Filthy Rich Alpha - Virna DePaul Page 0,14
a course in money management. Cara had supplemented her mom’s fixed income as soon as she’d started making real money.
“How soon can you make the payment?” Her mother’s pleading voice sounded faded and weary.
“I’ll overnight a check.”
“Okay then.” There was a brief pause. “Have you—have you talked to Glenn lately?”
“I talked to him a couple of days ago.”
“And how’s my sweet boy?”
Cara closed her eyes. Glenn was her mother’s sweet boy. He was Cara’s sweet brother. But that sweetness was often trapped now in the body and mind of a man plagued by intermittent psychotic events, something their mother had a very hard time dealing with. Which is why Cara handled all matters concerning Glenn’s care, including the cost of the expensive live-in facility with the staff that was the best they’d found. Windorne Care Home was good to Glenn, and she willingly paid through the nose for excellent treatment of her brother.
“He’s good, Mom,” she said.
“Oh good. Would you like to pick him up and come to Brooklyn for dinner?”
A sense of longing swept over her—longing to see her mother, not necessarily a longing to come to Brooklyn. Visiting the small row house where she’d spent her teenage years was depressing—the furniture was the same, only even more shabby, and the interior and exterior walls needed painting. Her former bedroom was now used to store a jumble of miscellaneous items in crushed cardboard boxes. Somewhere underneath them was her old mattress and box spring and maybe even the desk she’d built out of a door and plastic crates. The neighborhood was sunk between two elevated freeways on the distant frontier of Brooklyn and would probably never be hip. Or gentrified, either, which meant the mortgage wasn’t a monster.
Cara tried to help her mother with the house, but it was all she could do to keep up with the missed mortgage payments and property tax payments.
What would her father say if he saw how her mother lived now? Cara could still remember how he’d come home from work each evening and go straight to her mom, kissing her full on the mouth and hugging her, telling her he loved her.
No wonder her mother’s heart had broken beyond repair.
“We’ll do that soon. I miss you, Mom,” she said, her throat suddenly constricting. “And I love you. More than you know.”
After hearing her mother’s soft and loving response back, she ended the call then stared at the laptop with the searches for Branden Duke. Resolutely she shut down the computer and headed into the kitchen.
Her life was complicated enough as it was. The last thing she needed was to add something else to the mix, so she was going to leave Branden Duke where he belonged. In his office at work, only relevant when Cara had to talk to him about her job.
Friday dawned with the rumble of garbage trucks far below. Cara jolted straight up in bed and shot a quick glance at her ringing alarm clock. Yikes! After a restless night, she’d slept through the alarm.
After a quick shower, Cara grabbed the nearest outfit out of her closet—a black suit—and didn’t realize until she exited her building that the tights she’d pulled up her legs were dark blue, not black. She was just about to run back up to change when her phone rang—a call from her brother Glenn’s assisted living facility.
Her brother was having an episode. As the sound of her voice, even on the phone, was often able to calm him down, they’d called to see if she could help. An hour later, after speaking with Glenn on the phone, most of that time listening to him speak rapidly about a governmental conspiracy and how his phone was tapped, she’d managed to talk him into taking his fast-acting antipsychotic. The meds had quickly kicked in, and the last ten minutes of the call were blessedly calm.
Unfortunately, the phone call and the fact she was tardy to work hadn’t exactly left her in a calm state.
By the time she made it into the office, she was forty-five minutes late. Greg came up to her as soon as she got off the elevator and stepped onto their floor. They hadn’t spoken since the night of Branden’s party, and now he had the nerve to say, “Buzz buzz. All the worker bees are in their cells. Why aren’t you?”
“Blow off, Greg, I had an important call. Not that it’s any of your business.”
The tart comment didn’t seem to ruffle him. “Didn’t