Page 57 of Intrepid

“Thanks.” I lifted the lemon water poured into a wine glass and drowned the fuck you cocked at the back of my throat. A small trickle leaked from the corner of my mouth, which I promptly dabbed with my napkin.

“How are you?” His question held as much genuine concern as a great white shark asking a juicy seal how it’s day was, before biting into it.

“Great. Classes are great. You?” I hated asking, when I really couldn’t have cared less.

He nabbed the napkin beside him and set it to his wine glass, cleaning the mouth of it. “Let’s not waste time on cordiality, shall we?” As he tipped back his glass, I watched him carefully sip the water, without so much as a wet sheen on his thin dry lips when he finally set it down.

The waiter sidled up to the table, carrying two large plates of seared salmon and almonds set over a bed of green beans. Personally, I’d have gone for a burger.

Once he’d set the dishes and filled our glasses, the waiter walked off from the table.

My father’s stern eyes found me again. “Are you seeing anyone?”

Ugh. Coming from Karl, the question struck me as invasively as if he’d asked me when I’d had my last pap smear. Not that I’d answer, anyway. After things went down with Dane, my father had offered little support, or advice, except to tell me that boys would be boys and that I shouldn’t have been so quick to dismiss someone from a good family. As if the man had any clue what constituted a good family, having left my mother to fend for both of us, without a penny to her name, after they’d split. No way I’d tell him about Ty, who probably embodied everything my father despised. From his daredevil tricks, to the way he occupied my thoughts—Ty would never earn my father’s blessings.

“I see you’re still wearing it.”

I didn’t have to glance down to the Tiffany lock charm resting against my chest to know what he was talking about. He’d given it to me as a gift when I was only thirteen years old. The chain was thin and delicate, bearing the weight of the thick wordlock, similar to a cable combination lock for a bike that hung, as if by invisible threads, around my neck. An albatross, as far as I was concerned.

In order to unfasten it, I had to twist the dials to spell out ‘trust’ and separate it from a small key that kept it locked in place.

At the time he’d gifted it, he’d told me it was out of trust that he’d allow me to wear something so delicate and expensive to school, not knowing that I’d removed the necklace every day, keeping it tucked in a pocket, or purse, so I’d not lose, or break, it. With each year that passed, he’d assured me his trust in me had grown, and that one day he would reward me for upholding it for so many years.

I never wore the necklace to gain his trust, though. I wore it to get what I needed, and at that moment, I needed him to send the payment to Lilia.

He reached across the table, lifting the lock charm into his palm, and his knuckles brushed against my chest. The intrigue in his stare forced me to glance to the side, as his finger pushed the hair off my collarbone in a stomach-twisting caress.

I cleared my throat, shifting in my seat, and swiped the hair back onto my shoulder, hiding the necklace, as his hand retreated to his side. “You expected to find it broken after all these years?”

His lips quirked, and he set to cleaning his silverware with the napkin he’d used on his water glass. “Heading off on your own path in a dangerous city like this, I had no idea what to expect. I certainly didn’t think it’d last long, once you were beyond my purview.”

In other words, he didn’t think I would last long.

I took another sip of water to stifle the second fuck you trapped inside my mouth. “I wanted to ask you—”

“How’s JoAnne?” His question took me by surprise, only because he made a point not to talk about the woman. She’d been our housekeeper for seven years, before things had ended on a tragic note and Jo had been left completely incapacitated and destitute.

“She needs her meds. And Lilia needs payment.”

Watching him shovel a piled fork of salmon into his mouth left me without much of an appetite. Instead, I tapped my own fork against the glistening slab of meat, waiting for him to chew his food. That was how Karl worked. Answers never arrived immediately, which made me question how the hell he’d gotten so successful in his career.

“I’ll no longer be taking financial responsibility for her.”

My fingers curled around the cutlery, wanting nothing more than to stab the prongs into the man’s throat. “Why? She needs money. If you don’t, she’ll—”

“She is no longer our concern.”

“Our concern? The woman who cared for me when my mother died? Who cleaned after us for almost ten years? How can you say that?”

Another forkful of food disappeared behind his fat lips, taunting my patience.

“You’re not to care for her any longer. I’ll have Jane look into a nursing home based on what she’s eligible for. But as of today, you’re not to have contact with that woman.”

My stomach lurched, and the nervous rumble from before surged into a full-on tidal wave of panic. “What? What about Lilia? Thhhhh… the apartment?” The questions tumbled from my mouth in a rush of desperation and anger. “You can’t just leave her homeless without a job!”

“It happens every day.”

“You promised me!” I sounded like a spoiled rich kid who’d been denied her favorite toy, if not for the fact that the toy in question happened to be someone’s life on the line. Clutching the necklace at my throat, my hands shook with the fury pulsing through my fingers, ears, all the way to my toes. And one jerk of my hands could’ve snapped the damn chain like a dry twig in a hurricane.