The Sister (The Boss 6)

“And we’d all get a chance to finally see this freakin’ palace you’re apparently living in,” Leanne said, looking up from her phone for the first time since they arrived.

“Oh, yeah, she looked it up on Google Earth,” Marie said with a laugh. “I thought it was an airport.”

The idea of having a party at our house brightened me up considerably. Sure, we’d had Olivia’s birthday party last month, but it had been so long since we’d had a proper grown-up, freak-out-and-let-your-hair-down kind of celebration.

I couldn’t think of a time that I’d danced since our wedding.

“We can get one of those cool tent things for the reception and put it right on the front lawn!” I almost shouted in my enthusiasm. “And floating candles in the pool!”

“Calm down, Sophie. Let your mother plan her own wedding,” Grandma admonished. “She’s certainly waited long enough to have one.

“Nice, Ma.” Mom rolled her eyes. “And what about Miss Olivia? Do you want to be a flower girl?”

Olivia looked up and stuffed a handful of scalloped potatoes into her mouth. A garbled, “No, no, no. I eating,” managed to get out around it.

Neil bent to wipe the mess off her face and hands, and I shrugged. “I think we’ll call that a maybe.”

****

Returning to New York was surprisingly disappointing. I’d kind of liked living as the old me. No housekeeper, doing my own dishes, cleaning up after myself. It had been nice.

But I was still pretty hyped to get back to having a nanny.

We’d only just pulled under the porte cochere when Neil got a text from Rudy. “Oh, bol—”

I arched a brow and pretended to cover Olivia’s ears.

“—ognese,” he self-corrected. “He has reservations at Kurumazushi tonight, and his date canceled.”

“Are you kidding?” I made a sour face. “You’re going to get to eat there before I do?”

“No, I can’t ask Tony to drive me all the way into the city. He must be as tired as I am.” But Neil still sounded slightly disappointed.

“Hey…” An idea slowly formed in my mind. Tony was about to be a part of our family. He couldn’t be our driver forever. Neil would have to stop thinking of him as an employee. “Why don’t you see if Rudy can add someone to the reservation? Then, you can take Tony out and get to know him better.”

“I know Tony!” Neil protested. “He’s worked for me for years.”

“Yeah. He’s worked for you. But he’s going to be your father-in-law soon.” Jesus, that was weird. “Why not get comfortable with him?”

“Rudy certainly wants to get comfortable with him,” Neil muttered under his breath. It was true. Rudy called looking at Tony “window shopping”, because “I can look, but I can’t buy”. Neil typed in a response with his thumbs. “All right. He’ll be thrilled. But I don’t know if Tony will be.”

“It’ll be cool. I can hang out with Mom. Maybe call Holli.” Truth be told, as much as I loved my husband and as grateful as I was to still have him, getting away from him sometimes was a nice break.

When we pulled to a stop, Neil rolled down the partition. “I hate to pull you away from your fiancé, Rebecca, but I think a celebration is in order. Just…the guys.”

I covered my mouth to keep from laughing. Neil wasn’t good with colloquial American-English. It’s like his tongue rejected anything remotely normal sounding.

“What guys?” Mom asked suspiciously.

“Rudy has a reservation at an incredible restaurant,” Neil explained. “He’d like us to come along.”

Rudy might not yet know that he’d invited Tony, but apparently, it was happening, anyway.

“I’m driving,” Neil added. “Unless, of course, you’d like to try your hand with the Huayra.”

Tony looked at Mom. “Sorry, babe, I’m going out.”

I’d never thought about it before, but Tony had really never gotten a crack at any of Neil’s cars, other than the chauffeured ones. I always just assumed Tony wasn’t into cars on his off hours. I mean, I didn’t come home and work on magazines to relax. The only hobby of his I really knew about was knitting. That didn’t seem compatible with lusting over the…Panini Hoorah or whatever it was called.

“Hey, maybe you and I could hot tub,” I suggested to Mom, hoping she’d be up for it. For Christmas, we’d had a beautiful pool and hot tub put in behind the guesthouse, and I liked it more than the one at the main house.

She shrugged and sighed. “Yeah, since I’m apparently getting dumped for your husband.”

“No, you’re being dumped for a supercar.” Neil chuckled to himself and checked his phone. “We’re meeting him at nine-thirty. What time is it?”

“Five twenty-seven,” Tony replied. “So, we need to get out of here at…with traffic, I’d say six.”

“Why not just take the helicopter, then?” I asked, and they both looked at me like I’d grown antlers.