“Oh sure, asshole, just give away all my secrets,” Titus joked. “Anyway. Laurel, pack up the rest of those papers and meet us there with the keys. Yeah?”
I nodded, gathering them up, marking the page we left off on with a yellow sticky note, and sliding them into a folder. “Sure thing. I’ll head over and unlock everything.”
Titus grinned at me. “You’re the best, Laurel. Thanks for putting this together so fast.”
Jeremy shook his head. “Still not sure what the rush was.”
Titus ignored that. Checked his watch. “What are Bex and the kids up to, Jer?”
Jeremy shrugged. “At home, probably. Breakfast, cleaning their rooms, watching TV. Why?”
“Well, the house has a pool. I thought maybe the kids would like to go for an inaugural swim.”
Jeremy made a face. “Huh. I mean, shit, sure they would. But brother, you gotta know once those kids get into that pool, you won’t ever get them out. I mean, ever. And I won’t ever hear the end of it.” His voice took on a fake, high-pitched whining tone. “‘Daddy, can we go to Uncle Titus’s? I wanna swim.’” An eye roll. “They’re monsters, man. Half fish, I swear to god. Just so you’re aware what you’re opening yourself up to.”
Titus just grinned. “They’re always welcome at Uncle Titus’s.” He made a shooing motion at Jeremy. “Get your wife on the phone, man. Have her meet us there.”
I suppressed my laughter. He was so devious. Not a hint of anything other than friendliness. Jeremy slid his phone from an inside pocket of his suit coat, dialed a number, and walked over to the far side of the conference room, had a brief, murmured conversation. I shot a quick grin at Titus, who just winked at me.
Jeremy returned to the table, shoving his phone into his suit c oat again. “Well, they’re getting their suits on and heading over. I hope you know what you’re doing, man.”
Titus clapped his hands onto his thighs and stood up. “Let’s go, then.”
I glanced at Linda on the way out. “I guess I’ll bring the paperwork back over later.”
She just grinned dazedly at Titus as he swaggered out. “Okay.”
I snapped my fingers at her. “Pull your tongue in, Linda.”
She shook her head. “Sorry, what? I was daydreaming.”
I laughed. “Trust me, I get it. I said, he wants to finish signing at the house, so I’ll bring the papers back over after.”
“Oh, sure.” She gave one last longing look after Titus as he climbed up into his truck. “I was just telling my husband the other day that Titus is the only celebrity on my hall pass list. I love my husband, but if Titus Bright propositioned me, I’m not sure I could say no.”
I just laughed. “You would say no. You love Bert too much.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. Titus Bright is Titus Bright. And there’s no one like Titus Bright.”
Honey, you have no fucking clue, I didn’t say. She just might kill me out of pure jealousy if I told her I’d had sex with the man she was jokingly half in lust with. I waved goodbye at her as I headed for my car.
Not long later, we were pulling into the driveway, Titus’s big truck first, my little Aston Martin second, and a white Chrysler Pacifica a minute or two later. Titus climbed out, gesturing at my car. “Sweet little ride. I wouldn’t have pegged you for a classic’s kind of girl. I pictured you driving, like, a pink jeep like Barbie or some shit. A Range Rover, at the very least.”
I rolled my eyes. “I loathe pink. I may look like Barbie, but I’m not.” I closed my door and headed for the front door. “I actually used to drive a Range Rover. It was big and black and powerful. I hated parking it, hated driving it, never used the back seat, rarely used the cargo space, and paid way too much for it. So I sold it and bought this.”
“Hot girl, hot car.” Titus’s eyes raked over me—even hidden behind his sunglasses, I could feel his eyes on my body.
“Quit harassing the realtor,” Jeremy said.
“I’m not harassing,” Titus retorted. “I’m complimenting.”
At that moment, the doors of the minivan all opened at once, and children spilled out, yelling, laughing excitedly, chattering in overlapping cacophony, followed by a short, curvy, beautiful, and very pregnant Hispanic woman, who was scolding the kids in a fast and complicated mixture of Spanish and English, snapping orders and corralling them with remarkable efficiency. There were only four kids, but the noise level and energy level made it feel like there was double that number.
Three girls, one boy. The boy was oldest, looked to be nine or so, with the girls at around seven, five, and three. Jeremy headed over and scooped up the youngest, and in the process transformed from serious businessman to an adoring, affectionate father.
“Hey, Monkey!” he said, kissing the girl until she squealed and batted at him.
“Too many kisses, Daddy!” She grabbed his face in both hands and did her dead level best to stop him. “We goin’ swimmin’, Daddy!”
“I know,” Jeremy answered, setting her down and pointing at Titus, who was watching with a curiously, carefully blank expression. “We’re gonna say thanks to Uncle Titus, right?”
Titus unfroze, a smile blooming on his face as he knelt to get face-to-face with the youngest girl. “Well, you can’t very well say thanks when you haven’t even seen the pool yet, right? Come on, ya’ll. Laurel, you got the keys?”
“Sure do!” I was suddenly the focus of several pairs of eyes. “Who wants to go swimming?”
The middle girl, five or six at my best guess, came up to me. “Are you a princess?”
I snorted. “Would it make me cooler if I said yes?”
“Not if it isn’t true,” she answered, not a hint of humor on her face.
“Well, I wouldn’t lie to you, so…no. But, I did go to school with an actual princess. Her name is so long I can’t even pronounce half of it.”
“You knew a real live princess?” This was the oldest girl—the boy, who my estimate was revising upward to be more like eleven or twelve, just watched without expression. “That is so cool! What was she like?”
I smirked. “The truth is, she was kinda snooty. But her sister, the duchess, was pretty cool. She and I used to steal…uh, I mean, buy—candy together after school.”
My slip had been caught; the middle girl frowned at me. “You stole candy?”
I sighed. “I did. And it was very wrong of me. But the part that’s so funny about it is the duchess’s family had so much money they could have bought the whole town the store was in. And here’s their youngest daughter stealing two buck’s worth of candy.” I led the procession up to the porch, and the front door. “Enough about me. I need to know your names.”
Jeremy’s wife was ambling up the stairs, carrying a giant bag full of pool toys. “My boy here, his name is Emmanuel. If you can get him to say two words together, he’d say to call him Manny.” She pointed at each of the girls in turn. “Kenzie is next, and miss honesty here is Luisa, and my little princess is Violet.” She huffed, wiping at her forehead. “I’m Bex.”
“Laurel McGillis. Nice to meet you, Bex, Emmanuel, Kenzie, Luisa, and Violet.” I pushed the door open and held the storm door, gesturing inside. “After you. Take a look around.”
Titus was last through the door, pausing beside me. “You ready for this? Jeremy’s gonna shit himself, and I’m guessing Bex is gonna cry like a baby.” He was eager, excited—vibrating with energy.
“You’re really having fun, aren’t you?”
He nodded. “Yup. Giving people crazy gifts is my favorite thing.” He winked at me. “Besides the obvious, that is.”
“Really? I mean about the gifts, not the obvious.”
He shrugged. “Sure. It’s my own personal therapy. My dad was a real dick to me, all growing up. Like, he’d alternate between kicking my ribs in and acting like I wasn’t there. A few years ago, I bought him a condo down in Mexico for him to live in full time. Bonus for me is, now he’s thousands of miles away f
rom me. My mom wasn’t much better, so I bought the entire business franchise she worked for and gave it to her. My brother? Same deal. He used to beat me up and give me wedgies and all that shit, make fun of me for being into playing guitar and violin and shit, so when his life took a shit, I paid for his divorce, settled his legal bills, and sent him to the Bahamas for a month.” He waved a hand as we moved into the kitchen and watched Bex overseeing the kids as they fought over who got the unicorn float and who had to settle for the donut one, while Jeremy was tasked with blowing them up the old-fashioned way. Titus was still grinning. “Best one was my old producer. He was the mastermind behind the whole scam to cheat me out of millions of dollars. He’d made sure he pocketed it all. Well, when the whole fiasco came to light, he lost everything. His wife left him, he had to pay me back in full, I got the masters back, his whole label went under, he was fuckin’ ruined. Only reason he avoided jail time was because I asked the judge for leniency. Once the dust settled, he was dead-ass broke, and I mean like he was damn near homeless.”
I watched him, surprised at this. “So what’d you do?”
“Hired him as a roadie. He sets up equipment, cleans up after the show is done, all that. I bought him a car and paid for an apartment for three years out.”
“He cheated you out of millions of dollars. And you hire him?”
“Oh, we keep an eye on him. But he’s honest, now. He was living over his head, trying to keep his greedy-ass wife in Birkins and Bentleys.”
“Why, though?”
“Why do that for people who hurt me?” he asked, clarifying; I nodded. “I spent years hating my family. Listen to the early stuff Bright Bones put out, you can hear it. That’s years and years of hate and anger and daydreaming of revenge. But it was fuckin’ exhausting, living like that. And then I found Tommy dead, and that just…” He shrugged, swallowing hard. “That changed me. And I read somewhere, while I was down in Rio, that the best revenge you can get on people who hurt you is to not let them see you hurting, to just succeed where they tried to make you fail. I took it a step further, figuring maybe the best revenge is to kill ’em with kindness. And that shit burns, Laurel. They don’t expect it. They don’t know how to handle it. It really chaps their ass, and watching ’em squirm is funny shit.” He gestured at the happy family out by the pool. “This? This is gonna be the best one yet. Jeremy saved my ass, for real. He’s a legit angel from heaven, and the hell he and Bex have overcome to get where they are is just unbelievable. Inspirational shit, I’m tellin’ ya. That motherfucker out there clawed his ass out of the hood and into not one but two Ivy League universities, and graduated top of his class from both—and that’s a man with bullet holes hiding under that suit. Legit. He could be at the top of a Fortune Five Hundred company, if he wanted, yet he keeps slumming it with my ass. I tried firing him so he’d get a real job, but he kept showing up, so…” A shrug. “Guess I’m stuck with him, fortunately for me.”
“When are you going to tell them?” I asked.
“Right now.” He put two fingers in his mouth and whistled sharply. “Jer, Bex! Come here, a sec.”
Jeremy tossed the last inflated pool float into the water, over his oldest daughter’s head like a game of ring toss, and headed in.
Bex glanced at Emmanuel. “Manny, cuida a tu hermana, sí?” She pointed at Violet, the youngest, who was splashing gleefully on the top step, wearing bright orange floaties on her arms, and pink Rainbow Brite swim goggles on her face.
“Yes, Mama,” Emmanuel said, sitting at the edge of the pool, lazily kicking his feet in the water.
I brought out the folder of paperwork and set aside the unfinished portion, set a pen on top. Jeremy and Bex leaned on the other side of the kitchen island from Titus and me. Titus still had his sunglasses on; he slid them off and tucked the arm over the neck of his tank top. Spent a silent moment looking from Jeremy to Bex.
“You got something to say, T?” Jeremy said. “You’re worrying me.”
Titus laughed. “Nothing to worry about. I just want you to do something for me.”
Jeremy nodded, answering immediately, without hesitation. “Anything.”
Titus turned the stack of papers around, slid them across the island. “Sign these.”
Jeremy frowned. “T…”
Titus arched an eyebrow. “You said anything. What I want is for you and Bex to both sign those. Don’t read ’em, don’t ask questions, just fuckin’ scribble your names on ’em where Laurel has the fun little sticky note arrows.”
Bex shook her head. “What do I gotta sign for?”
Titus sighed. “Did I not just say don’t ask questions? Jesus. For smart people, you sure are havin’ a hard time with this.”
The dime was dropping, I could tell.
Jeremy slowly took the stack of papers and pulled them closer, picked up the pen, and signed his name, handed the pen to Bex. For the next minute or so, all was silent except the scratch of the pen and the rustle of turning papers.
Done, Jeremy pushed the stack of signed documents back toward Titus. “There. Now what’s this about?”
My throat felt oddly tight. I ignored it.
Titus glanced at me. “Got the keys?”
I nodded, produced the two brass keys from my purse. Placed them side by side on the counter in front of Jeremy and Bex.
Jeremy stared at them as if they’d attempted to come to life. “Titus. The fuck is this?”
Titus shrugged. “Those are your house keys.”
Bex blinked rapidly. “Our house keys.” She glanced around at the kitchen. “Keys to…to this house?”
“Well yeah,” Titus said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Duh. Your house. This house—it’s your house.” He tapped the papers with a thick, ring-heavy forefinger. “You just took ownership of it. You own it, free and clear, forever.”
Jeremy was swallowing hard. “Come on, man. Quit playin’.”
Titus just smiled. “You know I don’t play, Jer.”
Jeremy swallowed again, blinked hard, turned to look at his kids—Emmanuel had finally forgotten to be cool and was in the pool playing with his youngest sister on the top step, while the other girls splashed each other and took turns trying to do a bigger cannonball.
He looked back to Titus, and now a tear was trickling down. “Our lease is up on Monday.”
Titus nodded. “Yeah.”
“You know we were saving for a down payment.”
Titus nodded again. “I know I pay you enough you could afford this yourself.” He did a head-tilt-shrug movement. “But I know a few other things, too. I know you been paying down your student loans, and I know you send several grand a month to Bex’s family in Venezuela, and I know you pay for your mom’s dialysis. You two won’t ever spend on yourselves, so…” he shrugged, gestured with a broad sweep of both long arms at the house around us, “here we are.”
Bex was sniffling. “My cousin was in a car accident, and he was the main earner for my family, so—”
“Bex, I know.” Titus smiled at her. “You two been living in that little three-bedroom ranch with all these crazy-ass kids for too long. You deserve more. Now, you got more.” He pointed at Bex’s belly, which looked like it was about to pop any second. “With five kids, three bedrooms ain’t gonna cut it. Now each kid gets their own room. Have you checked out the shower yet? It’s got, like, fifty different settings. Gonna need that Harvard degree to figure that shit out, bro.”
Jeremy and Bex were exchanging looks. “How can we ever thank you, Titus?” Jeremy said, his voice quiet, low.
“Don’t.” Titus was watching Luisa with special intensity as she did a running belly flop. “Just enjoy it. You do enough, for me, and for others.” He glanced at Jeremy. “Don’t think I don’t know what you do Sunday mornings, bro.”
Bex glanced at Jeremy. “What? What do you Sunday mornings?”
Jeremy hissed. “Goddamn, man. I was keeping that on the DL.”
Titus l
aughed. “He’s going back to his old hood and fixing up houses. He puts bars on windows, replaces carpet, fixes stairs, puts in new windows, new appliances, shit like that.”
Bex was frowning at him. “Why you didn’t tell me?” She whacked his arm. “You told me you were playing ball with friends.”
“I do play ball,” Jeremy said. “After I do other stuff.”
Bex rattled something off in Spanish, and Jeremy replied, more slowly and with a distinct American accent, but in otherwise passable Spanish.
Bex crossed her arms and rolled her eyes, muttering something that sounded like, “macho asshole got a heart too big for his stupid head.”
Titus glanced at his watch. “Well, I gotta go.”
Jeremy frowned. “Where? You don’t have anything on your schedule today.”
Titus winked at me and slid his sunglasses on, pushing away from the island. “I do now.” He pointed at me. “This lady needs brunch. Her stomach is growling like crazy over here.”
I stared at him. “It is not.” And cue my stomach gurgling so loud they probably heard it in Orange County. “I have to take this paperwork back to the office.”
“No problem.” He twirled his keys around a finger. “How about I meet you at your office and we go from there. There’s this great food truck down in Santa Monica that has the best fuckin’ spicy-ass tacos.”
Bex arched an eyebrow at him. “Not better than my spicy-ass tacos, I hope.”
Titus went around the island and wrapped her up in a brotherly hug, swaying side to side with her. “Of course not. Your spicy-ass tacos are the gold standard against which all others are measured.”
“What I thought,” Bex mumbled. “Thank you, Titus. You’re too good to us.”
“Nah, just good enough.” He let her go and did a man-hug with Jeremy, who mumbled something muffled against Titus’s shoulder. “I got you, Jer. No worries.” He ambled for the door, pausing to shoot a look at me. “You comin’ or what, Laurel? I’m hungry.”
Laurel's Bright Idea (Billionaire Baby Club Book 3) Page 9
