Chapter Twenty-Seven
How Do You Know My Sister?
Colton
I’ve been learning the ropes at Del Ray for almost a month now—reading contracts, becoming familiar with client communications, working with Graham on potential mockups for the Yacht Club. I haven’t , however, met with a client.
Which is exactly what I’m doing today.
When I go downstairs—after changing three times before settling on navy slacks with a light blue Del Ray Development polo—I’m more skittish than normal. I jump out of my skin when Cheyenne, Indi, and Milo pop up from the opposite side of the kitchen island holding posters above their heads.
You’ve got this! Milo’s reads.
Good luck today! Indi’s says.
We believe in you! Cheyenne’s exclaims.
I drop my eyes from the signs to the people holding them, incapable of words. Milo grins, his pajamas sleep-wrinkled and his curls mussed. Indi pants, like holding up her poster is so physically taxing. Cheyenne smiles, wearing that soft expression I love so much.
“You made these?” I finally ask, setting my phone and wallet on the island.
Milo nods emphatically. “Uh-huh! Do you love them? I colored them and Inni drew the letters and Annie drew the shapes! We did them so many days ago.”
“Last Thursday,” Indi says. “In between wedding prep.”
Squatting in front of Milo, I hold my hands out. “Can I see yours, please?”
He places it in my hands and presses his palm into my shoulder. He points, balancing only on one foot. “Annie drew me a sailboat! I wanna go on one sometime, did you know that? But I don’t want it to fall over.”
“I did know that,” I tell him, nodding. Something itches in the recesses of my brain. “But it’s definitely not allowed to fall over. That would be very bad.”
“Uh-huh,” Milo agrees. “ Very bad.”
Indi pops her lower lip out. “Don’t you wanna see my poster?”
Milo jumps up and down. “Yeah! Look at their posters!”
I set Milo’s poster on the counter, then I take my time studying Indi’s and Cheyenne’s. Other than Indi’s neat bubble letters, there’s one common denominator: sailboats. The itch of a thought becomes a fully-fledged idea.
“Cheyenne, can I talk to you alone for a minute?” I ask.
She narrows her eyes. “Sure…?”
I press my hand to her lower back to guide her out to the front porch. I’m pretty sure Indi mutters something like talk…right under her breath, but Milo starts petitioning to have Lucky Charms for breakfast and her focus turns to him.
“First order of business is this.” I lean down and kiss Cheyenne softly, fingertips under her chin. “Good morning, beautiful.”
Her shoulders relax under her sweatshirt. “Mm. Good morning to you too.”
“I love you,” I say.
I’d never said those three words to a woman before Cheyenne.
Now I want to say them all the time.
Cheyenne smiles. “I love you, too. But if this is you—”
“I think I should take Milo with me today.”
“—buttering up to me, don’t—Wait.” She stops, backtracking, and blinks up at me. “What?”
“I think,” I repeat, more slowly, “I should take Milo with me today.”
She’s quiet for a moment. I can nearly see her mind recalibrating, the wheels turning.
“In other words, you’re trying to butter up to the yacht club, then.”
I laugh outright. “I’m not buttering up to anyone—If anything, I’m kissing up to you, but in a literal sense.”
“You think you should take Milo.” She tilts her head, offering no reaction to my joke. “Why?”
I inhale a long breath. “Because one, the yacht club is actually the sailing club for children. He doesn’t love anything as much as he loves his sailboats.”
She leans against the cedar shake siding. “True. Go on.”
“And two,” I say, voice thickening, “it’s what I would’ve wanted my dad to do.”
Her expression softens. “Took you to work with him?”
I give a short, quick nod. Anything more and it will trigger the waterworks. I’m not above crying, not even being a man , but not today. Not before this meeting.
Keep your chin held high, darling , my mother used to say. That way you can cry, but the tears won’t fall, and no one will know.
Sharp, unexpected grief slices through my chest. I inhale sharply. Now is not the time to grieve my late mother. I haven’t cried about losing her—really, truly losing her—since Indi reappeared in May. I won’t cry about her today, either.
“Okay, then.” Cheyenne palms my jaw and presses on tiptoe to kiss me. “You’ll take Milo with you. And for the record, you look insanely hot in that polo.”
“Temperature hot,” I clarify, “or GQ Magazine hot?”
Cheyenne laughs. “Sexiest Man Alive hot.”
Just for that, I spin her so my back is to the street, hers pressing into the siding, and I kiss her again.
The Falls Lake Yacht Club sits on prime waterfront property on the northwestern side of the lake. Tiny sailboats and large sailboats alike bob in the water at the docks, hydrangeas spill over tall ceramic planters flanking stately double doors, and the siding is pale eggshell blue. The two-story rectangular structure, supported by opulent white pillars, reads country club meets sailing school.
“Okay, hold it. Outfit check.” I stop before we reach the doors, and squat in front of Milo. I pretend to straighten the collar of his short-sleeve white button up as if he’s wearing a bowtie. “You look good. How about me?”
Milo mimics my movements by fiddling with the collar of my polo. “You look good too!”
Graham, wearing a black suit, complete with its jacket, strikes a pose. Hip popped, chin tilted up, gaze downcast. “What about me?”
“You look good, too,” Milo tells him, dissolving into giggles.
“Just good?” Graham feigns disappointment. He sniffles and wipes his eyes, shoulders slumping. He holds up a hand. “It’s okay, I’m fine. It’s not like I spent an hour picking out my clothes or anything.”
I straighten, taking Milo’s hand again, his little blue backpack on my shoulder. Indi shoved three coloring books, a box of crayons, and a book into it before we left. I stopped her before she could add anything else in between the snacks stuffed into the front pocket.
Graham opens the door for us, and I blink to adjust to the dimmer lighting. The Yacht Club is nice but outdated by forty years. Tile floors in the foyer meet dull brown carpet in the dining area. Wood paneling covers most of the walls, and offices are boxed off in dingy hallways. A small pro shop with a few pieces of apparel is positioned to the right, and the light over the counter flickers.
I can see why they want to rebrand.
“We’re a little early,” Graham says, glancing at his Apple watch. “Chris said he had another meeting before this, but that we’re welcome to look around. Looks like there’s a vending machine if you want a snack.”
“I have one,” Milo informs him. “Inni made me promise I’ll eat carrots ‘cause I had Lucky Charms!”
“Got it,” Graham says.
“We could look at the sailboats out the windows,” I suggest.
Milo doesn’t wait for me to say anything more. He weaves through circular plastic folding tables and plasters himself to the windows—the only feature that has been updated in this century. If I take in the view through Milo’s eyes, I probably wouldn’t notice the vast blue water or deep green shorelines, just the sailboats lined up primly at the docks.
“I like that one!” Milo jabs his finger into the window. “The blue one!”
There are a handful of blue ones, but I don’t say that. “That looks super cool, buddy.”
Milo looks up at me. “Do we get to go on it today?”
“Not today, but my original offer still stands.” The smooth, neatly accented voice of Grayson Adair slices through stale air. “You haven’t been waiting long, have you?”
I exchange a brief look with Graham as we turn from the windows, my hands resting on Milo’s slender shoulders.
Graham accepts Grayson’s handshake. “Only a few minutes. We were under the impression we were meeting with Chris…?”
“You will be,” Grayson says, shaking my hand next. “He’s not finished with his meeting yet. I was asked to give you a tour of the docks.”
Outwardly, Grayson Adair is polished and professional. Accomplished too, considering he’s only twenty-two. But I’m starting to think he’s linked to my sister somehow, and I can’t figure out how . It can’t be harmful, considering he holds my eye contact unwaveringly before he kneels to shake Milo’s hand too, but I’m missing something.
“Can we?” Milo asks me, eyes wide. “I wanna see the boats!”
I glance at my brother.
“We have time,” Graham says.
When Grayson tells Graham and Milo to go on down to the dock—but please refrain from boarding the boats—I know he wants to talk to me alone. We stand on the shaded patio outside, the cement beneath my dress shoes imprinted with a nautical pattern. Flower baskets hang from the eaves, and a robin’s nest is tucked onto a sconce light.
“What do you know about Vincent Pierre?”
The question throws me. I look at the younger man, trying to read him. His feet are braced shoulders width apart, his hands tucked in the pockets of his light blue slacks, and his dark hair tousles lightly in the breeze. But his expression is impassive.
What I wouldn’t give to have that poker face.
“Something tells me not enough,” I say evenly.
A short laugh puffs through his lips. “A non-answer. I wish that didn’t make me like you more.”
I narrow my eyes. “What are you talking about?”
He says nothing. Considering his outwardly calm persona, it’s for my benefit more than his own. I hate to admit that I need it, but I do. Hearing Milo’s father’s name—my mother’s husband —makes my skin crawl. The Google searches I’ve run don’t cause alarm; other than his disarming net worth or the number of houses he owns, maybe. But I’m missing something. Something Pierre wants me to miss.
Something Grayson Adair seems to know .
I face the docks. Milo tilts his head all the way back to ask Graham something, and my brother points at a billowing mainsail. My voice is low when I say, “What do I need to know about Vincent Pierre, Adair?”
“Between you and me…” he begins. I nod without turning. “Vincent Pierre has a little habit of doing business that’s not all completely above board, so to speak. Likes to throw around the power he inherited when his dad died of a heart attack at age forty-six. Has friends in high places, and money in higher places.”
“Friends meaning sources,” I clarify.
Grayson shrugs. “Business, money, family.” He lets the words hang for a moment before continuing. “When a man has that much power, it’s hard not to become a little morally corrupt.”
Business, money, family.
I should know how to connect the dots he’s drawing, but I can’t. Not without seeing them on paper and tracing a pencil from Point A to Point B.
“Sort of ironic, coming from someone with his own substantial amount of power,” I say. “Don’t you think?”
“Trust me,” he says in a low voice, blue eyes serious. “The only power I have is the power to break your sister’s heart.”
The warning in his voice demands my full attention. I meet Grayson’s gaze directly and neither of us flinches away. “How do you know my sister, Grayson?”
His voice quiets to a chilling whisper. “You don’t have to know someone to save their life, Del Ray.”