By the window was a lounge area with four black leather arm chairs, a liquor cart, and a coffee table. I spent the least amount of time there.
“How much did it cost just to decorate this room?” Lisa asked as she strolled past the only piece of art in the room: a canvas oil painting of the south of France, a place I’d been to several years ago and wanted to revisit when the time was right. I’d purchased the piece from a local artist.
“That’s a bit personal, isn’t it?” I was playing hard to get but I liked the praise about my office. It represented how far I’d come and the man I’d grown into after all my success. I was no longer the broke, shattered, sad teenager I used to be. I was a builder of empires—a wealthy scion of Seattle.
My sister turned to me with a smirk that looked much like my own. “Oh please, Lukas. You’re never bashful about discussing how much something cost you. You have six cars that all cost well over two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a piece. I know so because you told me.”
“Well, it didn’t cost that much,” I told her.
Lisa rolled her eyes, shook her head, and went to the office door. “Come on. Let’s go to the conference room. We don’t want to be late for our own meeting.”
I followed my sister out of my office and down the hall to the conference room. It was prepped for our meeting, most likely by Polly, who’d laid out three settings on the long white marble table. Each person would have a notepad, two pens, and a cup of water. A coffee machine in the corner of the room was midway through brewing a pot and the whole room smelled like coffee beans.
Lisa took a seat in front of one of the notepads and crossed one leg over the other. Her foot bounced and she fidgeted with one of the pens.
She was excited.
Why?
Five minutes passed, followed by five more, and irritation welled up inside me. I did not have time to wait around for people to squeeze me into their timetable. That wasn’t how things worked. I fit people into my schedule, not the other way around.
I sighed.
Lisa, sensing my withering patience, perked up. “Did I tell you my mom got a new job?”
I ran a finger along my jaw. “No, you didn’t. Where’s she working now?”
“A dog grooming company. For the life of me, I can’t remember what it’s called but they’re the highest rated luxury grooming company in Seattle. Mom’s over the moon, of course. You remember how much she loves dogs and anything with whiskers really.”
“I remember.”
“Well, now she’s practically drowning in them. Since she and I bought that duplex and moved in, she’s adopted two. Can you believe it? How many years did she pine over getting a mutt when we lived in those shithole apartments?”
“Twenty, give or take.”
“And now she finally has two.” Lisa smiled. I could tell she was brimming with happiness for her mother. “Bruno and Gauge. I think I have pictures.”
“Great,” I said dryly. I loved my sister but I had no interest in looking at pictures of her mother’s rescue dogs. Nevertheless, I sat and waited while she pulled out her phone and scrolled through pictures.
“Here they are,” Lisa said, leaning forward to hold the phone out to me.
I took it and flipped through pictures of two dogs. One was gray and wiry with longer white fur around his snout. The other had short coppery fur and folded ears. “Cute,” I said, assuming this was the word Lisa was fishing for.
“Aren’t they? She just adores them and they bring her so much joy. I hear her let them outside every morning next door. They get her up early and keep her company in the evenings when I can’t. It’s a best-case scenario really. And the duplex has enough room for her to be comfortable, too.”
Guilt nudged at my insides.
I could have bought Lisa and her mother an expensive property years ago, but I’d been too focused on myself and my own mother. I’d been so consumed by my mother’s worsening health that I hadn’t had much energy to share in Lisa’s excitement as her consultant firm grew and she finally had enough money to buy the duplex for herself and her mother. They lived as neighbors, an ideal situation for my sister who cherished her mother more than anyone else, but they could have had a nicer place if I’d been in the frame of mind to help them out.
Lisa put her phone in her handbag. “How has your mother been, by the way? I tried to go visit her last week but they wouldn’t let me in.”
“She’s fine.” I glanced at my watch. The non-profit director was over ten minutes late. “She has her good days and bad days. Listen, I’m going to need to reschedule this meeting. I don’t have time to sit around and wait for—”
The conference door swung open.
A young woman with long, wavy, dark brown hair shuffled in. Her arms were overflowing with paperwork and folders. Her purse had a long strap on it, and as she closed the door with her hip, it slid right off her shoulder to land in the groove of her elbow. The purse jerked her arm down, and in that hand, she held a travel mug of coffee. A bit sloshed out of the open mouth opening and spilled onto her light gray long-sleeved shirt.
“Shoot,” she hissed, scowling at the stain. Her dark features pinched together and she finally glanced up.
My jaw nearly hit the floor when I got a look at her face.
“Kayla?” I breathed.
Kayla Goodfellow, my sister’s long time best friend and the girl who’d grown up three apartment buildings down from us, grinned at me.
“Lukas Holt,” she said, her dark brown eyes practically glittering as the coffee stain soaked into her shirt. “You’re all grown up.”
I looked
