The Nest - Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney Page 0,27

Leo absorb this new bit of information. “I tried calling you, Leo,” she said. “Many times.”

“Right,” he said. “Okay.” This complicated things.

When Leo and Victoria were first engaged, shortly after he sold SpeakEasy and “went on sabbatical” (as he thought of it) and after she refused to consider a prenup, he’d opened an offshore account during one of their diving trips to Grand Cayman. He’d acted on a whim while she was off shopping. The account was perfectly legal, and although he’d planned on telling Victoria about it, he found himself not telling her. He thought of it as a little insurance, a private pension of sorts, maybe a way to keep some of his money protected in case of a stormy day. As his marriage began to deteriorate, he started bolstering the balance. One upside to the prodigious way he and Victoria spent money was that she stopped noticing where the money went. A few thousand here, a few thousand there; over the years it added up. He thought about the money all the time and the day he would just pick up and leave. What had kept him from doing it years ago was the hope that Victoria would tire of him first, fall in love with someone else and leave him so he could avoid a financially decimating divorce. When it became clear she never would (why couldn’t he have married someone just as beautiful but not so strategic?), he surrendered fully to the more libertine aspects of his life. He wasn’t sorry to see the diminishing balances on their joint accounts. So even though the accident had been a humiliating and unfortunate event, it had also—in a strange way—loosened him from the life he was already desperate to escape. For months he’d expected Victoria’s lawyers to find and triumphantly expose the funds, but nobody had. He had nearly two million dollars hidden away, almost exactly what he owed The Nest. He’d never touched a penny of the low-interest savings account; it was safe and sound. Liquid. If he replenished the fund to pay his siblings, his two million would be divided by four. The math hardly worked in his favor.

“I wish I had the money sitting somewhere and could write you all a check,” Leo said. He placed his palms flat on the table and leaned forward, looking each one of them straight in the eye. He hadn’t run a company for all those years without learning the art of a quick recalculation, without learning how to work a table. He still mostly needed to bide time. “But I don’t. I’m going to need some time,” Leo continued.

“How much time?” Melody said, a little too quickly.

“I wish I had the answer to that,” Leo said, as if having that answer was his most fervent desire on earth. “But I promise you this: I am going to start working immediately—and hard—to rebuild. I already have some ideas. I’ve already started making some calls.”

“What’s the plan?” Jack said. He wanted specifics. “Is there a way for you to borrow the money you owe us? Pay us off and owe somebody else?”

“Very possibly,” Leo said, knowing that his chances of getting anyone to lend him money at the moment were nil. “A lot of things are possible.”

“Like what else?” Jack said.

Leo shook his head. “I don’t want to throw out a lot of what-ifs and maybes.”

“Do you think you might have the money—or at least some of it—when we were expecting to get it?” Melody asked.

“In March?” Leo said.

“February. My birthday’s in February,” Melody said, too panicky over how the conversation was going to be indignant.

“I’m March,” said Bea.

“Right.” Leo beat out a little rhythm on the table with his thumb and pinkie. He looked like he was doing a complex equation in his head. They all waited. “How about this?” he finally said. “Give me three months.”

“To pay us?” Jack said.

“No, but to have a plan. A solid plan. I don’t think I’m going to need three months, but you know how tough financing is these days.” He directed his last comment at Jack. “You’re a business owner.” Jack nodded in solemn agreement. Bea suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. Leo. He really was full of shit. “And figure in the holidays, when it’s tough to pin people down. I think I need three months to come up with options,” he said. “Ideally, more than one option that will have you seeing full payment as soon as

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