Dani looked up, her expression sharp. “It’s easy enough for a LeFranc,” she said, an air of . . . something in her voice. “Sasha is a very generous boss.”
My fist clenched under the table. So that’s how the evening was going to go? I leaned back, not breaking Dani’s gaze and raised my eyebrows. “Yes, Sasha is very good at getting what she wants.”
Dani smiled, her lips tight. “Isn’t that part of being successful? Getting what you want isn’t such a bad thing.”
I wanted to keep pushing. Getting what you want at the expense of everyone else hardly made you successful. But Sasha’s problems ran much deeper than being a little bit of a cutthroat. She was a criminal, guilty of fraud and extortion.
At least, I thought she was.
I’d only been working on the financial side of LeFranc a couple of months when I’d started seeing things that didn’t line up. But I wasn’t important enough to have access to all of LeFranc’s accounts and couldn’t really dig for answers without it. Then my stepfather had threatened to disinherit me if I continued to ask questions. That had made it easy to walk away.
But that wasn’t an argument I could have with Dani. I’d tried. The last conversation we’d had before I left New York had ended in an argument about my suspicions.
Dani loved working for Sasha and had insisted I was wrong. She had even gone so far as to suggest I disliked Sasha simply because she was marrying Alicio, somehow replacing the memory of my mother. Funny—Alicio had made the same argument.
“I take it things at work are still going well,” I said. That Dani had so quickly reminded me of her loyalty to Sasha, and to LeFranc, left a bitter taste in my mouth and reminded me of why I’d felt like I’d had to leave in the first place.
A shadow of doubt flitted across her face, but she shook it off so quickly, I wondered if I’d imagined it. “Things are great,” she said. “Better than ever.”
I narrowed my gaze. Dani had a glass face. Her words were telling me one story, but it wasn’t one that matched her emotions.
A surge of anger pulsed through me. Anger at Sasha, at Alicio, even at Dani for falling victim to Sasha’s duplicity. Someone was eventually going to get hurt, and it killed that I was powerless to stop it.
Chapter Five
Dani
Even with all afternoon to prepare for Alex’s presence at dinner, it was still ridiculous to see him sitting there next to Isaac. Taking myself completely out of the equation, I couldn’t begin to wrap my head around the idea of him working with my brother.
Alex was Armani suits and perfect hair. He loved art museums and classical music. I mean, he’d had season tickets to the New York Philharmonic. The only classical music Isaac had ever intentionally heard was my eighth-grade orchestra recital in which I’d very badly played the cello. To imagine my video game playing, tech nerd brother hiring a Harvard-educated accountant? It didn’t add up.
“So, how did this happen?” I said, motioning to the two of them.
They glanced at each other.
Alex cleared his throat as if to answer, but Isaac beat him to it. “Random I has been doing really well. Well enough it seemed like having a business manager was a smart move.”
That didn’t come close to answering my question. I mean, Isaac having a business manager was still a lot to swallow. But he’d hired my ex-boyfriend. I needed more explanation. I looked at Alex.
He appeared sheepish, as if he knew Isaac’s answer hadn’t really addressed my concerns. Well, good. Served him right.
“All the accountants in the world, Isaac, and you hire my ex-boyfriend?” I raised my eyebrows.
At least Alex had the good sense not to say anything. He kept his eyes down, his hand resting on the table beside his plate.
“I didn’t want just anybody,” Isaac said. “I knew I could trust Alex. You seemed to like him okay. I figured that was a good endorsement. Plus, have you seen the man’s resume?”
“But he didn’t work for me; he was my boyfriend. How is that an endorsement?”
“If he were dishonest, or a criminal, or a terrible person, he wouldn’t have been your boyfriend. Seems pretty straight forward to me. Plus, he was already in Charleston. Hiring local meant I didn’t have to offer a relocation package.”
Weirdly enough, Alex had grown up not ten minutes from my childhood home back in South Carolina, though we’d definitely run in different circles. My parents had done pretty well for themselves, and we’d lived in a nice part of town, but we were new Charleston money. The kind that lived in the suburbs. We played on Charleston’s historic peninsula. Shopped there. Ate there. Walked through the waterfront parks. But we didn’t live on the peninsula. That took an entirely different kind of money. The kind that went back generations to when streets were made of cobblestone and everyone had names like Alexander Ellison Randall III. It wasn’t weird that Alex had gone back to Charleston when he’d left New York.
It was weird that he’d started working for Isaac.
“What if we broke up because he’s dishonest and a terrible person?”
Isaac rolled his eyes. “That isn’t why you broke up. I talked to Mom.”
“You talked to . . .?” Heat rose in my cheeks. Having a conversation with your brother about why you and your boyfriend split up in the presence of said boyfriend was not a good idea. Imagining him talking the whole thing over with my mother felt even worse.
My shoulders slumped. “You should have told me.”
Isaac didn’t even break eye contact. “I did tell you.”
“You didn’t—” My argument froze in my throat. Technically, Isaac was right. It was nothing but my own judgments against Isaac’s professionalism that had led me to assume he’d only needed Alex for tax purposes.
“We haven’t kept it a secret, Dani,” Isaac said. “He’s been on the show a few times. In pictures on Instagram. I think we both figured you knew.”
My eyes darted to Alex who lifted his shoulder in a shrug.
So this was on me?
If I was a better sister, followed Isaac’s career more closely, I’d have known my ex-boyfriend and twin brother were new best friends?
Moisture gathered in my eyes and I squeezed them shut, not sure if it was the injustice of their accusation or the truth behind it that triggered the tears. I willed my emotions to settle; neither reason was good enough to cry in public.
“It wasn’t enough,” Alex said softly. “I shouldn’t have agreed to work with Isaac without talking to you first. That’s on me.”
Warmth surged through my chest at his admission but acknowledging as much felt like a betrayal. I wasn’t supposed to feel any warmth toward Alex. It had taken me a solid six months to get to the point where I could even think of him without wanting to scream. Warmth of any kind could not creep back in. It was too risky.
The conversation shifted to more neutral topics, which would have been a relief had Isaac not called me Dandelion no less than five times. It was a nickname assigned to me in childhood when he and his friends decided my light blonde hair, when frizzed by heat and southern humidity, looked like dandelion fuzz. The nickname had stuck around way too long. He knew I hated it. And because he was still a toddler, that hatred only fueled his desire to use it.