Great. I ran my hand down my face. Penny was setting me up with someone I couldn’t even veto now. And I’d made her cry.
Chapter 11
Monday
“Here you go,” said my administrative assistant as she placed a hot cup of coffee down on my desk.
“Thanks, Mary.” I’d come back to the office after football practice to get some more work done. And I desperately needed some caffeine.
“Your mother left another message about getting together with you for lunch. What do you want me to say to her?”
My mom always bugged my assistant when I didn’t answer her texts. She got overly concerned about me every fall. And I tried my best to avoid her until the holidays. I didn’t want to talk about Brooklyn. I just wanted peace. “Don’t worry about it, I’ll call her.” Eventually.
“Okay. Is there anything else I can get you before I head out?”
I looked down at my watch. I hadn’t realized it was after six. “No, have a nice evening.”
She didn’t move to leave. “You know, I heard a rumor the other day. It was something about…” She lightly tapped her chin and pretended like she was trying to remember something. “Oh, right. Sleep is actually really important. Who would have thought?”
I laughed. “Mary, I’ve been sleeping.”
“Tell your face that. And you forgot to change after practice.”
I scowled at her, but only in jest. I usually did change back into a suit after practice. But over the last few weeks, I’d stopped. No one else was here this late anyway.
“Maybe try some chamomile tea.”
What was with women forcing me to drink tea? But I didn’t know how to say no to her. “I’ll give it a try.” Penny may have left some of that.
“You have a good evening, Matthew.”
I’d been telling her for years to call me Matt. But she refused. She said businessmen didn’t have nicknames. It was the only thing we ever bickered about. Mary was the best administrative assistant ever. And even though she did flirt with me sometimes, it was all in fun. Because she was 67. She kept threatening to retire, so I kept raising her salary. Soon she’d be making more than most of upper management. But they didn’t need to know that.
Mary closed the door behind her as I stared at another set of spreadsheets. The lines kept blurring together. I pinched the bridge of my nose and leaned back in my chair. I was exhausted. Mary was right, I’d barely slept at all last night. All I could think about was Penny’s face when she’d left. Why did she always seem so sad recently? How could I make it better?
There was a knock on the door.
“Really, Mary, I’m fine,” I said.
The door opened. But it wasn’t Mary standing there.
I immediately stood up. “Poppy.” I hadn’t seen her in years. But she hadn’t changed at all. Probably because her face was more Botox than skin. It was like seeing another ghost. But not a sweet innocent one like Brooklyn. Poppy was almost the spitting image of her cousin, Isabella. The brunette hair. The way she stared at people with disdain. The way she made my skin crawl. I was lucky enough to not know Poppy very well. Unlike her un-dearly departed cousin. There wasn’t a day that went by that I wasn’t grateful that Isabella was dead. As entertaining as that story was, it wasn’t mine to tell. That honor belonged to James and Penny.
But standing here now, it felt like Isabella was staring back at me. And if she wasn’t already dead, I would have killed her.
Poppy’s lips curled up on the edges, but I wouldn’t call it a smile. People like Poppy didn’t smile. “Matthew Caldwell. How many years has it been?” She shook her head. “Far too many,” she said without waiting for a response. She walked into my office uninvited and started looking around.
“Poppy, what are you doing here?”
She ran her finger along the edge of my desk like she was looking for dust. “You didn’t respond to Uncle Richard’s texts.”
Richard Pruitt had been sending me texts for years. And I never answered. That was our thing. Every time it happened, it felt like a punch in the gut. But I did my best to forget about it and move on. Those texts were no reason for Poppy to show up after-hours at my office without an appointment.
She cocked her head to the side and her eyes ran from the baseball cap on my head to my sneakers.
A chill ran down my spine, like her gaze was ice cold.
“Interesting attire. Very rugged.” She bit her lower lip and I tried not to make a gagging noise.
“I came from football practice.”
“Ah yes. Uncle Richard mentioned that you were coaching at Empire High. How…quaint.” She smiled again, but the skin around her lips didn’t move at all.
I wasn’t sure which was worse. Her fake smile. Or the fact that Mr. Pruitt was keeping tabs on me. “Poppy, it’s late. If you want to schedule a meeting…”
“I’m not here for a meeting.” She laughed. “Why would my family come to yours for financial advice?” She put her hand to her silicone chest. “We have more money than you.”
Dirty money. Everyone in the city knew that Mr. Pruitt was into some shady shit. The guilt felt like bile stirring in my stomach. I’d left Brooklyn with him. It was my fault that she was dead.
Poppy took a step closer. “We both know you wanted to marry into the family.”
I didn’t want to marry into her horrid family. I loved Brooklyn despite the fact that Mr. Pruitt was her birth father. Not because of it.
But for several years, I’d wondered about the contracts I signed when I was dating Brooklyn. Mr. Pruitt had called them relationship contracts. I’d never read the fine print. But I knew he loved to sneak sketchy, unrelated stuff into all his contracts. That had haunted me. And as Poppy took yet another step closer, I felt like I was going to be sick. What if there was some clause about…death? What if I had signed something about being promised to a member of their horrible family?
Poppy stopped right in front of me. “I’ve always loved a man who craves power. You know…” she reached out and straightened my baseball cap. “…I’m the last living heir to great granddaddy’s fortune. Think of all we could do together. I have the power. And you know how to handle the money.”
She meant hide the money in offshore accounts. I clenched my hands into fists. I wasn’t going to hit her. But I was about to hit something if she touched me again.
She licked her bottom lip, probably mistaking my disgust for admiration. Because she was every bit as delusional as Isabella. “I actually kind of like the grunge look. I can work with that. But a suit and tie never hurt anyone. Next time we meet, maybe dress up a tad?”
I was definitely going to be sick. “Get out of my office, Poppy.”
She pouted. “Uncle Richard won’t be happy to hear that you didn’t receive me graciously.”
“I don’t give a shit about what your uncle thinks.”
“Hmm. Is that so?” She lifted a picture frame off my desk.
It was a framed one of me with all my friends. Their wives. Their children.
“Uncle Richard has allowed certain allowances in the past years. He still thinks of you as family, you know.”