vineyard tours the same time they had the place booked for a wedding?”
I took a deep breath, stretched my neck from side to side, and rubbed my forehead, trying to ease the headache that was building. “Listen, If Ryan can’t smooth this over—”
“He will,” he said with a cocky grin. “He’ll work his magic, and by the time he’s done—”
“Rand, you need to shut the hell up right now,” I warned. “You’re twenty-six fucking years old. Your brother should not still be cleaning up your messes. We’re trying to run a company here. You need to grow up.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, looking like a kicked puppy.
I shook my head. “You might as well stop now. You know that poor pathetic little Rand shit doesn’t work on me. Now, as I was saying, if Ryan can’t smooth it over and this costs us money, it’s coming out of your pay. Ryan and I aren’t losing money because you can’t keep your dick in your pants. Are we clear?”
“Sure, whatever you say, Roman. I mean, heaven knows you’d never mess up.” He rolled his eyes, putting his gear in his locker.
“I didn’t say I was perfect. But I can control my dick, and I wouldn’t fuck a client.”
“It wasn’t the client. It was his daughter.”
“Or the client's daughter,” I clarified.
“Of course you wouldn’t. She would totally have the wrong equipment for your gay ass.”
I took another deep breath, reminding myself that I loved my mother too much to kill one of her children. “Not the point, asshole, and you know it.”
“Okay, yeah. I shouldn’t have done it. But damn, she was hot, and there’s just something about a rich girl who wants to slum it up with the hired help that really does it for me.”
“You should probably see a therapist about that shit. What I can tell you is, you’re on surveillance duty until this blows over.”
“Seriously? You know I hate surveillance.”
“Sure do,” I said with a smirk.
Chapter 2
Trey
I sat in my favorite chair in my room, looking out the window. I’d spent countless hours in that very spot when I was growing up. I could see the river from here, and I could watch as the boats went by. When I was younger, I would pretend that one of those boats was a pirate ship. It would pull up to our dock, and the pirates would rush off the ship and storm our house. They would take all my father’s gold and diamonds. They would take me with them, and then it would be a pirate's life for me. As I got older, I still daydreamed about pirates from this very spot, but in a different sort of way.
Not much had changed. I’d been sitting in this chair for twenty years now trying to plan an escape. And yet still…no pirates. Maybe it was time I accepted the fact that no one was going to come and rescue me. If I wanted out, I was going to have to save myself. I just didn’t know how. I was twenty-four-years old, and I’d never had a job. I’d been homeschooled until I graduated and then went to the bible college of my parents choosing. I had a master’s degree in political science and no work experience. I would get access to my trust fund when I turned twenty-six. My plan had been to stay put and tough it out until then, but I couldn’t imagine two more years of this.
Dealing with the hate, the corruption, and the overblown sense of righteousness felt like walking through a sludge pit. Yep, two years was too long to stay. I needed a way out. I considered contacting my father's opponent. He would probably hire me simply because of the damage it would do to my father’s campaign for his perfect all-American son to jump ship and join the other side. But as bad as I wanted out, I couldn’t do that to him. He was still my father. And while I couldn’t be sure it wasn’t more fear than love, I didn’t see stabbing him in the back as an option.
I twirled a rainbow-colored wristband that I’d picked up off a table at the county fair this year. It was my talisman, a symbol for me of what I wanted most in life. I got it at a booth raising money for an LGBTQIA+ youth shelter. I hadn’t had long to speak with the young lady, but I learned enough to know that when