“He doesn’t want them. He didn’t want anything but his personal art. That’s all he took when he left.”
Those portraits had been a study in Grier, as I recalled, and it didn’t surprise me he wouldn’t part with them.
“I can’t accept this.” I pushed the card back at him. “It’s too much.”
“Think about your family.” He held up his hands, palms out. “Addie could use the money, and so could your dad. Think what you could do for them, for your ancestral home.”
The dissonance between what I expected him to say and what he said jarred me so much I almost said something stupid, like My family doesn’t need the money.
Boaz and Macon were both still Pritchards. I was the one who had been disinherited. They had family, homes, and trust funds. I had…a cool breeze on my backside from the crack in the hospital gown. The Whitakers didn’t have much more than that to their names either.
“I can’t.” I set it on the nearest solid surface. “I appreciate what you did, but it’s not mine to spend.”
“He said you’d say that.”
Linus, no doubt. The man was darn near prescient.
Remy, done eating her way through our leftovers, chimed in. “That’s why he bought shares in your company at a ridiculous markup.”
“There are no shares. There is no company.” I owned a franchise, that was all. “What did you do?”
“As your business manager—” she lifted an imperious brow, “—I took it upon myself to secure us an investor so that we might expand your brand.”
The whole purpose of the mall was how easy it made collecting gossip. I couldn’t afford to lose that, even with Remy’s ability to split into multiples.
“In addition to opening a storefront,” she kept going, “we’ll be opening kiosks in every mall in the city.”
The storefront would go a long way toward legitimizing my business, but goddess. The expense left me shaking in my boots. I teetered on my feet and sat on the bed before I collapsed.
The MBA I earned in my past life glittered in my mind’s eye, tantalizing me. I used to have such different dreams, and this touched on one of my old ones. Entrepreneurship had sounded so fancy back then, like a ticket to the good life.
“I can’t do this.” I kept shaking my head. “It’s not my money, fake investor or not.”
“Linus is very much real,” said the man himself as he entered the room carrying a diamond cut crystal vase stuffed with three or more dozen blush-pink roses.
“W-w-what are you doing here?” I yanked the sheet over my lap. “I thought you were in Savannah.”
“I came to finalize some paperwork.” He flicked a conspiratorial glance at Remy then back to me. “They’ve caught you up to speed?”
Bishop rubbed the base of his neck and stared at the overhead air vent, utterly absorbed.
“Yes.” I thrust out my arm to point at the card. “You have to take back your money.”
Remy growled at me, chicken stuck between her teeth, but we would talk later.
Ambrose, the jerk, deigned to make an appearance now that Linus was here for him to brownnose.
“As I understand it,” Linus said, setting the flowers on my side of the bed, “Bishop was kind enough to liquidate the assets I no longer wanted, which gave me a cushion to invest in a local business run by a promising entrepreneur.” He cut his eyes toward Remy. “And her savvy assistant.”
There was that word. Plucked straight out of my head. Maybe he was psychic.
“That’s not—” I flailed. “I mean—”
“Remy has assured me that you will repay my investment, plus interest. Her spreadsheets were quite impressive.”
The mental picture of me writing my last check to Linus with skin wrinkled to the texture of a prune and zipping around in a powerchair came to me in a moment of perfect clarity.
“Five years,” she said proudly. “I did the math.”
Terrified to ask how much Linus had given me, I gaped at her. “Are you insane?”
Back to rooting through the bag, she found a crumb of cake and licked it off her fingers. “Do you ever look at the spreadsheets I give you?”
“I mean to,” I said defensively. “I get busy.”
“I had my accountant verify her numbers, if that puts your mind at ease.” Linus placed a cool hand on my shoulder. “Spread your wings.” The words carried a tangible weight. “You deserve the chance to see how far you can fly.”