by Grant, Pippa
“Also, I surrendered all parental and guardian rights to Remy. He’s one hundred percent Mr. Jaeger’s son now.”
God, my heart.
But I won’t subject either one of them to this anymore.
Or myself.
And I won’t use them as a crutch either.
I won’t let them be my easy family. The one that Julienne’s will gave me. They deserve more than me being there simply because they’re convenient, and they deserve better than me. The me I am today, anyway.
Even if I feel like there are icy daggers shredding into my chest and pecking away at my newly exposed heart.
Maybe I’ll never build skyscrapers in Hong Kong again. Maybe my line of spas for Carter International Properties will all close because the curtains are mango instead of cerulean.
Or whatever.
But I am not worthless.
And I won’t sit here and let her make me think I am for one more minute.
The Dame rises to her full height.
If she were truly an immortal highland vampire dragon, she’d spit fire out her nostrils and crack open her old lady shell to reveal her true form, an armor-plated flying cockroach.
“Daisy,” she whispers. “Oh my god, Daisy.”
My knees wobble, because she’s not breathing fire or using her powers of mind control to bend me double in pain.
Instead, she seems utterly gobsmacked.
In a lesser woman, I’d call her stricken.
“Go ahead,” I say, my voice quivering. “Disinherit me. I don’t care.”
She slowly shakes her head, eyes still wide. “You—Daisy—I could never actually—” She swallows, and all of her armor does crack.
But it’s not a beast who emerges.
It’s a broken, old, sad woman. “I’ve hurt you.”
“You’ve hurt a lot of people.”
“I—I merely wanted you to calm down. Not—”
I freeze. “You plagiarized Julienne’s will?”
“No! No. Of course not. That would be ridiculous. But when she told me she was naming you and Mr. Jaeger—”
“You knew Margot Roderick wanted to kill her?”
The Dame actually blanches. “She was so prone to exaggeration…and making enemies…”
I turn around and march toward the door. I don’t want to hear any more.
“I’ve always been so proud of you,” she says quietly behind me.
That should mean something. It should be everything I’ve worked my ass off for since I was twenty-one years old.
But what kind of a victory is it when I don’t want it anymore?
“Daisy. Stop,” she says. “You don’t have to quit.”
I ignore her.
I don’t remember what my employment agreement said. Probably something about indentured servitude for life in exchange for that twenty-five percent cut I asked for. Or something about losing a share in the company if I quit before a hundred and fifty years.
But I don’t care.
I have Bluewater. That’s mine. Mine, and Emily’s, and Luna’s, and Cam’s. She can’t take that from us.
I have my pool.
I have my yacht.
I have my mom.
I have my friends, who will undoubtedly tell me I’m a moron for sending West away, but I had to.
For his own good. For Remy’s own good.
I step back out into the sunshine, and I wait for the freedom to wash over me.
It doesn’t come.
Not washing, anyway.
But the tears do.
A month ago, I would’ve drowned myself in tequila and techno music at a club on the beach.
Today, I just want to go home.
Tiana and Alessandro surround me with a huge hug.
“I love you guys,” I whisper.
“We know. And we love you too.”
And that’s all it takes to finally break me.
Just a little bit of love.
This love, I might deserve.
But West’s?
He can do so much better.
Forty-Two
Daisy
Four days after the Weekend of Horror, as I’m officially calling it, I’m camped out in my pool house, contemplating not much of anything at all, because I am slobber-faced drunk.
I could go fry in the sun on a float in my pool, but I don’t want to.
I want to lay here.
On the cool tile floor.
With my boobs squished under me and a glass of something pink and beautiful just out of reach, even with the straw teasing me mere inches away.
I’m trying to extend my lips to reach it when the door slides open and the most fabulous pair of shoes ever stop just behind the glass.
Those fabulous shoes are followed by another pair of fabulous shoes, and one set of adorable bare feet.
“Oh, honey,” a soft voice says.
“I told you we should’ve come yesterday.”
“Her mom said she was fine.”
“Her mom was mistaken. Or possibly in denial. Did you see how puffy her eyes were? She’s just as upset as Daisy is. Maybe more so.”
“Oga aye,” I sigh against the floor.
I have no idea what it means, but it’s the sounds my mouth wants to make.
“Should we take her to the gym?”
“I don’t think she can walk on those shoes, much less work out in them today.”
“Maybe dunk her in the pool?”
“Jude’s just outside. If she starts to drown, he’ll leap in after her.”
“No pool,” I say. “Sun bad. Water bad. Want tequila.”
Emily’s face swims into view as she squats in front of me. She’s so pretty. I want to be pretty like Emily. “You need an intervention.”
“Can you do it while I’m sleeping?”
“Daisy, you poor thing.” Luna’s flowy, flowery skirt flares out on the ground beside my head, and she strokes my hair, which might be dangerous, since it’s entirely possible Steve has crawled in there to bask in the glorious filth of my ’do. “Is this your first heartbreak?”
“Have to have a heart for it to break.”
“Definitely time for the pool,” Cam says.
They’re joking, so I ignore them.
Except suddenly my arms and legs are being lifted, my skin is snick!-ing off the ground, and any hopes of getting that straw disappear.
The sun is bright.
And the water is a huge wake-up.
I sputter, my head spins, and I flail around for half a second before I surface. I’m still in my yellow Versace dress from four days ago. And I have half a mind to sink back into the water and let it carry all my troubles away.
“I miss my baby,” I whisper, and then I don’t know where my eyes start and the water ends, or something like that, because my eyeballs are leaking again.
“Well, duh. You love him.”
All three of my friends settle in at the edge of my pool, peeling off shoes and dropping their toes in the water.
Even Cam, who’s impeccably dressed in a business suit.
My friends are the best.
Except for the part where they’re making me cry.
Apparently I have a touch of the dramatic in me.
“Just because they were easy to love doesn’t mean they’re supposed to be mine to love,” I wail. I fling myself backward, but I don’t sink, because I have two giant life rafts permanently attached to my chest.
“That’s a good sign you’re a very good fit,” Luna says. “When you don’t think you should fit, but you can’t help yourself, and you can’t see your life without them ever again.”
“But it’s hard.” It is—it’s both easy and so, so hard. “And he’s gone.” I made Tiana tell me when she checked on me yesterday.
One of the times, anyway.
Apparently quitting my job doesn’t mean my personal staff will quit me.
My friends are oddly silent, and hope makes my heart leap. I tilt my head to look at th
em. “Is he still here? Are they still here?”
They share one of those should we tell her? looks, and Emily finally meets my eyes. “No. West and Remy aren’t here.”
Ah, tears again.
“Why, exactly, did you send them away again?” Cam asks.
“I don’t know how to do family, and I don’t want to fuck either of them up.” I clap a hand over my mouth.
I hate when the truth slips out.
“Excuse me, and what are we?” Luna asks.
“Chopped liver, obviously.” Emily smirks.
Cam heaves a melodramatic sigh. “Or dead tuna in her bed. Something she doesn’t want but can’t get rid of.”
“That’s not—you’re not—ugh.”
“I get it, Daisy,” Emily says softly. “Believe me, I do. But the thing is…you’re better than you give yourself credit for. You’re not your grandmother. You’re a kickass—”
“Big-hearted,” Luna interrupts.
“Brilliant,” Cam adds.
“Fucking vagillionaire who’s basically the biggest-hearted egg in the ovary at the top of this fallopian tube.”
“I’m a faaaaake,” I wail.
“Your entire department at Carter International walked off the job this week,” Emily says casually.
That has me scrambling for my feet, belatedly realizing I’m still in my stilettos, and wondering if that’ll leave a mark on the bottom of my dick pool. “What?”
“Yeah. They all said they won’t work directly for your grandmother.”
“Or any other dickstool she wants to replace you with.” Luna winks at me. “They only want to work for you.”
Oh, god.
Oh, god.
Everything is falling apart. “Those people need that money to pay their mortgages. And for insulin for their kids. And—”
And my three friends are sharing another look.
“What?”
Luna slides into the pool, dress and all, and grabs me in a hug. “Peopling is your superpower, Daisy. You’re like, The Motivator. People want to work for you.”
Cam taps her finger to her lips like she’s thinking. “And if peopling is your superpower…huh. One might even deduce that having family and loving someone is a natural extension of that.”
I freeze so hard the pool water gets frosty around me. “Of course I love West and Remy,” I whisper. “That’s why I sent them away.”
Except what was it West said?
I’ll screw up, Daisy. You’ll screw up. But we’ll forgive each other.
Forgiveness isn’t something my family does.
But that doesn’t mean I can’t.
“What do I do?” I ask my friends. “How do I fix this?”
“Step one is a hostile takeover at Carter International.” Cam rubs her hands together in glee.
Emily’s eyes light up. “Yes! I’d be shocked if Tiana hasn’t been fielding calls from the board all week, which is good. She’s badass too. Probably negotiating you a higher salary.”
“I don’t need more fucking money, I need my family back.”
“Oh, that.” Cam grins.
Emily grins bigger.
Luna squeezes me tight. “That’s my girl! But if you do get a higher salary, we have a few ideas of some things you can do with the extra money.”
“School supplies across America,” Cam says. “Teachers post their wishlists online. You could fulfill every one of their wishes.”
Emily nods. “Facials for the elderly. They deserve pampering too.”
“I mean, so do dogs,” Luna adds. “But since you already have dogs covered, I propose adding ice cream and frozen yogurt to your free-food-for-a-day rotation.”
I splash them all. “You guys know about that?”
“We know lots of things.” Luna squeezes me tighter. “And you’re going to be okay, Daisy. You’ll get through this.”
“I fucked up so bad.”
“We all do sometimes.”
“You ready to fix it?” Cam asks.
Am I? Can I?
“Signing over guardianship to West was the right thing to do,” I say slowly. “He’s so—so dependable. And solid. But fun. With so much love to give. I know he’ll treat Remy right. The way—”
The way he treated me.
Like I matter.
My hands are starting to shake. “I promised him I’d take care of him. And I thought I was taking care of him by stepping back. But now…I don’t know.”
“You need a cheeseburger,” Luna says sagely.
“And a solid round of kickboxing,” Emily adds.
Cam nods. “While jamming out to eighties music.”
A party with my best friends.
That does sound better than wallowing in my lady cave for the next three years.
“But you have to shower first,” Luna tells me. “And then we’ll help you find your footing again. Promise.”
Forty-Three
West
I miss being on missions, but right now, creeping through the sand, approaching a beach hut just after sunset entirely too close to Miami, getting ready to serve justice to an asshole of the nth degree, my heart isn’t in it.
My heart’s back in Miami. My entire heart.
I make eye contact with Jude.
He nods, and we split up. Him to the back. Me to the front. We’re both unarmed, but we’re plenty dangerous without traditional weapons.
I crouch in position between the door and the open window, waiting.
Doesn’t take long.
“Hey, ugly motherfucker,” Jude says inside. “It’s justice time.”
“What—who—fuck!”
Footsteps on the wood floor.
The bang of the door flying open.
A man darting out.
And I leap.
Takes me all of a half-second to have Anthony Roderick’s face shoved in the sand while I wrap his wrists. He’s gasping and spitting when I lift him and shove a gag in his mouth.
Jude joins me as I’m tossing the fucker over my shoulder. Doesn’t ask if this is him. Doesn’t have to. We’ve both been staring at his picture nonstop for days, and much as I swore I’d forget the one day I met him in person, back when I was doing Remy’s first nursery, I didn’t.
“Remember me?” I growl low. “You paid to have someone kidnap my son. And now you’re going to pay.”
He screams in terror, but it’s muffled behind the gag.
And I don’t feel a lick of remorse.
Thinks his money can buy his way out of trouble. That he’s above the law. Sitting here on a fucking beach, in a country that doesn’t give two shits that he’s here and wouldn’t extradite him even if they knew, probably cooking up another scheme to kidnap my boy and whisk him away here.
Am I breaking some kind of law?
Probably.
Do I care?
Not. One. Fucking. Bit.
Daisy won’t rest until this asshole is completely neutralized. I won’t fucking rest until this asshole is completely neutralized.
So we’re neutralizing him.
And yes.
My son.
In all the ways that count.
Our helicopter is at a makeshift landing zone three hundred yards away in a small clearing in the jungle. Jude leaps into the cockpit and starts the rotors.
I dump Anthony Roderick into the man-sized trunk behind the two seats.
And we lift off, heading over the Straights back to Florida, in a helicopter courtesy of Miami’s best vagillionaires, our flight very courteously being ignored by local air traffic controllers.
Guess it’s true.
Money can buy anything.
Even justice, occasionally.
The ride isn’t long, or high, and I climb in back to give Roderick some fresh air after we’ve sufficiently scared the fuck out of him.
He’s pale as a ghost.
Goes paler when I strap headphones onto his ears and let him know much dirt Derek’s company dug up
on him and sent over to the FBI.
Funny, the things Derek Price can find. Usually he cleans up people’s reputations. But being around people who need cleaning means he knows a thing or two about dirt.
I like the guy.
We land at the private Bluewater airstrip, and my nerves kick into high gear. My balls tell them to stand down, but it doesn’t help.
And no, I’m not nervous about the fact that I just kidnapped a criminal from a country without an extradition treaty. Nor am I nervous about dropping the fucker with a guy Jude knows who doesn’t ask any questions about where we found him, but who we can trust to make sure the asshole gets where he needs to be.
Jude drives me back to where I need to be. He offers a fist bump before I get out. “Nice job out there.”
“Ooh-rah. Where’d you learn to fly a helicopter?”
He grins. “Same place I learned to kick old ladies’ asses in shuffleboard.”
The liar follows me into the house—habit, probably.
It’s been ten days since Remy’s attempted kidnapping. Ten days too long to do what I need to do right now.
But we both need to see that Remy’s still safe.
And he is. Comfortably swinging and sleeping in the bright living room while Becca plays Angry Birds on her phone next to him.
She jumps up when we enter, her gaze going to me, then up, up, up to Jude. “Hey! You’re back. That was…quick.”
“Just lunch,” Jude says. “Windows locked?”
“Yes. Everyone’s safe.”
He nods, and without another word, turns and leaves.
“Thanks,” I say to Becca.
“Of course. Anytime.” She gnaws on her lower lip while I head over to kiss Remy. “Did you really go to lunch?”
“Yep.” Yesterday. To plot out today after we got intel on where Roderick was hiding.
“You just seem…different. Not…like you just got back from lunch.”
“Never know when a lunch is going to change your life.” I pull Remy out of his travel swing. He fusses and yawns, but he and I have somewhere to be.
“You’re really good with him.”
“He makes it easy. Thanks again for watching him. Catch you later?”
“Yeah.” I thank her once more before I grab Remy’s diaper bag and travel swing. This feels like goodbye.
In a good way.
I load Remy into my car, and we hit the road.
