After embellishing her resume, Valerie-a single mom-lands a job as an administrative assistant to the hottest, most entitled and obnoxious man she's ever met: Preston Cartwright, the CFO of the prestigious Cartwright & Sons Enterprises.
Several yea...
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"Andrew?" I'm surprised to find my older brother on my doorstep. It's after nine on a Saturday evening. We usually don't just come over to each other's places without notice unless something is wrong. Oh, fuck. That must be it.
"What are you doing here?" I ask. "What happened?"
He gives me a once over like he needs to make sure I'm okay. That I'm strong enough to handle whatever he's going to tell me. Damn it. It scares me. I don't think I can handle much more shit this weekend.
"I'm checking on you," he says and steps past me into the apartment.
"So, nothing is wrong?" I ask him and close the door. It locks automatically behind us.
"Not that I know of."
I take a sigh of relief and follow him into the living room. It's dark in there because I haven't bothered to turn the lights on. The only illumination comes from the tv which is on mute, and the lights from the city below.
"Why are you here, then?" I ask him.
He looks surprised.
"What do you mean, why? You were acting weird as shit yesterday and you've been MIA all day today."
I chuckle because "weird" is definitely one way to explain it. Fucked up might be a better one, though.
"What was that all about, Pres? What's going on?"
I sit back down on the u-shaped couch that seats ten people comfortably, putting my legs across the seats, while he walks over to the bar. I had it built in between the dining room and the living room when I bought the place and it's my brother's favorite hangout place. It's up on a raised platform overlooking the sunken living area and its twelve-foot ceiling. Andrew takes the two steps in one stride. Placing his hand on the mahogany-wood bar-top he walks past the chairs, swings around the end and walks in behind it. The back wall is covered in glass cabinets and thick wood shelves which display all kinds of glasses and several different kinds of liquor bottles. It's a fully operational bar with a beer tap and a large wine fridge.
"Do you want anything?" he asks.
"I'm good," I say and raise my hand, showing him I still have half my beer left.
Andrew goes for the wine fridge underneath the bar top and pulls out a bottle of water. That surprises me a bit and I'm thinking this is more than just a social visit, which makes me uncomfortable all over again.
I take a deep pull from the beer and watch him unscrew the cap from the water-bottle as he walks towards the couch and sits down on the other side, mirroring me.
"So," he says after he drains half the bottle. "What's going on?"
A shit ton, but I'm not sure I want my brother to know all that.
"We're ready to contact the authorities on Demers," I tell him, because that's a relatively safe subject. "It's finitely fraud."
