Bad Deeds by Lisa Renee Jones

Author:Lisa Renee Jones
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Published: 2017-08-08T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

SHANE

Only moments after Seth warns me that my mother is in the office, Derek stalks toward me, leaving Emily behind, his steps determined, his energy confrontational. His dark gray suit is less than pressed and perfect, when it’s never so much as ill adjusted. He’s rattled, on edge, ready for a fight with me, the wrong person. Martina and Mike are the enemies, but I am not sure he will understand this until it’s too late, and I won’t ever let that day come. I stand my ground, expecting some sort of snide remark about Emily perhaps before he moves on and lets me get back to trying to save us all. But that’s not what I get. He stops in front of me, his eyes level with mine. “Let’s talk.”

A novel idea that, coming from him, and about as surprising as that demand being issued after Emily’s been in his office, leaving me ever so curious as to what my woman said to my brother. Whatever the case, she got me his ear, and I’m going to use it any way I can. I give him a nod and move back into my office, standing my ground midway, expecting that confrontation to happen now.

Again, I’m surprised. Instead, my brother walks to the window and, giving me his back, stands there, looking out at the city the way I often do. I’m struck by the likeness in us, which I’d once claimed and wish I could deny now, and I wonder how many times we’ve stood at the windows of our offices, in the opposite direction. Opposite in all that we do, or so I’d thought days ago. Now I’m not so sure anymore, and I wonder how he went from being my big brother and idol to being an enemy. I step to the window myself, leaving several shoulder lengths separating us, the many spoken and unspoken words of the past few turbulent years thickening the air between us.

“Emily says you never wanted the company,” he says finally, still looking at the skyline, though I doubt he’s really seeing it any more than I am.

“She’s correct.”

“Then why come here and try to unravel everything I’ve worked for?” he asks, still not looking at me.

“I have some news for you, Derek. ‘Everything,’ as you put it, was unraveled before I got here or I wouldn’t be here.”

He glances over at me. “And yet this company, and the people working for it, managed to function for thirty years without you. Pops,” he adds, “did okay by it, and so did I.”

“Pops,” I say, giving a humorless laugh at the childhood name we’d used for our father. “He hasn’t been that person in decades.”

“He was always the person he is now. We just didn’t see it.”

“But he isn’t and wasn’t the person who made these missteps.”

Derek laughs this time, the sound bitter, choked, and in unison, as we often were in the past, we face each other. “Pops didn’t make the missteps?” he asks incredulously.

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