can find the way.” I study her some more to see if I can figure out exactly what it is she’s feeling.
“Okay, I’ll see you next week.” She turns without a backward glance and rushes from the room.
I stand there for a second wondering who that woman was and exactly what she’s doing in the Flores household. The look on Isla’s face after she announced herself is seared into my brain. It shouldn’t bother me as much as it does.
Does it have something to do with what my dad knows that he’s not telling me?
11
Chapter Eleven
Garrin
By the time Wednesday rolls around, my father has already called me three times to find out what I’ve done about his request to befriend Isla. The first two times, I ignored him just to piss him off, but ultimately, I told him I was doing his dirty work which satisfied him enough. I have no idea what he wants with her, so I figure I’ll just treat it like any other date—even if it isn’t one.
And it’s not. The last thing I need is Isla Flores getting under my skin again. Last time the results were disastrous.
“Mr. Stone, Harper is here to see you,” Roslin says through the phone on my desk.
I look away from the email I’m composing, telling our marketing department director to get his head out of his ass and figure out how to spin an article due to appear in the Business Times about the oil industry and how we’re to blame for all of mankind’s problems.
“Send her in.”
The door opens immediately, and my sister breezes in like the hurricane she is. “I hope it’s okay that I stopped by. I’m grabbing dinner with Cashmere and I was ahead of schedule, so I thought I’d come see how my big brother is.”
“You mean Katie?”
“Legally it’s Cashmere,” Harper says, but the humor in her tone says she might be her friend, but the fact that she legally changed her name and her parents allowed it is fucked up.
I stand from my chair and walk around my desk to greet her, embracing her when I reach her. “You’re always welcome to come by, you know that.”
It’s true. I’m all she truly has left of our family. After my mom died when I was nine and Harper was six, I swore I’d do everything in my power to take care of her. I knew enough even at that age to know that my father would never put us first in his life. He only ever looked out for himself, to hell with the rest of us.
“Have a seat.” I gesture to the sitting area on the other side of my office. “Do you want me to have Roslin grab you a drink, or do you want something from the bar?” I ask.
“No, I’m good.” She walks over to the large couch, looking every bit the socialite she is—designer clothes, manicured nails, cashmere coat, perfect hair and makeup. “I haven’t seen you lately at any events, and I wanted to make sure everything was okay.”
I take a seat in the chair kitty-corner from where she sits. “You know I do everything in my power to avoid those things.”
She rolls her green eyes that remind me so much of our mother’s. “Well, you know that you can’t, not with who you are.”
“Don’t I know it.” I lean back and cross my leg, resting my ankle on my opposite knee. “What’s been keeping you busy? Still trying to be the queen of YouTube?”
“Don’t even start with that shit, Garrin. I hear it enough from Dad.” She leans back into the couch with an exasperated sigh.
“Well, that may be the only thing he and I will ever agree on. You’re wasting your life and talent on what? Telling others what to wear?”
My sister may use the word influencer, but it’s a load of shit. As soon as Facebook and Instagram took off, suddenly it was considered a full-time job to take pretty pictures and videos of all the consumables companies send you.
“Do you think it’s easy creating interesting content people want to watch when there’s literally millions of other options at their fingertips? You could never do it.”
I scoff. “As if I’d ever want to.”
“Can we not talk about this?” She crosses her arms over her chest and narrows her eyes.
“You haven’t done anything since college. I thought at first it was just a phase until you figured out what you wanted to do with your life,