“Mad.” Zeke sighed. “Sad.”
“She’ll forgive me, eventually.” He hoped.
For years, Rory had been his One Night Wife. He’d trusted her without a thought, when outside family he couldn’t trust a single person. Until she caused a scene at a party where he was in the final stages of financing a highly secretive start-up, making a revolutionary, completely phony medical device.
Having his bogus wife call him a womanizing cheat and a philandering, coke-snorting, abusive narcissist in a very public argument, right before she burst into crocodile tears, threw her fake engagement ring at him, and stormed out, did a number on his credibility, tarnished his sterling, upstanding-guy reputation, and lost him the deal. Worse, it poisoned that well of marks, and made people ask questions no one wanted the answers to.
The family had blamed him for that mess, the loss of income particularly, because it threatened the ongoing funding of their major social causes. Men had been shot for less.
The new sting Cal was currently working needed a One Night Wife. A female partner to work the women, to charm the men, to be the third-party demonstration that Cal was still a trustworthy, likable guy who’d rebuilt his life, not a drug-addicted asshole who’d hurt a woman.
But he wasn’t ready to tell Zeke he was wife shopping.
They got out of the pub and went for a burger, and then Cal called it a night. Before he was ready, it would be Monday and there would be a board meeting and Mom to contend with. There were family company CEOs with more stressful jobs, but he guessed few had to deal with a reformed-psychic-turned-social-justice-vigilante mother.
On Monday, as anticipated, Katrice Sherwood, matriarch, knitter of awful Christmas sweaters, strode into his office and sat opposit
e him.
“Hello, Mom. You’re looking well and determined.”
“And you look tense.”
“You can have that effect on me.”
She tossed the tail of a lime-green scarf over her shoulder. “I’m your mother. I love you.”
He noted her smile, baked goods and sugar treats that would give you hardened arteries and ultimately kill you. “Yes, that’s what scares me. What do you want, Katrice?”
“Okay, tough guy.” She looked at her purple nails. “It’s a small thing.”
It was a tell. “Last month, your small thing was a million dollars more support for medical supplies in refugee camps and exposing an NYU fine arts professor as a fraud.”
She narrowed her eyes. “He is a fraud.”
“He’s not. He’s terrible at being a fine arts professor. Students hate him, but he’s legit. We checked.”
“Well, there we go. What was stressful about that?”
“You tried to fox me. Told me he had stolen credentials.” That was what came from wrangling treachery for a living. Your fake wife fake accused you of being a womanizing bastard, and your real mother set you up.
Mom had taught him half of everything he knew about how to deceive, ingratiate himself with others, and be ruthlessly unsentimental, and yet she managed to get under his skin every time. He simply had no defense against her wiles. “I’m supposed to be able to trust you. My own loving mom. But you lied.”
She looked at the ceiling in exasperation. “There’s a new psychic in Soho. She’s running a scam where she banks a mark’s savings against their bad luck to reverse it. Then she sets them impossible tasks to do to earn their good luck and their money back.”
It was a regular old Finding Lady Luck scam. The worst kind of bullshit, attracting vulnerable people with the most to lose. Cal detested this kind of mean-spirited scam, and there was no question they’d work to shut it down.
Fifteen minutes later, after plotting how to put a scammer out of work, he walked into the boardroom as the members of the family executive team were taking their seats and started the meeting with their prayer.
“May our cons be always purposeful and our grifts aligned fairly for the greater physical and social good of humanity and the planet. Amen.”
There was a chorused amen, and the meeting was officially open, but for welcoming Rory back. She hadn’t said a word since Cal walked in, and she kept her eyes down on the table.
“It’s good to see you home again, Rory. We all missed you.” He put stress on the word all, had to push it past the regret clogged in his throat.
“I’m glad to be here, and I promise there won’t be any more slip ups,” she said. “I intend to pay back a higher percentage of my cut to the Sherwood bank to make up for what we lost.”
Cal’s gut twisted, but before he could put voice to his fears, Zeke said, “You don’t have to do that. The scam went bad. It’s business. We cut our losses and—”