How to Marry Your Frenemy - London Casey Page 0,100
did not want to think about him and Miranda naked, squirming around the kitchen floor.
I went back to the guest bedroom and fixed the bed as though I was never there.
Then I grabbed my bag off the floor and started to leave but paused.
I looked at the guest bathroom.
I grinned.
I went into the bathroom and threw the towel to the floor.
Just because I knew it would piss off Miranda.
Sorry, Liam… not really.
“I have no idea what to say, nephew,” Vince said as he swirled the top shelf scotch around in his glass. “It was just moving so fast in that moment. I can’t believe this…”
Vince wanted to meet and talk. I figured it was because I hadn’t shown up to work for a while. But he wanted to get right into it.
He looked at me. “You know I’d never fuck her, right?”
“I don’t know what I know anymore,” I said.
“Look, she played us both,” he said. “I fired her. Just so you know.”
“You, what?”
“I fired her. She was drunk, Jackson. Drunk at work. Drinking on the job. Acting like a crazed woman. Ruining my reputation. Ruining the company your father started.”
“How?” I asked.
Vince sipped the scotch and put the glass down. “I know what you saw and the way it looked. It looked like your uncle was being a pervert and making a move on your fake wife, right? That’s what you saw. The truth? I got a call she was still in the office. That she was acting strange. So I showed up to see what was going on. She was in her office, damn near stripping herself down…”
My heart began to race. It twisted and pounded.
Vince frowned. “I knew something was wrong. She was all over the place. She demanded I pay her. She wanted the bonus. I told her to calm down and keep her clothes on. I know the marriage was fake, but, you know, she’s married to you, Jackson. To my nephew. She asked me to… to sleep with her. On her desk.”
Then entered the rage.
Callie… taking her clothes off? In front of Vince? Begging him to fuck her?
“I’m so sorry,” Vince said. “I really am. I didn’t know what to do. She was ranting about taking you down. Hurting you. So I finally just caved. I grabbed my checkbook and figured just tell her what she wanted to hear. Write her the goddamn check. Get her out of the goddamn office. Let her take the money so I could let her go and get things back to normal.”
“Why did she come after me then?” I asked.
“That’s just part of the act, Jackson,” Vince said. “She’s a good actress. That I’ve always known. I thought this was… I don’t know. Fun. What the hell was I thinking? I thought you two would compete and… boy, did I fuck this up, huh?”
Vince admitting he did something wrong…
I stood up. “I have to go.”
“Jackson, wait,” he said. “You believe me, right?”
I looked into my uncle’s eyes and nodded.
“Good,” he said. “It’s just us now, nephew. The way it should have always been. Hey, I’m going to take care of that money your father left. I told myself when you were ready for it, you’d get it. And I want you working right along-side of me. You and I, Jackson. It’s time. Forget about what happened. Forget about Callie.”
I kept nodding. “Okay. We’ll talk soon?”
“Sure. If you want, I can send some stuff over to you. Keep you busy.”
“Yeah, you do that,” I said.
Vince opened his arms and hugged me.
He was desperate.
He was lying.
Everything in my life was a lie.
I walked through the cemetery carefully.
There was always something about the place that bothered me.
I didn’t like the idea of it being some kind of advertisement for what was to come in life.
It had been a long time since I visited my father’s grave.
I wasn’t into the whole talking to the headstone or hanging around with the dead, but there I was.
For as rich as my father was, he was buried right in the middle of the cemetery. Nothing big or fancy. Just normal. Which was what my father always was. He was always normal. Everything about his existence was to help people. There were times he ached over the fact that he made the money he did. I remembered as a kid finding him having a drink, staring into the fire in the fireplace, almost in tears, wondering if what he was doing was right or not.