Sophie (The Boss Book 8)

by Abigail Barnette

  “Amal, didn’t you and Rashida pick out Molly’s room for her stay?” El-Mudad tried—and failed—to sound pleasant enough that everyone would forget the huge argument we’d just interrupted. “Maybe you could show her to it and give her a tour of the house?”

  “I would, but I have so much homework,” Amal said pointedly. “And my dad is strict.”

  She stalked into the house, leaving El-Mudad to call after her. When she didn’t answer, he turned back to us. “Again, I apologize.”

  “I fight with my mom all the time,” Molly excused him. “We didn’t for a while because I could have died, but now that I’m not going to, we’re back in it.”

  I hoped they hadn’t fought about anything having to do with this trip. The last thing I wanted was to drive a wedge between Sasha and me.

  “Come on,” I said with an encouraging smile. “Let me give you a tour of the house. And you can meet Rashida and Olivia.”

  “What about my stuff?” Molly asked, pointing to the second cart headed our way.

  “We have housekeeping staff that will take it to your room,” El-Mudad explained.

  Her gaze cut to me. “Okay, so, you live in a hotel.”

  “We live…” I searched my mind for some kind of justification. “...in the manner to which my husbands are accustomed.”

  “That sounded like a Brontë character’s dialogue,” Molly pointed out.

  I grimaced. “Let’s just show you around, okay?”

  We entered through the front door, and Molly looked straight up. The octagonal space rose the house’s full two stories. Windows gently illuminated it with golden light from the late afternoon sun.

  “Your entryway is as big as our whole house,” she marveled. It was a bit of an over-exaggeration, but I didn’t correct her. I remembered how it had felt going to Neil’s penthouse for the first time when I had still been under the impression that all New York apartments were tiny. This would have blown my mind.

  The formal living room and dining room likewise stunned her. She stood at the windows gazing out at the sea view. Her gaze dropped to the terraced lawn below. “I can’t believe you have a pool when the ocean is right there.”

  “There aren’t sharks in the pools,” I reminded her.

  “Pools?” She emphasized the plural.

  “There’s an indoor one on the lower level,” I explained.

  She rolled her eyes, and our resemblance struck me even harder than before. “You can say basement, Sophie. It’s not poor.”

  That struck me, too, in the wrong way. “Oh, I don’t say that because I want to sound rich. I just don’t think it counts as a basement. Although, technically, it kind of is a walk-out basement. I’m just used to that word meaning ‘dirt hole with a water heater in it.’”

  She nodded, but I couldn’t tell if she accepted my reasoning or if she still thought I was a big ole snob.

  “Come on. I have to show you the most important room.” If anything made us appear grounded and routine, it was our kitchen.

  Or, maybe not. It looked a lot different when I stepped inside, way too big and roomy and, yes, bigger than the trailer I’d grown up in. The copper ceiling was a little “too much” suddenly. And why did we have a pasta arm? Was the sink super deep? Did the stools at the island need to be tan leather with brass embellishments?

  “Hi, Neil!” Molly said, alerting me to his presence.

  “Molly, welcome!” He straightened from where he’d been leaning over the table, helping Rashida with her homework. “How was your flight?”

  “Amazing. I watched TV with my feet up the whole time.” She beamed at him, so clearly, she wasn’t as ready to construct a guillotine on the lawn as I’d feared.

  “Molly, this is Rashida, our—” Neil stumbled over his sentence. “Friend El-Mudad’s daughter.”

  “Friend,” Rashida said, making air quotes.

  “Where are you guys from?” Molly asked. “Your sister and you both have accents but not like…”

  “Not scary ones?” Rashida joked. “We’re from France.”

  “Ugh, I want to go to France so bad,” Molly lamented.

  This was a much better exchange than we’d had with Amal.

  “Did you see your room already?” Rashida asked, pushing back her chair. “I can show you.”

  Neil bent his head and said sternly, “Will this algebra finish itself?”

  “Will she benefit from your help with algebra?” I asked with a snort before I could stop myself from undermining his parental authority.

  With a beleaguered sigh, he assented. “All right. But we will finish this before dinner, so don’t be long.”

  Rashida and Molly left together, the former telling the latter, “All the rooms on the first floor are taken, so you have to be upstairs. But those are nice, too.”

  When the door closed behind them, I turned to Neil and whispered, “God, I hope they didn’t pick a room we’ve had sex in.”

  He frowned, eyes cast upward as he pretended to think. “Is there a room we haven’t had sex in?”

  I gave him a playful push. “At least one of the girls was nice to her.”

  “Judging from the timing of your arrival, any lack of politeness on Amal’s part stemmed from other sources,” he said dryly.

  “Yeah, we saw. What were they fighting about?” I wondered aloud. “I mean, it’s not any of my business, but it seemed pretty serious.”

  Neil seemed unconcerned. “I’m sure we’ll find out in our post-game wrap-up.”

  The post-game wrap-up was the affectionate moniker we’d given to our evening chats about what was happening with the girls. Often, I spent that time painting my toenails, only stepping in to offer the perspective of someone who had once been a teenage girl, herself. “I know Amal didn’t mean to make things awkward. But damn, that was awkward. A lot of stuff has been awkward today.”

  “Oh?"

  “For one, I forgot how our house and our cars and jets and helicopters might look to someone working class.”

  “We don’t have jets and helicopters,” Neil said breezily. “We have a jet and a helicopter.”

  “That’s one more jet and one more helicopter than most people. And that’s not even true anymore. El-Mudad has at least one plane. Maybe more.” He was mind-bogglingly richer than Neil could ever dream of being. “I guess I’m going to be writing another wealthy person guilt check, huh?”

  “As long as you don’t overwhelm poor June at the food bank again,” he said sternly.

  So, I’d accidentally saddled a volunteer treasurer with a huge donation that had incredibly stressed her out and given her an asthma attack that had sent her to the hospital. “That was my bad. But I hired the accountant for them, didn’t I?”

  “That was something I’ve meant to talk to you about,” he said, which was never a great sign.

  “Can you talk while we change my sticker?” I gestured to my shoulder, where my glucose monitor sensor should have been attached to my upper arm.

  “Already?” He lifted his eyebrows.

  “Just a day early. I accidentally pulled the tape off in the shower this morning, and then I hit it getting into the car. Bloop, came right off." I shrugged.

  “Oh, Sophie,” he groaned. “You know I hate doing that.”

  “I know. But El-Mudad isn’t available, and you are. If we do it now, it won’t cut into grown-up alone time tonight.” Not that it took a long time to do it. “Come on. This way, I won't have to poke my finger before dinner. And you’ll be distracted by whatever you’re going to scold me for.”

  I moved toward the door, and he followed me begrudgingly. “I’m not going to scold you.”

  “You’re not going to tell me I’m going overboard like at Target?” I hoped that wasn’t the case. El-Mudad and Neil had both promised they were okay with me donating as much money as I wanted, even if it surpassed any possible tax benefit. “Don’t worry. The financial guy said he would limit me if I endangered your fortune.”
>
  “Dale will always think we’re endangering our fortune. That’s his job. But that isn’t my concern. We have plenty of money.”

  Plenty. Too much, once the pitchforks came out. But trying to convince a billionaire who’d grown up with billionaire parents of that was a difficult task.

  All the supplies for my glucose monitor were in a big, pretty box El-Mudad had given me to keep things organized and still match the bathroom. However, the sharps container on the wall was still red plastic, which irritated him but was required by our contract with the housekeeping service. I took the teak crate to the bedroom while Neil washed his hands.

  I took off my blouse, squirted some hand sanitizer, and opened the new sensor packaging to get it ready for the applicator.

  “I don’t know why you won’t even consider one of those ninety-day set-ups,” Neil grumbled as he emerged, wiping his hands with a paper towel.

  “Because I don’t want something I can’t move. I like to be able to cover it up.” He knew how I felt about disclosing my disease to the whole world.

  Ugh. Disease. I hated that word.

  “It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” he reminded me. “Maybe that’s another charitable endeavor you could pursue. The Sophie Scaife Foundation for Needlessly Embarrassed Diabetics.”

  “Haha. But you don’t get how our society views people with type two diabetes. It’s the ultimate failure to some people. It’s a sign that you have no self-control.” My shoulders slumped. “I wish I didn’t have to remind you of this all the time.”

  “You’re right, you’re right,” he agreed, chastened. “It just hurts me to see you tormented over this. You didn’t fail. Your pancreas did. And that’s why I think you might consider turning your philanthropic efforts toward education efforts, raising awareness—”

  “Buying people insulin because the price is criminally high?” I picked up the applicator and slid in the sensor. “Okay, we’re ready to go.”

  Neil visibly shuddered. Placing a new sensor wasn’t that big a deal. All he had to do was hold the applicator against my skin, press two buttons, and inject a long ass needle into my arm. Total non-issue. It wasn’t the needle or the possibility of bleeding that bothered him but the notion that he might cause me pain.

  I couldn’t help but shake my head. “You get off on causing me way worse pain than this.”

  “You get off on worse pain than this,” he retorted. “But this is decidedly non-sexual.”

  “Well, just remember all the disgusting stuff I did for you when you had cancer,” I said with a snort.

  He grew suddenly serious. “I do, Sophie. I will never take that for granted.”

  I leaned over for a kiss and pressed an alcohol wipe into his hand. “Cyborg me, baby.”

  “Promise you’ll think about throwing some money at the disease that’s currently causing you so much grief.” He tore open the packet and swabbed the cold antiseptic over my skin. “I hope that doing so will alleviate some of your nonsensical guilt.”

  He was right. It probably would make me feel better to do something other than wallowing in self-pity because I could no longer eat a whole roll of raw cookie dough in one sitting.

  “Neil? Sophie? Molly is looking for you.” El-Mudad pointed over his shoulder with his thumb as he entered the room.

  “Oh good, you’re here.” Neil stood and snapped off his gloves. “My hero.”

  El-Mudad sighed in amusement. “I’ve seen you cane her bloody.”

  “And that, as I have told you both many times now, is a completely different set of circumstances.” Neil stood and brushed his hands together and stepped aside.

  “Let me go scrub in,” El-Mudad said and headed off to the bathroom.

  “I’ll find Molly. We can discuss dinner options,” Neil said and left before El-Mudad returned.

  The water turned off in the bathroom, and a moment later, El-Mudad emerged. He glanced around and laughed. “He’s gone already?”

  “Yup. My illness grosses him out.” My mind grabbed my sentence, and depression steered it right to the dark place. I shook my head. “Sorry. That was—”

  El-Mudad sat beside me on the bed and pulled on some gloves. “He is not grossed out by your illness. He just doesn’t like causing you pain.”

  I opened my mouth to argue, but El-Mudad didn’t let me get a chance.

  “And don’t say he loves to cause you pain. It isn’t the same, and you know it. Even if I tease him about it.” He opened a new alcohol wipe. “Arm this time?”

  “Yup.”

  “Give me the thing.”

  I handed over the applicator. “Locked and loaded.”

  “Thank you.” He took it from me carefully. “I’m sorry your sister had to see my fight with Amal.”

  “I’m pretty sure she’s seen fights before.” It hadn’t been the ideal welcome I’d hoped she’d receive, but there was nothing to be done about it now. “What was this one about?”

  “Let’s save it for another time,” he said with a long exhale. “My blood pressure only just returned to normal. Okay, three, two, one.”

  I winced in anticipation, though I’d gotten used to the jab now. It was way better than pricking my fingers several times a day. The mechanism clicked, and the needle was in.

  “No blood this time?” I asked, peering backward over my shoulder as if I would be able to see it. I rolled my arm inward toward my body to try and catch a glimpse.

  “Not this time,” he reassured me. “Come on. Let’s see what we’re having for dinner. I’m a little bit worried Neil would try to obtain moose steaks. He struggles to understand the Yooper way of life.”

  We heard the activity in the kitchen before we even opened the door. Loud peals of girlish laughter battered through the walls. Inside, the echo was nearly unbearable.

  Molly, Rashida, and Amal crowded around the island. Three cupboard doors were open, and an irresponsible amount of snack food was on the counter.

  “Hey, guys,” I said casually, though I bristled at the idea of them consuming so much sugar and starch before dinner. That’s it. You’re officially old. But I couldn’t help myself. I kept imagining what the stomachache was going to be like.

  “Rashida and Amal said it was okay,” Molly said quickly, setting down a bag of Cheetos.

  “Since when do we have all of this?” El-Mudad asked, approaching the pile of junk food. He picked up a bag of miniature Reese’s cups and gave me a sharp look.

  “Since your daughters started filling out grocery list addendums for the staff.” I held up my hands defensively. “That’s not mine.”

  “Don’t make yourselves sick. That’s all I ask.” El-Mudad opened the bag and pulled out a handful.

  Amal’s enthusiasm had taken a nosedive the moment her father entered the kitchen. “I’m going to my room.”

  “You’re still hanging out with us tonight, right?” Molly called after Amal as she stalked toward the dining-room door.

  Amal turned back and shot her a smile. “Of course. See you at dinner.”

  Had they made plans?

  Rashida gave her dad a critical look. “What did you do to her now?”

  “I didn’t do anything,” he protested, then, seemingly remembering he was a father, took a stern tone. “And it’s none of your business what your sister and I are arguing about. Tend your own garden, as Neil would say.”

  “Have either of you seen Neil?” I asked

  Rashida gestured to the candy and chips scattered across the island. “Who do you think told us to get all this out?”

  “And he’s ordering ice cream in for us tonight.” Molly’s eyes boggled. “I didn’t even know you could order in ice cream.”

  “Grubhub is amazing,” I said weakly, knowing full well that he’d probably send someone off to bring over-the-top desserts on dry ice from miles and miles away. “So, you guys are....”

  “We’re having a slumber party,” Rashida said, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “It was Amal’s
idea to welcome Molly.”

  “Was it?” That was a surprise. Usually, a fight with her father would result in Amal retreating to her room and not speaking to anyone, not even her sister. I was going to have to thank her big time for making Molly feel so included.

  On the other hand, Molly had just arrived, and already she was going off and having adventures without her big sister?

  She must have read my slight disappointment. “You can hang with us if you want to.”

  I shook my head. The smile I gave her was rooted deeply in my need to avoid anything that could make me feel old. Trying to pretend I understood their references to Korean pop would have been excruciating for my ego. “I want you guys to get to know each other. Molly’s going to NYU in the fall, so we’ll be seeing a lot more of her, I hope.”

  “Well, yeah. You’ll be my nearest family,” Molly pointed out, and the word hit me square in the chest. She considered me family. I wasn’t sure the rest of my half-siblings did yet, or ever would.

  “I’m going to be a buzzkill,” El-Mudad warned them, “and tell you to put all of this nonsense back until after dinner. It’s not that far away.”

  “And hide it,” I added. “I don’t need to know where to find all of this when I’m bored.”

  Chapter Seven

  I’d never been quite so nervous as when the weekend of the visitation-that-was-not-to-be arrived.

  “Do you think we’ll need security?” I asked softly, watching as our staff loaded the girls’ things into the back of El-Mudad’s roomy Range Rover.

  “They’ll be close,” Neil promised. “Though, I don’t think Laurence would become violent.”

  “At least, not with us,” I said grimly, under my breath.

  El-Mudad exited the house behind us. “Well, the girls are running late, as usual.”

  Sometimes, he said things like that with fondness. Today, we had a deadline, and all of us were keyed up.

  Neil checked his watch. “If Olivia sees Valerie’s car—”

  El-Mudad took Neil’s hand and lifted it to his lips for a reassuring kiss. He held on even as he let their hands drop. “She won’t. I promise you.”

  “I’m not sure it would matter,” I said, trying for some kind of bright side. “I mean, seeing Queen Elsa live on stage? I don’t think even the promise of a weekend at grandma’s house could lure her away from that.”