“Right. The new resort. It’s gonna be a big deal.”
She nodded as if she cared. “What do you hear about them?”
“You mean like divorce rumors?”
“No, not necessarily. It’s just that Dawn has been surprisingly difficult to work for.”
He shrugged, more interested in the fact that his burger had arrived.
Charlie pressed harder. “We were good friends in high school, but she seems sort of...odd now.”
“Odd how?”
“Odd like she’s watching me every second. She seems paranoid that I’m going to do something that will ruin her life.”
He shrugged again. “Seems logical,” he said past a mouthful of beef.
“What the hell? What do you mean it seems logical?”
“You helped your last employer embezzle money, right?”
Her jaw dropped. She couldn’t believe this. Not from her own brother. “Are you kidding me, Brad? Is that what you think? I didn’t do anything wrong. I was cleared in pretrial, for God’s sake.”
“Yeah, I get that. But everyone knows you turned a blind eye.”
/> “I did not! Maybe I trusted the wrong people. Fine. I was an idiot. But I didn’t do anything to help them, and I didn’t ignore anything!”
Brad rolled his eyes. “Fine. I apologize, but you still can’t blame Dawn for keeping a close eye.”
“Oh, I can’t?”
“You were screwing your married boss, right? And her husband is now your boss. Do you two get along?”
Charlie had been shocked at Dawn’s animosity and paranoia, but these casual swipes from her brother nearly knocked her off her chair. She couldn’t imagine how he could be so harsh about it.
“Where did you hear all this?”
“First of all, it involved a commercial development scandal in a state that a lot of people I know do business in. Some of them had ties to that company. They all wanted to find out what I knew about it.”
Charlie blinked hard against a sudden burning in her eyes.
“Second, I’ve done business with Keith Taggert. We talked about him bringing you on.”
Her mind was spinning. “You did?”
“Yes. I told him I’d talk to you about it if it came down to it, but you guys worked out an offer, so I stayed out of it.”
“You knew they were offering me the job?”
He took another bite and shrugged. “Sure.”
“Did you ask them to?”
“I told Keith I thought you’d do fine. I figured you’d probably learned your lesson, and you’d keep your head down and be a solid, loyal employee.”
She nodded, thinking she should thank him for that, and hating that those were the most positive things he’d had to say about her. “I just... You should know that I didn’t know my boss was married. I’d never have...I’d never have done that.”
Brad shrugged again, that infuriating, dismissive movement that told her he couldn’t care less what she did. “I guess you should be more careful who you sleep with. If you’d taken Mom’s advice and settled down, none of this would’ve happened.”