely be trying to kill the old guy. Reclaiming the nice little nest egg that he’s squandered from my grandmother’s dowry and the rest of grandad’s small fortune will have to be enough for me.

Shifting in my leather seat, I click send and forward all of the information on Harold and his sons' many embezzlements to the authorities. I ought to kick my own ass for how long it’s taken me to look into Grandma’s finances, but I suppose there’s no time like the present.

I kind of figured the guy was a crook even as a kid, but I didn’t think it was this bad.

I double back to where I slashed a smidge of a hole in Harold’s VPN and button it back up, good as new. The last thing I need is the authorities looking at my credentials.

Seconds later, and I ensure it's going to take a whole slew of computer programmers to find me, if they even take the time to look, considering the amount of money laundering happening.

“Harry, you know what’s irregular?” I say, cutting him off mid-whine. “The amount of money you’ve been skimming from my grandma’s estate over the years. You’re fired.”

I hear a sharp gasp of outrage just before I slam the phone down into its receiver. Fuck you Harold, you lying sack of shit.

I glance across the room, my gaze catching on the crystal jar of peppermints on the wooden bookshelf that has been sitting there since I was a little girl, and sadness hits me like a ton of bricks.

I was practically raised in this brownstone, all five stories and six thousand square feet of it, and it, and all of its contents, are set to be sold by the end of the month for several million dollars.

My grandparent’s legacy, gone in a week.

Although, I suppose it’s not much of a legacy since my parents couldn’t care less about it.

Hence why I’ve been here in this prehistoric brownstone taking care of my cantankerous grandma the last couple months.

With only her butler to care for her since Grandaddy died over ten years ago, Grandma’s effectively sending the whole estate into the shitter without a proper heir to take over, which my father should have done.

My parents, alas, have never been the responsible type, being raised on old money and given every luxury in life.

So, all the responsibility falls on me as usual.

Clara, my younger cousin, would be here to help with it all, but since starting college, she can’t get out of her classes.

Which is fine, I’d rather handle it on my own anyway.

It’s how Grandma would have wanted it, besides, the woman had over a dozen pages of notes on what she wanted after she died.

Controlling as ever even from the grave.

I breathe in the lingering scent of cigars and get to my feet, quickly closing my laptop before I move myself to the dining room to tackle the rest of the estate.

Shaking out my red mane of hair, I comb it back with my fingers and tie it up into a messy bun before pulling my pink sweater down over my thighs and grabbing all of my things into my arms.

I take one last, longing look at the study before shutting it away for the auditors tomorrow and making my way down the hall to the dining room.

Sunlight gleams from the huge floor to ceiling windows as soon as I enter the doorway, shining on the cream-embroidered couches that are littered with old magazines, unpaid invoices, and tax documents.

My phone vibrates.

Aubrey: What are you doing? I miss your face.

I grin and shoot a text back to my best friend.

Me: Dealing with Gma’s assets then grabbing Edgar from the vet. I’ll call you when I’m home later.

A sound somewhere between a sigh and a dissatisfied groan escapes my mouth when I glance at the time on my phone.

I only have a few hours before it’s time to pick him up and do a crap load of other stuff, but I realize it's super late in Romania right now and she’s awake.

Last I spoke to her, she was having issues sleeping, but mentioned wanting to get on a better sleep schedule.

Me: Go to bed, Vamperella.

Aubrey: FINE. Give Edgar Allan Paw snuggles for me. xx

I click to dim the phone. My best friend living in Romania hasn’t been the easiest. Ever since we were little girls, we’ve been inseparable, but I guess I can’t blame her since she’s living in a castle and dating Dracula. The bitch.

Am I a little bit salty she managed to find a vampire while not even trying? Yes, yes, I am. But I also love the shit out of her so I’m going to be supportive. Once the estate is settled and this house sells, I’m heading to Romania for a much-needed vacation.

It’ll be really cool to see Doyle again too, Dracula’s werewolf bestie, and see if the poor guy is still hung up on the chef he couldn’t stop talking about.

My nose wrinkles as my gaze travels across the room, taking in all the papery debris.

Honestly, anywhere but here would be a vacation at this point.

It’s going to take forever to get through all of this.

The unpaid bills alone are a mountain of envelopes, and I’m slowly coming to accept that Grandma stopped paying some of her bills way before Harold thought to start skimming funds off the top.

Some are even dated from five years ago, which makes me feel even worse for not checking in sooner.

I open my laptop to put some tunes in my ears and notice my editor has a new command I don’t remember adding before I called Harold, and my brows scrunch into a scowl.

What is that doing there?

The beginnings of a headache pulses at the back of my head, and I let out a curse.

Hours later, I’ve barely put a dent in the envelopes. The whole pile might as well be Erebor, and the debt collectors Smaug. Each white sheet creates a damning mountain of debt that’s probably going to take everything Harold managed to swindle to settle it off.

I toss my phone onto the large cream-colored sofa and rub my hands over my face in frustration.

It’s been a hard day hearing how badly my grandparent’s fortune has been squandered, not to mention how out of the last thirty-odd people I have called, most have barely offered condolences and would rather put me on hold.

I consider myself better than most at handling the death of a loved one, but hearing an automated system rattle off a fax number to forward the death certificate is a new level of cringe I didn’t know existed.

Banks are unfeeling assholes.

I glare at the mountain. I just want to grab some sherbert and watch Golden Girls reruns until I feel better, like Grandma would have wanted. The woman would scoff at any daytime television but wouldn’t miss an episode of Betty White.

We may have butted heads a lot when I was a kid, so much that I hated her, but as an adult I’ve come to realize why she was hard as nails and so stern all the time.

A blueblood is what Granddad called her, and she was a hoity-toity bitch because of it too. But being the daughter of an Earl meant my grandma, Maryanne Theodosia Crenshaw, was born a Lady, and she thought that meant she was owed something—by everyone.

She also assumed having a granddaughter meant a little girl to parade in her social circles and show off at polo matches, which didn’t work out too well for either of us. At least it didn’t after she found out about my horse bets with the polo club boys.