“Nope. But we’re going to be late if we don’t leave now.”
My parents had agreed to watch the kids while we were in Stockholm, but they’d cancelled at the last moment because my mom got the flu. I was too paranoid to leave them with strangers for a whole week, so here we were, about to attend a white-tie event with babies in tow. It was technically against the rules to bring them, but we figured it would be easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.
A knock on the door announced the arrival of David’s brother Nathan and his wife Zoey. They swept in immediately after knocking—privacy was something that David and I no longer had any expectation of anyway. Parenthood had quickly stripped us of such trivial concerns.
“Hey guys. Gimme those little babies,” Zoey said instantly. My new sister-in-law was a veritable baby whisperer. She looked polished, gorgeous, and dramatic in her ivory gown, but I knew she had no qualms about getting her hands dirty and changing a diaper.
David and I surrendered the girls to her and looked at one another in disbelief. How had we gotten here? The entire thing felt surreal.
Nathan tapped his watch as soon as the girls were strapped into their stroller.
“Time to go,” he said to his brother. “You don’t want to keep them waiting.”
“What would I do without you to keep me on time?” David asked his twin as we walked to the elevator of the hotel. Nathan laughed.
“Keeping you on time is easily a four-person job,” he said. “Which is probably why you’re always late. I have no idea how Casey deals with it.”
I shrugged. “He’s cute enough that I don’t really care.” I’d gotten used to being on David-time. It ran about fifteen to twenty minutes behind clock time.
Nathan rolled his eyes when David and I kissed. “Gross. Get a room.”
“Don’t worry,” Zoey told him adoringly. “You’re cute, too.”
Zoey’s attention mollified him, but he tried to hide it behind a frown. When I first met Nathan, I could barely believe that this straight-laced, fastidious man could be David’s brother. But he wasn’t nearly as stoic as his initial impression would suggest. He was just as weird as David, he just hid it better. Most of the time.
The elevator dinged on each floor we descended, and the short walk to the Stockholm Concert Hall passed in a blur. Despite what Nathan had said, the party was just getting started. Our arrival caused a small stir, but the noise returned to normal a moment later.
Only Nathan was in his element here. He worked the lobby of the Concert Hall. With an effortless aplomb, he smiled and chatted with the people he knew—which seemed to be everyone. Zoey and the babies were by his side.
David and I stood uselessly at the entrance to the ballroom. People looked at us with interest, but no one approached. This was not really our crowd.
“Is it just me, or is everyone staring at us?” I asked David.
David, who was used to be stared at, shrugged and snagged me a glass of champagne. I sighed; I’d never get used to this. At least the girls were eating solid food now and I could drink again.
“Casey! David!” Dr. Cruz—Darna—saved us from being totally antisocial. She looked fantastic tonight, wearing a ladies’ tuxedo and her long salt-and-pepper hair in a long braid. We embraced.
“Can you believe we’re really here?” I asked her, looking around the ballroom and trying to savor the moment.
Darna shook her head, sending her braid swaying. “It’s like a dream. I’ve dreamed of this since I was a little girl. I certainly never thought it would actually happen.”
“Imagine growing up wanting to work in television and finding yourself here,” I said.
“Or kitchens,” David added. “The most I ever wanted was three Michelin stars, although to be honest, I would have probably been satisfied with two.”
A sudden hush swept through the room and the attention focused toward the door. A family of blonde, tall men and women entered and traversed the lobby to enter the hall.
“What’s going on?” I whispered to Darna. “Why is everyone looking at them?”
“That’s the Swedish royal family,” she whispered back. “Their arrival signals that the awards ceremony is about to begin.”
“Do we need to get up there?” I asked, and she nodded, grabbing David by the elbow and walking us through the crowd. We climbed up to the stage and took our place, helpfully assisted by labels on the seats. The fifteen hundred seats in the hall were quickly being filled men and women in white tie.
Zoey and Nathan waved to us as they took their seats in the Orchestra section. Shortly after, the five members of the Swedish royal family walked out upon the stage as a piece of very dramatic music was played. The women were now wearing crowns. Fucking crowns.
To my left, a professor of economics at Yale was crying. David handed him a handkerchief. He accepted it with trembling hands.
At the podium, a small-ish man wearing thick glasses cleared his throat.
“Your majesties, your royal highnesses, esteemed Nobel laureates, ladies and gentlemen,” he began, speaking in deeply accented English. “On behalf of the Nobel Foundation, it is my pleasure for me to welcome you all to this year’s Nobel Prize Award Ceremony.”
David took the opportunity to shoot finger guns at his brother, who shook his head back at him in a long-suffering fashion.
“We really did it baby,” he whispered in my ear. As one of the girls started to scream bloody murder, causing a stir as the room realized that some assholes had brought infants to the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony, all I could do was smile and nod.
Smile and nod.
Exclusive Teaser: ‘Never Say Never’
Never ask questions. Never hesitate. Never get emotionally involved.
Words I've lived by. Until her.
I'm a fixer.
I fix bad, embarrassing, illegal problems, for the right price.
My clients are rich, famous, powerful, and very dangerous.
Now I’ve got a problem of my very own: Eva Martin.
She just happens to be both my best friend’s little sister, and at the center of the most explosive problem I’ve ever faced.
As the body count rises around us, I’m falling for the one woman that’s totally out of bounds.
Her wide innocent eyes, perfect curves, and sexy, smoky voice--she’s a liability and a weakness, but I'm unable to resist.
Eva’s a risky distraction for a man like me.
I'm going to make her mine, and I'll use everything in my arsenal to keep her safe.
Even if it means everyone else—including me—becomes collateral damage.
Read on for an exclusive teaser of ‘Never Say Never’!
Teaser: Charlie
“Did you get the tape?” Richard Durant asked me, upon seeing Senator Ellis and his family enter the room. They’d arrived fashionably late. Probably just to show they could.
“Yes. It’s all taken care of,” I replied.
We were keeping our voices low in the quiet parlor of the funeral home. People milled around us oblivious to the salacious nature of our discussion. A few feet away, my boss Lou ran interference on anyone that might approach. His bombastic personality was more than enough to shield us.
Across the room, the four members of the Ellis family looked like a picture of American wholesomeness in mourning. It was just as much a display of the power the Durant family exerted that the entire Senator’s family would be in attendance. The oldest daughter, Angelica, noticed my attention and smoothed back her glossy blond hair. She whispered something to her teenage sister, who looked at me, blushed, and shook her head. Angelica looked me up and down and bit her lip coyly. She thought I was checking her out. I dropped my gaze.
“Every copy has been destroyed and all parties dealt with,” I answered after a moment when Richard continued to stare at me. “Why, did you really want a copy for leverage with Ellis?”
His silence meant yes. I handed him a thumb drive, which he
pocketed discretely. I’d been hoping he’d been joking about wanting it.
She’s 23. She’s easily young enough to be your daughter. You’re supposed to be her father’s friend not using her embarrassing mistake as potential political ammunition…
I wanted to say it.
My mouth stayed wisely shut.
Richard smiled, shook my hand, shook Lou’s hand, and drifted off in the direction of Senator Ellis. I’m sure he wanted to share the good news that his daughter’s tequila-fueled bad decision would not be strewn across the internet tonight. Tom Ellis might be less enthused to know Richard had kept a copy, likely to be used as leverage when the time was right.
I reminded myself firmly that this was none of my concern.
It was all just business.
Edith Durant’s wake was lovely. The Durant family had spared no expense for the patriarch’s youngest daughter. I’ve become something of an expert at funerals, so I can state that with authority. On a scale from zero (Bin Laden) to ten (Queen of England), this funeral was a solid seven.
The white tulips adorning every surface must have been expensive and difficult to find in late October. The harpist was a nice touch as well. Sadly, there weren’t many people in attendance to admire either. Most (if not all) of those who did attend had never met Edith.
Each of today’s guests had an ulterior motive for participating in the organized mourning of the wealthy, middle aged, possibly mentally ill shut-in. For me, attending funerals for people I’ve never met is part of the job. It isn’t billable, at least not officially, but any client conversations that happen to occur there are.
No one tells you about this part of being a lawyer. In law school everything is lofty ideals and academic discussions. The real, unglamorous practice of law is as distant from the minds of tenured law professors as worries about job security. I suspect this is by design; fewer bright young men and women would willingly go so deeply into student debt to become lawyers if there was truth in advertising. In hindsight, “Schmoozing 1o1” would have been a lot more useful to me than “Wills and Trusts”.
What I really needed was a few more hours each day. Billing is breathing to young lawyers like me. In the rat race to make partner, I billed over 2,400 hours last year. Most of that came from a single whale of a client: Durant Industries. I’d voluntarily been on “permanent loan” from the firm that I started at, Clark and Jeffries, for the past four years as the guy who fixes the company’s embarrassing problems. For Durant Industries this often boiled down to containing the antics of the Durant family.
The Durant family had a lot of embarrassing problems, so I did a lot of fixing, and the Durants paid their bills on time and in full. It was a good arrangement. They never batted an eye at the hours on my invoices because I was very good at what I did. I was exhausted, disillusioned, sarcastic, and bitter—but effective.
So, when I was told to jump, I inevitably asked “how high?”. When Richard asked me to clean up a mess for his favorite pet Senator’s daughter, I’d done it without blinking. Perhaps another year of this nonstop nonsense and I’d finally make partner. Then, maybe, I could actually practice law and never pay off another hooker or grease another palm. Preferably before I was disbarred. Or forty.
I was planning on beating a hasty retreat back to my office, but a small, curvaceous woman in a black dress entered just as I was preparing to leave. Her dark hair and pale skin reminded me of an exciting, forbidden, heart-pounding mistake. It took me a second to realize that I wasn’t hallucinating. Eva Martin was here.
Teaser: Eva
They say you have to be ready for anything in the nursing profession, so when my new employer told me to attend the funeral on day one, I hadn’t argued. Instead, I dove into my luggage in the airport lavatory and wriggled into a high-necked black dress, a pair of slingback pumps, and pantyhose. Not as comfortable as my scrubs, but infinitely more appropriate. Determined to make a good first impression at my new job, I made my reluctant, nervous way into the funeral home.
I’d never begun a shift by staring at an embalmed corpse before. I’ve seen my fair share of dead people working in Emergency Rooms, however, which was part of why I wanted a change of pace. Apparently the old adage was true: the more things change, the more they stay the same.
“Eva is that you?”
The voice was a semi-familiar baritone that I’d never managed to fully forget. I turned around in the entrance hall and it felt like time ground to a screeching halt. My mouth dropped open.
“Charlie!”
Out of nowhere, my body felt electric. It was him. Charlie was tall, much taller than me, and his face was stubborn, strong, and handsome. I’d seen models that couldn’t boast Charlie’s defined jaw, straight nose, and prominent cheek bones. I had once imagined him being a bit too pretty and delicate as a teenager and growing into his face more properly in his twenties. Now mature, it suited him perfectly. There was nothing fragile about his looks. Even his inquisitive brown eyes were a warm, vivid color. The way he filled out his clothes suggested that his body hadn’t become that of a timid attorney, either.
Divorced from conscious thought or reason, I impulsively threw my arms around his neck and kissed him on the cheek. His woodsy, fresh smell filled my nose and I heard his sudden intake of breath. He froze at my touch and I pulled back immediately. I smiled before he could see what his hesitance had cost my pride.
“Dylan told me you were coming, but he didn’t tell me you were starting so soon,” Charlie said, pushing through the awkward moment. The fact I had been a topic of conversation between him and my older brother made me feel hot and cold at the same time. I wondered desperately if Charlie was honestly happy to see me, because he looked more shocked than pleased.
I shrugged. “They wanted me here as quickly as possible,” I managed. “It’s so nice to see you.”
He smiled again, and it looked real this time. “It’s really nice to see you again too, Eva. Really. You look great.” Charlie shook his head as if shocked that I was actually standing in front of him. He put out a hand and almost touched my shoulder before dropping it back to his side. His eyes swept up and down my body appreciatively. I felt a blush stinging my cheeks.
The unspoken strangeness of seeing someone again after not seeing them for going on half a decade pulsed between us. The last time we’d laid eyes on one another was at Dylan and Charlie’s law school graduation. I’d been nineteen and crushing hard on Charlie. He’d been twenty-seven and reluctant to risk his friendship with my brother. At least that’s what he told me. He had tried his best to let me down easy, except that he’d made out with me enthusiastically directly prior. Dylan still didn’t know about any of it unless Charlie had told him. Since Charlie was still walking around and not buried in a shallow grave, I assumed not.
“I just touched down in Philly about half an hour ago,” I told him, trying not to think about the last time I’d seen Charlie. “It’s really cold here compared to Atlanta.” I ran my hands up and down my exposed arms. The goosebumps there were from the cold, not Charlie. At least that’s what I told myself.
He looked at my lack of cold-weather attire in disapproval. This time he did grab my hands, warming them between his own. “Don’t you have a coat? Gloves? A hat?”
“In my checked baggage, yeah, I just didn’t pack that stuff for the plane.”
He looked stricken that I might be cold and continued to hold my clasped hands within his own. “You can borrow my coat if you want to.”
I was tempted but I shook my head. “That’s very sweet, but I’ll be ok.” The arms would be much too long anyway.
“Dylan would kill me if I let you catch pneumonia.”
Of course, he’d bring up Dylan. I pulled my hands out of his abruptly. It’s not like Charlie really cared if I was cold. He just didn’t want his friend to be angry with him. I frowned. Charlie opened his mouth to say something else, but I spoke first.
“Cold weather doesn’t actually cau
se pneumonia, colds, or flu. That’s all a myth. Bacteria do very poorly in cold weather. Only people with compromised immune systems need to worry about short exposures to cold air.”
Charlie blinked.
“Cold doesn’t cause colds? I didn’t know that.”
I shrugged. “Why would you? I’m the one with the nursing degree.”
“I can’t believe you’ve already graduated, and I really can’t believe you’re really going to work for the Durant dynasty. With their reputation for ending up in the tabloids over jilted supermodels, creating random international incidents, and all the other bizarre hijinks of the super-rich, I’m surprised Dylan is ok with it.”
“Whether Dylan is ok with it wasn’t my main consideration in taking the job. My professional decisions aren’t generally made with my brother in mind.” If my voice was a tad bit tart, it was only because Charlie had once rejected me over what my brother Dylan might think. “Neither are my personal ones. I think you know that. Besides, isn’t it your job to sweep all that nonsense under the rug?”
Our conversation melted into an uneasy silence. I waited for Charlie to say something, but he just stared at me. His expression, if I had to name it, looked frustrated.
“So, um, are you working today, or did you know Edith Durant?” I asked, feeling like I needed to fill this silence with something besides my throbbing heartbeat. It was so loud in my ears that he could probably hear it.
Charlie looked over his shoulder at the funeral as if remembering it was there. His dark curls made my fingers itch to push them from his forehead. “I’m working. Dylan and I were supposed to meet up for the game, but he had to work too. We both work too much.”
Lost and Found (Scions of Sin Book 4) Page 23