The fact that Nic and Jake had never questioned the cost of her involvement in the trial made me wonder how well paying they thought insurance was—Jake was a lawyer, and the cost of this trial was even beyond his means.
It had crossed my mind more than once that they had to have known something was up, and maybe it was an informed decision not to ask me where the money came from. If you don’t ask then you don’t know, and you can continue to go on oblivious to the situation. But maybe that’s just me being paranoid.
“Yeah, I had a client needing some urgent assistance. Gotta be on the ball, always on call,” I grinned. “Not like law, huh? You jokers never work.”
Jake rolled his eyes at me, at least appreciating the joke.
“Oh that reminds me, are you still coming to the cabin this weekend?” Nic asked, setting out a plate for me.
I laughed. “Of course. You know I love that place. And it gives me time to spend with the two little monsters.” The two little monsters were two-year-old Marlie and five-year-old Tully. I might be biased, but in my eyes they were the sweetest little girls in the country.
Both girls took after their father. With their blonde hair and blue eyes, they looked nothing like my brown-haired, green-eyed sister—and she hated it.
Not only did they look like Jake, they were stubborn and argumentative, just like Jake. I could honestly say, based on experience, never get into an argument with Tully because no matter how right you are, you’ll admit defeat just to shut her the hell up.
“If they were more like me they wouldn’t be such little monsters,” she grumbled, tightening her ponytail. She glanced at my gray woolen suit jacket. “New?” she asked. I nodded. “Shit, they must pay you well. That’s Armani, isn’t it?” She leaned over and rubbed the fabric between her fingers.
“Yeah. A bonus for signing a big client,” I fibbed. Not that far from the truth. It had been a bonus, but for getting off a big client.
Even after paying for Mom’s accommodation, I had more money than I could spend. I was fucking loaded and I couldn’t even share that with my family. Even they weren’t stupid enough to think insurance paid that well. I did have trusts set up for both girls. I figured I had a good fifteen years to explain where that cash had come from.
“Yeah, maybe you should take your little sister shopping sometime, hey?” she joked, winking at me.
I laughed, knowing that if anyone could wipe out all my money, it was her. That girl had an addiction for anything fashion and could quite easily blow five figures in under an hour. Thank god she had Jake to sup
port her habit, and thank god even more she was hopeless with technology—I dreaded the day she discovered the world of online shopping.
She and Jake had met in college. He had been dating her roommate, but when that turned sour, he and Nic had just sort of clicked. Some people you can just watch together and just know they were meant to be. That was Nic and Jake. They’d found in each other what I knew I’d never find: love. Could I make my life sound any more like a daytime movie? I swear I wasn’t that bad. Well, maybe it was, but there were people who were far worse off than me.
At least I had a loving family, that’s what was most important to me.
I watched as Nic piled my plate high with lasagna. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until the smell of the food hit me. Nic, like Mom had been, was a fantastic cook. Those genes hadn’t filtered through to me—I could burn water without even trying.
She pushed it across the counter where I was eagerly waiting, knife and fork already in my hands. It was fucking hot but I didn’t let that deter me from practically tipping it down my throat. Nic shook her head in disgust.
“What the fuck is it with men? He scarfs his food down too.” She jerked her thumb in the direction of Jake. “It’s not going to disappear if you don’t eat it all in five seconds.”
“What?” I shrugged. “I’m hungry. And besides, chewing is overrated.” After I’d polished off the plate, I stood up and stretched. “I better get going.”
“You’ve only been here five minutes,” Nic protested, her mouth dropping open.
“And it’s been great, but I’m fucked. I need sleep.” I kissed her on the forehead and walked to the door before she could respond.
“You only came here to eat, didn’t you?” she accused, a smile on her face.
I winked at her. “It was either that or cold pizza. Take it as a compliment.”
She rolled her eyes as she leaned against the doorframe, watching as I walked to my car.
“Bye, knobface,” she called out, using one of her pet names for me. I laughed and waved my hand.
“See you later, twat.”
For me, home was an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. I’d explained the cost away by saying I had secured it through work on a lease agreement, and nobody had questioned that. Yet.
I pulled into my parking spot and took the elevator up to the tenth floor.
My apartment was huge. There was no other way to describe it. Three bedrooms and two bathrooms plus a study seemed a little excessive for one person, but what can I say? It was the only available apartment in the building, and I loved the view. I walked over to the drapes that covered the floor to ceiling windows and opened them. The city lights peppered the darkened sky, stretching for miles off into the distance.