Kiara and Rafe's Guide to Dating

ii. Rafe

He wasn't thrown off his game, nothing could ever distract him. Rafe once made a case and won with a grade three concussion. That sent a message to anyone who ever tried to take him on from that point on – even at his worst, he was still better than anyone.

His whole job—no, life—is to clean up large-scale messes and make sure there is no trace left of it to track his client back to it. Thanks to his networking skills, he has made some powerful friends to help along with in this process – criminal defense lawyers to find information in restricted archives, morally reprehensible doctors who became loose-lipped about patients' records after a pretty bribe, research scientists who could easily tamper with evidence. Obviously, he didn't utilize that last one because he didn't need to, he's just that good.

So, at the morning team conference when he hands over his case to Jack, a junior associate, the table goes still with shock. They don't say anything, they know better than to do that, but they also know that Rafe Cameron never hands over a case.

Rachel, his assistant comes into his office at 10:30 AM.

"Sir," she idles by the door with some folders pressed to her chest. "Are you feeling alright? I could give Dr. Carroll a call if you would like?"

Rafe waves away her suggestion, "What about some tea perhaps? Do you have symptoms of nausea? I believe I still have some of the concussion pills your doctor prescribed."

He doesn't really want to know why she's held onto his pills from nearly 3 years ago, but he lets it slide. Mostly because he doesn't want to deal with that, and he just hopes she's just that good of an assistant.

"Push my 1-o'clock to tomorrow," Rafe stands up and pulls on his navy blazer, "preferably in the morning."

"But you've rescheduled it twice, Mr. Cameron," Rachel's voice is an anxious squeak, "The Duke's scandal will surely hit the media in that time."

"No, it won't because I'll fix it by then," Rafe is irritated at her supplying her own opinion so he curtly says, "That'll be all Rachel."

The assistant nods her head before leaving.

Rafe drives to his favorite bar—he refuses to call it a pub—and tosses his keys to the valet. The inside is covered with dark décor, glossy and modern. He moves past his regular table that's always had a standing reservation and goes to the bar counter.

"Bourbon over ice," the bartender nods and comes back within seconds with his drink.

As much as he tried to convince himself that what Kiara had told him didn't bother him, it did. He had spent ten years isolated from his family, never once indulging in looking them up and checking. And that had worked, they were out of sight and completely out of mind. He wouldn't have been able to build an empire like this lamenting over everything in his life that went wrong. Rafe had effectively forgotten about their existence.

Then cut to a month ago, Kiara showing up all bright and shiny to tell him that Sarah is now engaged brought him back to a startling reality. His baby sister is getting married. Somewhere in the ten years, he's been gone, she has turned into someone who gets married and Rafe wasn't around to watch it happen.

Whatever anger he had towards his family was never projected towards his sisters, or even Rose for that matter, it was Ward who fucked up colossally and unfortunately everyone else got caught in the crossfire. It was easier to just cut off everyone else as collateral. He didn't want them to pick sides because honestly, he wasn't sure if they wouldn't pick his. It was easier to make that choice for them.

"Rough day buddy? It's not even 11 AM yet." A familiar voice jokes and joins him at the counter, Barry signals over to the bartender for the same drink.