“Hey, at least she was honest. Parker is still bullshitting everyone, playing the victim, like he played no role in everything that happened to him.”
“When your name first got floated as the inspiration for Xayden, I read the book,” Maxon admits. “But that character is a heartless bastard. I mean, you can be a prick when it comes to business, but you’re never a spiteful prick.”
I silence my phone again. “The rest of the world doesn’t share your sentiment, but thanks. We’ve only been family for a few years—”
“Forget that,” Griff insists. “It’s not about how long we’ve been family. It’s the fact we are. We’re in your corner.”
And I feel one-hundred-percent blessed because of it.
“There’s got to be a way to get the truth out there,” Maxon says. “What if this woman corroborated your version of events?”
I shake my head. “Impossible.”
“Because?”
“Long story.”
Griff sits back in his chair. “Isn’t that convenient for Parker? He can craft whatever story he wants, and there’s no one but you to call him a liar.”
My buddy Hayes, along with my other true friends—Graham, Echo, Kella, and Maryam—all know the truth, but… “No one who matters to the press, no.”
“That sucks. The bright side is that paparazzi don’t live in Maui, so they aren’t camped out at your door.”
“That’s about the only bright side of this mess. But when your phone is constantly blowing up—” Right on cue, it does again.
Maxon looks angry on my behalf. “What are you going to do? Are you sure you don’t want to get the truth out?”
It’s pointless. No one wants the story where Parker is the bad guy. They just want the lurid, gossipy tale of my unforgivable backstab and his supposed descent into mental hell. “Fuck that. I’m going to get even. I’m going scorched earth.”
And he’ll never see it coming.
When I make it to my office, I’m still annoyed. I finally turned off my damn phone. Since my voice mail is full, tabloid gossips can’t leave messages anymore. That’s a plus. But neither can anyone else, like a client. It blows.
I’m so fed up.
Cursing, I settle behind my sleek black desk and check the world financial indices, jotting down ideas to better shield clients from loss. Thankfully, Bethany and I already saw most of the current economic mess coming months ago and mitigated the damage. Her husband, Clint, nearly finished earning his degree online while studying for his CFP, is getting the hang of reading the financial tea leaves and responding quickly. But with Bethany breastfeeding baby number two and our client list still swelling, I’m really damn busy.
“Mr. Costa?” My forty-something assistant, Lisa, peeks her head in my door. “I’ve got messages for you.”
I scan the fistful of slips in her hand and frown. I have calls to return every morning, but not this many. “Throw away any from news outlets or internet gossip sites.”
“Okay.” She filters through the papers in her hand, then tosses all but two. “Someone named Jacinda asked for a return call as soon as possible. She said to say she’s, um…still at the Four Seasons until Sunday.”
A tourist I met in a bar. Everything we had to say, we communicated naked in her suite last Friday night. “Trash.”
As I sip my coffee, Lisa reads the next message. “Someone named Maxie rang. She must have you confused with her doctor, because she said to tell you she needs vitamin D.”
I nearly spit out my brew. Lisa’s glance is somewhere between confused and concerned. Apparently she has no idea that Saturday night’s casual fuck asked me for more dick. Thank God. “Trash.”
She pushes her glasses up her nose and sends me a slightly censuring stare. “I know it’s none of my business—”
“Then don’t say it.” Since we’ve had this discussion before, I know the lecture she’s about to give me. I could recite it.
“I have to. I care about you,” she huffs. “If you ever want to be happy, you have to open yourself up to someone special.”
“But you’re taken, Lisa.” I flash her a grin.
She tsks. “I meant someone single, closer to your age. You have to trust your heart and believe in love. Look at all your brothers and sisters…”
Every one of them is blissfully attached to their spouse and spitting out kids faster than I can blink. Maxon and Keeley now have two daughters with a third on the way. Griff and Britta seem to be a boy-breeding factory since they recently had their fourth. My other sister, Harlow, and her husband, quarterback legend Noah Weston, are seemingly trying to breed their own football team since they just had baby boy number three. My other wrong-side-of-the-blanket brother, Evan Cook, and his wife, Nia, have a boy and a girl, both frighteningly smart and precocious as hell. Bethany and Clint just had their second. I’m the lone bachelor standing and I like it that way, despite Lisa’s well-intended nagging.