Page 49 of Fake Dark Vows
“My mistake, I’m sorry.” He raises his hands in mock surrender, and the wide smile is back. “Forget I said anything. I’d best get back—wouldn’t want us both to disappoint our mother on the same day.”
Brandon is still in love with Kelly.
That’s what I tell myself as I hurry back to the house, head down, eyes filled with tears. I knew I’d sensed something between them the day I arrived. I was crazy to kiss him back in the cupboard, and even crazier to think that I’d cracked the shell and gotten a glimpse of what’s inside Brandon Weiss.
CHAPTER 17
Brandon
I knew I shouldn’t have come here. You take your finger off the pulse for a second, and the heart dies. Rookie mistake, and one I’ve managed to avoid until now.
The insider trading allegations will blow over—I won’t lose any sleep over them. The SEC will have a tough time trying to pin anything on me and make it stick, but the photographs are a problem. This kind of leak at the same time as the SEC investigation isn’t a coincidence—information like that doesn’t seep through cracks like water. It always has a source, and the source is always someone with a grudge.
Sam has done some digging and—surprise, surprise—found the connection between the Russo family and Wren. It turns out, Julia’s little sister is married to Carlos Russo’s youngest son. She wasn’t moving into that apartment, the place was a setup, and she didn’t even bother to hide the camera.
I trust Sam to work his magic and make the allegations go away, but the photographs… They’ll be all over the media by now if what Sam said was correct and Carlos Russo is behind the leak. Can I even trust Julia? No matter which way I look at this, I can’t help thinking that Julia was in on it all along. Who better to drip-feed information to a business rival than a personal assistant?
Seems Carlos Russo decided to scrap our mutual agreement to stay out of each other’s way without informing the other party.
So, why am I more worried about Rose seeing the pictures online before I have a chance to speak to her? I pushed her too far in the pantry—what is it these days with me and confined spaces? —and now she’s avoiding me. Or has she already seen the pictures?
When I spot Rose and Damon heading back to the house together, it all clicks into place. Damon told her about the photographs. He’d have gotten immense pleasure from watching her reaction and all because of a pointless wager.
Rose delivers my mother’s request for my presence at Small beach and scurries away with an excuse that she needs to fetch towels for the girls, as if my mother wouldn’t have catered for that eventuality.
The birthday meal drags.
Exquisite crystal bowls filled with crushed ice hold tiny dishes of caviar, crumbled egg yolk and egg white, finely chopped onion, and lemon slices. There’s a smoked salmon and prawn mousse decorated with sprigs of dill, snail croustades, and triangles of smoked eel. The main course is breast of quail on wild rice served with a julienne salad, and dessert is a Grand Marnier sabayon served with paper-fine tuiles decorated with edible flowers grown on Ruby Island.
No attention to detail has been spared. The décor in the dining room, in complete contrast to the flawlessly delicate food, is centered around the window focal point dressed in heavy velvet swags to replicate the stage curtains in a Broadway theater.
Rose sits with the children at a smaller table, where the food has been simplified to appeal to three children of kindergarten age. She keeps her back to the table. The pose might’ve gone unnoticed were it not for the straight spine and the lack of laughter we’ve already come to expect from the children when they’re in her company.
Damon, on the other hand, is in fine form.
“I was convinced the snow globe would win us the treasure hunt,” he says to April, who has a spot of caviar on her chin that no one has told her about. Including my charming brother.
Jennifer raises her glass to me in a private toast. She’s an art connoisseur—she would’ve recognized the snow globe’s tackiness in a heartbeat, and Damon’s over-inflated ego wouldn’t have allowed him to see through her enthusiastic encouragement.
“Never mind,” April says. “You’ll save yourself some money staying away from Vegas.”
Damon turns his back on her just enough to deter any further conversation, but not enough for our mother to comment on his lack of manners. “Are you a betting kind of gal?” he asks Jennifer, leaning a fraction too close to her low-cut neckline and the string of black pearls around her neck.
Across the table, Kelly swallows a mouthful of wine and pushes the food around her plate.
“Only if I’m guaranteed to win.”
Damon aims a sly glance in my direction. “A thousand bucks says my brother will get drunk in Vegas and conned into marrying some gold-digger in a Madonna outfit.”
Jennifer sets her glass down on the table and offers Damon her hand. “This is your brother you’re talking about, right?”
Damon shrugs and shakes her hand. “It’s gonna happen one day.”
“Oh no.” Jennifer’s fingertips barely brush his before she snatches them away. “Open-ended bets are a no-go. Put your money where your mouth is and set a time limit.”
“Two weeks,” Damon says without wasting a beat.
I sit through the opening of gifts ceremony, smiling in all the right places, and accepting my father’s thanks when he realizes that he’ll get to be the laird of a real Scottish castle for a few days. The conversation veers from there to my parents’ introduction to Scottish actor Alan Cumming at a charity event, and I zone out when Uncle Bill mentions that they must visit the whiskey distillery during their visit.