Now I had this woman living with me because she had nowhere else to go.
I didn’t want her going back to that dump of an apartment, especially when the thieves were probably still watching her, seeing that she had no one to turn to, so she slept in a sleeping bag on the floor. They would laugh at her, mock her.
I couldn’t let that happen.
She wasn’t my responsibility, but the idea of abandoning her made me sick to my stomach.
Sometimes I lost touch with reality when it came to money. I didn’t have many problems because everything could be solved with a wad of cash. To me, it should be simple for her to move to a good part of Manhattan, to have a place with a doorman and a passcode. But then I realized not everyone lived the way I did—especially her. Even with her debt wiped away, she really stood no chance. Any luxurious place in Manhattan was going to cost at least ten grand a month, and there was no possibility she could ever afford that.
But I didn’t want her to leave in another dump. A woman like her should be safe, should be protected.
How would I make that happen?
She couldn’t live with me forever. That was nonnegotiable. I needed my space and my privacy. She’d just started sleeping over, which was also a first for me. Sometimes she felt like my girlfriend rather than my fuck buddy, and that was already too much.
So what was the solution?
How did I keep her safe without bringing us closer together?
There was no answer.
Jillian’s voice shattered my thoughts over the intercom. “Sir, your brother has just returned to the office.”
The honeymoon was over already? “Is she with him?”
“Yes.”
I rolled my eyes. “Thanks for letting me know.”
I should have known they would return from their honeymoon eventually. Time went by too fast, and now I didn’t just have a dumb-ass brother to deal with, but a psychopathic sister-in-law.
I wasn’t sure if I could even call her my sister-in-law.
She was just Simone…the gold-digging bitch.
Jillian spoke through the intercom. “Your brother is here to see you, sir.”
I was hoping we would avoid each other for a few more weeks. “Send him in.”
Coen stepped through the glass door a moment later, noticeably tanned with a black wedding ring on his left hand. He wore a black suit and tie, and despite the vacation he’d just had, he looked stressed. “Slate.”
I didn’t rise from my seat to shake his hand. “Coen. How was the honeymoon?”
“No complaints.” He stood at my desk and didn’t take a seat. His hands slid into his pockets as he hovered above me. “Anything you need to share with me?”
“I had Jillian drop off all the paperwork this morning.”
“I got it. Wasn’t sure if you wanted to add something.”
If I had, I would have included it in the paperwork. Any extended interaction with my brother was borderline torture. He was just a stranger, a pain in the ass. As time passed, I liked him less and less. I didn’t respect him as a man, and that was the worst thing you could lose—respect.
“Mother wants us to get together for dinner tonight.”
They’d only been gone a week. Did we need to get together to hear about the drinking and fucking? “When Mother’s gone, we won’t be doing this bullshit anymore. So how about we stop doing this bullshit now?” I looked him in the eye and didn’t feel slightly apologetic for what I said. I meant it with every fiber of my being. I already had to deal with his pussy-ass at work, and now I had to have a meal with him like we were family.
He tilted his chin toward the ground as if he were deflecting the insult. “I think it would mean a lot to Mother.”
“And since when did you start caring about other people’s feelings?”
Stoic, he lifted his gaze and watched me. There was a long stretch of silence, as if he couldn’t find a single justification to sidestep the insult. “Mother said she’s getting her floors waxed and her carpets cleaned. Wanted to know if we could do it at your place.”
My brother had been to my apartment once. Simone never had. I didn’t want to open the door to my enemies, but I’d rather have them on my turf than go to theirs. Now that Monroe was temporarily living with me, I had an ally on my side of the table. “That’s fine.”
“Tonight?”
“That’s short notice.”
“You know Mother. She gets anxious.”
“Yes…indeed.”
Monroe worked in Midtown, so she only had a five-minute walk to my penthouse.
I got home before she did, but I worked out upstairs then took a shower so I didn’t see her. When I was finished getting ready, I found her sitting on the couch, wearing the Louis Vuitton outfit my maid had dropped off.