Chapter 2 #2
I didn’t let it show, but I was immensely relieved.
Though I considered myself unbreakable—many, many men had tried to break me without so much as a crack to serve as evidence—this conversation was showing me how close to exploding and divulging it all I was.
Had he pushed just a little harder, it might’ve all come out.
And he’d have never let me handle it alone; he would’ve put his life in danger, trying to fix it. Trying to save me.
Even if he did the unthinkable—the unbearable—and defeated all my enemies for me, I was beyond saving.
My eyes found my laptop again, fingers opening it because I needed something to look at, something to do. I focused on the screen, clicking on the accounts I’d flagged.
“Who are Shaw and Sons?” I asked, glancing at the invoice. “I’m about to sell their outstanding account to some debt collectors.”
The change in subject was deliberate, but this account was pressing since I’d managed to collect all the other outstanding balances from the clients who seemed to be allergic to invoices.
Before me, my brother and Kip had been working on an honor system of sorts and had been far too lax about when final payments were to be collected.
It was a wonder they had even turned a profit. Which they had. A healthy one too. But with my help, they’d be putting their daughters through the Ivy League school of their choice without worry or effort.
“Leave that debt,” was all Rowan replied after a long pause, when he was most likely debating trying to hold on to our previous conversation.
I narrowed my eyes at him over my laptop. “I am your accountant, CFO, and now … debt collector, it seems. We do not leave debts, Rowan. That’s not how money is made.”
“I’m aware of how money is made, Cal,” he replied in a clipped tone. “We were making enough of it before you came along.”
I rolled my eyes. “Enough to fund the bachelor life of beers, bicep-hugging Henleys and the mortgage on this place.” I waved my hand at the cottage Rowan owned that I was squatting in.
It had never really been a ‘bachelor pad’ in the traditional sense.
It was a nice piece of property, on the ocean with a value that was always climbing higher.
A smart investment property if you weren’t honor bound to refuse to take your sister’s money for rent.
“Now you have a wife, a daughter and another one on the way,” I continued, pointing out the obvious. “I’m not sure if you noticed, but women are expensive.”
Rowan crossed his arms, pointedly looking me up and down.
I was still in PJs, but they were Italian silk.
Rowan likely could deduce that they were worth almost $1,000; he had a well-trained eye for such things.
“I’m well aware of how expensive certain women are.
Your pajamas probably cost as much as a modest mortgage payment. ”
I swallowed a smile at how perceptive my brother was.
“But…” he widened his eyes. “My wife happens to have a very successful business of her own and doesn’t need me to take care of her.”
“But you do.” I crossed my own arms, letting my lips stretch into a wide smile. “You bought her house—all cash—and you don’t let that bitch pay a single bill.”
He pursed his lips, unable to argue with me because I knew my brother and talked to my sister-in-law.
She’d complained about it plenty. Ranted was a better term for it.
She ranted about my brother’s dominating behavior on a regular basis.
But she did it with a blush to her cheeks and an upturn to her lips that communicated that she didn’t hate Rowan’s behavior. Not even a little.
I enjoyed it, seeing Rowan’s gruff, possessive exterior come up against Nora’s soft, passive nature. She might not have won on the mortgage or the bills, but Nora called the shots otherwise. Rowan was little more than a lovesick puppy, and I fucking loved that for the both of them.
I wasn’t what you’d call a romantic, but I had a decent amount of faith that they wouldn’t end in divorce. I’d kill my brother if he even hinted at hurting her.
“I want my nieces and sister-in-law to have a nice life,” I continued.
“This,” I tapped the unpaid invoice in front of me, “will pay for their college, a backpacking trip around Europe or a bougie wedding.” I was maybe exaggerating for my point, though it was by far their largest unpaid invoice, and if these were my nieces we were talking about, it would maybe pay for half of one wedding.
I’d be paying for them anyway. What’s the point of being the fun, rich aunt if I couldn’t spend it on those I loved? Even if it was blood money.
I sipped my coffee to chase away the ache caused by that thought.
“No way in fuck either of my daughters are backpacking around Europe,” Rowan barked, his brow heavy with a glower.
I rolled my eyes instead of responding to that.
Rowan reminded me too much of our father, overprotective of his little girls to the point that they’d think it was a psychotic degree by the time they were in their teens.
Eventually, when they saw the nasty realities of being a woman, even in this modern world, they’d realize how appropriate Rowan’s behavior had been.
But if he were to follow the blueprint created by our father, the chasm between them would be too big to repair.
Not that Nora would let that happen. Or Rowan, for that matter.
He had more of an open mind than my father.
“And we have plenty to pay for weddings, colleges, whatever the fuck.” Rowan’s remark jerked me out of my contemplation, his heavy glare indeed reminding me of our father.
“Do not chase up that invoice.” Rowan’s tone brooked no argument, and he had that glowering look on his face that made small children cry.
Not his child, though. Whenever he tried to get stern with her, she laughed in his face and resumed whatever it was she’d been doing in the first place. It made me proud.
I was no child, and I hadn’t been scared of my brother since I was two years old. But I also didn’t feel like arguing when I could just do whatever I wanted behind his back without the pageantry.
“Fine.” I held up my hands in mock surrender, doing my best to structure my face into an innocent expression.
“I mean it, Cal.” Rowan eyed me with a practiced gaze. “Do not follow that shit up.”
“Scouts honor.” I held a hand to my heart. My fingers on my other hand were crossed behind my back.
Rowan paused, weighing my words with skepticism before nodding once.
“I’ve got to get home.” He pushed up his sleeves before rising from his chair. “Nora has an ultrasound appointment.”
I could actually see the frantic energy bubbling inside of him. I got a sick kind of delight out of it. It was almost boyish. With a shadow over it, to be sure, but Rowan was variations of shadow now, with his wife and babies bringing out the sunshine.
It made me want to cry. I might’ve if I did that sort of thing. Which I didn’t. Instead, I smiled with saccharine sweetness. “Oh, I forgot, there’s an alarm inside of you that starts buzzing if you’ve been away from your pregnant wife for too long. Otherwise, you’ll self-destruct.”
Rowan didn’t so much as blink at my comment, not embarrassed or easily riled when it came to me teasing him about his over-the-top behavior as a dad and husband.
He was proudly besotted with Nora. Happy.
He deserved that. Nora deserved that. Their daughters deserved that.
To grow up in a world seeing a strong man as one who was happily brought to his knees by the women in his life.
“You’ll keep your phone on, in case we get any news, need to go to the hospital sooner than we intend?” he asked. Nora was still a month out from her due date, but she was being closely monitored because of her elevated blood pressure, meaning there was a chance she’d have to deliver early.
When I was living in New York, I was there for my other nieces and nephews as much as I could be.
I missed births, birthdays, big school events.
To satisfy the guilt over my absence, I sent expensive and impractical gifts.
I stuffed the kids full of candy on holidays, babysat on the rare occasions I was home, letting them stay up way past their bedtime.
I loved them fiercely, but I hadn’t been as present with my sister’s children as I had been with Rowan’s since I’d been in Jupiter.
And the rest of the children my friends had popped out.
I didn’t have a maternal bone in my body, but there was not much to do in Jupiter, and people I loved kept popping out babies.
Therefore, I was present more. I wondered for a moment whether my sister resented me for that.
She was not one to indulge such thoughts, a better woman than me.
There had always been a distance between us anyway.
She was the mother, the wife, happy and content to be in a small town, running carpool for the rest of her life.
I couldn’t think of anything worse. We were different people raised within a few feet of one another.
We were as close as we could be. I’d die for her in an instant. Same with all my family and friends.
But none of them were like me. None of them knew the version of me that existed in New York. The villain.
They never would.
Maybe when I died, and my secrets seeped from my body like decaying flesh.
But I planned on burying all my secrets with me, and hopefully, that burial wouldn’t be for a while yet.
“My phone is always on,” I told Rowan in response to his question. “I sleep with it on my pillow next to me. I’ll be there.” It was a promise I would keep. Although I wasn’t maternal, I would be there for my brother, my sister-in-law, my niece, to see something I’d never have … A family of my own.
Rowan nodded once, briefly turning back and pointing at me before he went out the door.
“Do not bother Shaw and Sons, Cal.”
“I get it, I get it. Leave it be.”
I grimaced into my lukewarm coffee after Rowan left.
My brother was off his game. Due to being overly in love while managing the chaos that came with having a toddler and a baby on the way.
He knew enough to be skeptical about my word but not enough to understand that I was a dog with a bone, and I couldn’t stop until the bone was nothing but dust.
The next day, I was at the registered address of Shaw and Sons, outstanding bill in my hand.
I didn’t keep all of my promises.