38. Chord
thirty-eight
Chord
9 DAYS TILL HOCKEY SEASON
The run from my place should have worked the edge off my agitation, but when I thump on the door to Charlie’s office at the rear of the Silver Leaf reception house, I’m overstuffed with emotion and ready to explode.
Violet’s leaving, and I can’t stop her. She chose Milan, and even though it makes me so damn proud of her, I’ve also never been so furious—with the world, with myself, with whoever thought it would be a good idea to throw Violet James in my path, give her enough time and power to dismantle all the walls that kept me safe, then tear her away while she’s got a death grip on my heart.
Charlie calls, “Come in!” and I throw open the door with more force than necessary. My sister glances up from her computer and I pray for a fight. I could do with a little yelling. Instead, she takes one look at me, closes her laptop with a slam, jumps to her feet, and rounds the desk.
“What’s wrong? Is it Izzy?”
“What? No. It’s— Everything’s just—” I sift my fingers into my hair, then tug to send a sting through my scalp. “ Fuck . What’s wrong with me?”
It hurts to swallow, and my brain isn’t firing right, so I stare at my sister until she closes the distance and guides me into one of the two chairs on this side of her desk.
“You want to tell me what’s going on?” she asks.
“Violet’s leaving.” I roughly clear the pain in my voice. “She got a job with a design house in Milan, and I’m so damn proud of her, but she’s going. For three years. And I just bought her a studio in San Francisco. I had it all set up, and she saw it for the first time yesterday. It felt so fucking good to give her something she wanted. To be able to take care of her. To show her that I want a future with her. To make her happy. And it didn’t matter. She doesn’t want it. She doesn’t want my money or the life I can give her. She wants to do it all on her own.”
“Chord.” Charlie sets a hand over mine. “Violet has worked hard for a long time to make something of herself. If she’s been offered a job that she earned on her own, you can’t expect her to throw it away just because you can give her the same for free.”
“I know. I know . But I’ve worked hard too.” I clench my jaw and my nostrils flare with a sharp intake of breath. “I’ve sacrificed so much. I’ve got money and power and the ability to make life easier for the people I love—and none of you want it. I could walk onto the street right now and hand everything to a stranger who’d be beside himself to take it, and yet the people I want to share it with refuse to accept it. Fuck, Charlotte. I don’t need another car, another watch, another house, another business, another person in my bed. I just want to take care of my family and the woman I love, because what’s the point of any of this if I can’t do something as simple as that?”
Charlie’s brows furrow. “Chord—”
“I have to tell you something.”
The timing couldn’t be worse to confess the biggest secret I’ve ever kept, but it’s intentional. I’m looking for something—anything—to make the pain go away. The only emotion I know how to live with is anger, so I need Charlie to fire me up. I need something—anything—to trigger my old defenses because they’re failing me now.
“All right,” Charlie says slowly.
I snatch my hand out from under hers. “There is no catering client that buys enough wine for an army every month.”
Her lips twitch like this is a joke she doesn’t get yet. “What?”
“There is no Five Fools Holdings. It’s me. I’ve been buying wine from you for the last ten years so that there would be enough money in the business to keep the ranch from going under.”
Charlie’s sun-bronzed cheeks grow pale. “You’re lying.”
“I’m not. I’ve given Silver Leaf more than three million dollars without anybody knowing it. You expressly told me you didn’t want any of my money, but I found a way to give it to you anyway.”
She sits back in the chair, hands clasped in her lap, and is silent for a long time, staring into nothing. I grow impatient, waiting for her to snap.
“Say it,” I tell her. “I know you want to.”
She turns her head and narrows her eyes, and finally, I’m feeling chastised—and pissed about it.
“Say what?” she asks.
“Say I’m a selfish asshole. Tell me I’ve fucked up. Say you were right, and I was wrong, and I’ve screwed my family. Again.”
Charlie’s face is so still, I can’t read a single emotion on it. She’s composed. Cool. In control. Unlike me, who is completely falling apart.
“Are we the five fools?”
I give her a sharp look. “Huh?”
Her lips twitch again, but her gaze remains impassive and steady. “You, me, Finn, Dylan, Daisy. Five fools. Yes or no?”
I cross my arms over my chest and ignore the humor in my throat because she’s right.
“Possibly.”
“Interesting. Three million, you say?”
I’ve got no idea what’s going on. “Give or take.”
“Hm.”
Charlie goes back to her side of the desk, sits and opens a drawer, then tosses a bound stack of paperwork at me. I flick it open and scan what looks like a contract, eyes snagging on the San Francisco Fury letterhead.
And Charlie’s signature on the last page.
“What is this?” I ask.
Charlie holds out her hand to take it back, flicks through the contract, then returns it to me, opened to a particular page. There’s information about Silver Leaf on there, a wine order, and the Fury home stadium. VIP suites. A lengthy list of terms and conditions.
I frown at the page, then at Charlie. “The Fury bought our wine?”
Is that… Did Charlie smile? I’ve been too caught up in my own shit that for the first time since I arrived, I notice something different about Charlie. She seems… Is she happy ?
I look around at her workspace. It’s carefully constructed chaos. A giant desk that belonged to our dad, the timber top scarred with forty years of paperweights, whiskey glasses, and wine bottles. Charlie’s chair is new—ergonomic, practical, hideous—while Dad’s old armchair sits in the corner with one of Mom’s blankets slung over the back. The canvas on the wall above it is something Mom painted for Dad’s birthday the year she took an art class—an abstract of riotous color she called Without Rain .
Glass vases of wildflowers. A dirty plate that was probably Charlie’s lunch, and another underneath that was likely from breakfast. A coffee machine in the corner. The impression that Charlie rarely leaves this room.
And my sister, mouth twitching like she’s got a secret of her own.
I toss the contract on a stack of paperwork. “Explain, Charlie.”
“About a month ago, Violet gave me a lead on an opportunity with the Fury to supply wine for the home arena VIP suites.”
My heart stops. “Violet?”
Charlie’s blue eyes shine. “Yep. She got me a meeting with a guy on the administrative team, and I pitched. Put together an entire business plan. Public relations. Marketing. Contingencies. The works.”
“ Violet did this?” I don’t know why I’m surprised—it’s just like Violet to go out of her way to support the people who are important to me—but just when I thought it was impossible to love her even more, she gives me a reason to fall all over again.
“No. I mean, Violet gave me a business card, but I did this.” Charlie stops fighting her grin, and her pretty smile transforms her face. “I got Silver Leaf on the books for a contract worth a lot more than three million, and it feels so damn good.”
“I, um…” A mixed sense of pride and redundancy settles over me, and I pull on the back of my neck. “I’m proud of you, Charlie. That’s… That’s fucking impressive.”
“Thank you. I’m proud of me too.” Her smile falters and she drops her eyes, then raises them again with a chagrined smile. “And thank you for Five Fools Holdings. For supporting our family even when I pushed you away. If it wasn’t for you, who knows where Silver Leaf would be right now? You did a good thing. Not a selfish thing. Not a wrong thing. Was it stubborn? Yes. Sneaky? For sure. But am I mad? Not entirely. Part of me might even be grateful that you did it.”
I release a heavy breath, and my shoulders sag. I’ve wanted this for so long without realizing just how badly I needed it. “For real?”
“I am. Thank you, big brother.”
My throat grows tight. “You’re welcome.”
We awkwardly avoid eye contact for a moment, and I study the row of photo frames on her desk to give me something else to look at. The first has a picture of Isobel beaming with the evidence of her first lost tooth. I turn the silver frame a little to get a better look at it.
“She’s adorable,” I say.
“She is,” Charlie agrees.
I pick up the frame behind it, this one holding a picture of Mom and Dad when they were in their early thirties. Mom is pregnant with me, and they look so damn happy underneath the silver leaves of the old olive trees, the sunlight scattered through Mom’s blonde hair in a halo that makes my eyes burn.
“I’ve got this same photograph in my wallet,” I say.
“It’s a good one.” Charlie takes the frame when I offer it to her and studies Mom and Dad with a soft, sad kind of smile. “Maybe the best we’ve got.”
There’s another picture of Izzy, this time with Dylan. One of Finn in his military uniform. The next is Daisy on a horse with her head thrown back mid-laugh. I pick up a frame holding an old photograph of our family. The seven of us are in the living room of the main house, lined up in front of the blinking Christmas tree, the debris of our gifts lying thrown at our feet. Daisy looks about Izzy’s age, which would make me thirteen, all puffed up and proud with a new hockey stick in one hand, my other arm thrown around Charlie next to me. She’d be eleven here, tiny compared to my fast-growing frame, her skinny arm tight around my waist and her pink-cheeked face beaming up at me.
“You used to like me,” I comment, returning the frame to its position on the desk.
Charlie snorts, setting down the picture of Mom and Dad, but there’s an odd curve on her mouth. “I was young.”
“Yeah. It was a long time ago.”
Charlie sighs and hands me the last frame in the line. It’s a picture of me. I’m about twenty-two in my Tampa Bay Titans gear, sweaty and laughing after a game we must have won.
I raise my eyebrows at Charlie, and she rolls her eyes. “I still like you. Are you happy now?”
I huff out a laugh that I don’t feel. “Not really.”
Charlie sighs. “Violet.”
“Yeah. Violet.” I clench my fists on my thighs, push against the hopelessness that surges inside me, and focus on doing what I came here to do. Making Violet’s dreams come true. “I have a favor to ask.”
“Okay. What is it?”
“I told Violet I’d take care of her dad while she’s gone. Set him up with a proper job and complete benefits. A place to live. Good doctors.”
“You think he’d be interested in staying on here?”
“I hope so.”
“Me too. He does good work, and he’s an asset to the business. I’ll sort out the paperwork straight away.”
I should be relieved—I am—but the last obstacle between Violet and Europe was swept out of the way too easily, and now I can’t think of a single way to make her stay.
My shoulders fall, and Charlie gives me an empathetic look. “What is it?”
“I have to let her go, don’t I?”
“To Milan?”
I shake my head. “Not only Milan. I have to let her go . I don’t want to limit a single opportunity that might come her way. Not when it comes to her career. Her confidence. The possibility that in the next three years, she’ll catch the future she’s been chasing so long. Fame. Fortune.” I swallow painfully. “Love.”
“Chord—”
I stand abruptly. “I can’t be the selfish jerk I’ve always been. I don’t want Violet to waste time worrying about her dad, and I don’t want her to spend a single second missing what’s in front of her because she’s too busy thinking about what she left behind. I need to get out of the way and give Violet the chance to be something—whatever that is. And in three years, if we’re meant to be…”
I drag an impossible breath in through my nose, muscles firing with adrenaline and frustration as my instincts scream to fight for what I want, not turn my back on it and walk away.
Charlie sighs. “If you love something, set it free?”
I scowl at nothing and try to find my cold, confident center. “Thanks for helping with Luke. Let me know if you need any help sorting it all out.”
She moves around the desk with an expression of concern.
“Chord—”
“I’ve got to go, but I’ll check in with you later, okay?”
“Okay.”
“And I really am proud of you, Charlotte. You did good, and maybe later, when all this is… over… you can tell me all about it.”
Charlie forces a cheery smile, but the sympathy in her eyes is too much. “I’d love that.”
I nod and rush from the room before I give away more of myself than I have to spare. I hate feeling vulnerable. I can’t stand the pity. And I don’t want to accept, even for a second, that Violet isn’t supposed to be mine. But what choice do I have? Charlie knows as well as I do that I have to let Violet go. It’s the only way for her to move forward without looking back on her life and always wondering what if .
I push myself to my physical limits running back to the house, my footfalls kicking up dust along the dirt paths crossing the fields of Silver Leaf. If three years in Milan is what Violet wants, I’m going to make damn sure she does it right. And I’m not going to miss a moment of our time together now that all we have left is to say goodbye.