Boom - Sabrina Stark Page 0,16

and began stalking back toward the SUV.

As she moved, I caught bits and pieces of her conversation. I heard lots of profanity, peppered with words of impending doom. The phrase "total fucking disaster" was said more than once.

As I watched, she yanked open the passenger's side door, climbed into the SUV, and slammed the door behind her.

I turned to Roy and said, "Does this mean you're leaving?"

Looking surprisingly calm, he asked, "Why do you say that?"

"Well, because she got back into the vehicle."

"Eh, she does that all the time," he said. "Trust me. When she wants me, she'll holler." He gave the SUV a wary glance. "Until then, I'd be smart to stay away."

Now this, I believed. Even now, I could still hear the muffled sounds of her rage as she talked to whoever on the phone.

By now, I had no idea what to think. I sidled closer to Roy and said, "I'm really sorry. I honestly thought I was helping." I bit my lip. "I mean, Brody never said anything about not touching the house."

In fact, he hadn't said a lot of things.

And it suddenly struck me that only half a day had passed since Brody had surprised me in the shower. Was that even enough time to plan whatever was going on?

I didn't think so. And this meant, what exactly?

Let's say he had planned to fix up the house all along. Had I begged merely for Brody's entertainment?

I frowned. Was it not a favor at all?

With growing unease, I looked once again to Roy. "Hey, can I ask you something? This project – restoring the house, I mean – how long have you known about it?"

"This one?" Roy gave a rueful laugh. "Not long at all." He glanced toward the SUV. "That's part of the reason she's so tense. Rush jobs – they make her a little crazy."

"Oh." Relief coursed through me, along with more than a little shame. There I was again, all too willing to assume the worst of Brody. What was wrong with me, anyway?

With an embarrassed laugh, I said, "Oh yeah? So you just found out today, huh?"

"Today?" Roy gave me an odd look. "Nah. It's not that big of a rush. A project this size? It takes some planning, you know?"

"Oh?" My stomach clenched. "So…how long have you known about it?"

"Let's see…" He paused as if thinking. "Two, maybe three weeks."

My jaw dropped. Brody – that total bastard.

Boy, was he gonna get it.

Chapter 10

Brody

I stared, dumbstruck, at my oldest brother. "You're not serious."

From behind his desk, Mason said, "Is there a problem?"

Mason was five years my senior, and ten times the prick. Normally, I'd call that a compliment. Not today.

I was standing in his office, which was situated on the top floor of our largest factory. By design, the factory was located right here in Bayside, where we'd all grown up.

Mason's office was cold and impersonal – with one lone exception. On his desk was a framed crayon drawing of a scribbled figure who could only be Mason, complete with a smile and a red necktie.

The tie was familiar. The smile wasn't.

On the bottom of the picture, the same childlike handwriting had scrawled out, "World's Best Daddy."

Yes. He was.

Mason might be a dick to me and everyone else, but he was good to Willow. I had to give him credit for that, even on days like today when I felt like lunging over his desk beating him senseless.

As for my own desk, it was located just down the hall in a private office of my own, not that I spent much time there. Unlike both of my brothers, I liked to work with my hands, not cool my ass in climate-controlled comfort.

But now, I was anything but cool. "Come on," I said. "You're just messing with me, right?"

"No." Mason glanced at his watch. "So just spit it out. What's the problem?"

It was nearly five o'clock in the afternoon, and my problems were piling up – building supplies delivered to the wrong property, a busted machine on the factory floor, and a landscaping emergency at some unspecified address.

Yeah. "A landscaping emergency." That's what Waverly had called it.

The way I saw it, there was no such thing. Unless the bushes had come alive and were eating neighborhood children, I figured that was a problem for the back burner.

And yet, it wouldn't go away.

Waverly – the new producer of our TV show – had been texting me for over an hour now. She'd been short on