I drop my head back against the seat. “Gonna have to sooner or later.”
We detour on our way to my car, and I’m honestly not sure what to think when Archie’s driver takes us into the parking garage beneath a hotel under renovation.
“Are you in cahoots to murder me?” I ask the man I would’ve called my best friend right up until this exact minute.
He grins, all of the mischief reminding me so much of Daphne that it hurts.
I miss her. I miss her more than I’ve ever thought I could miss another person.
“Absolutely not,” he says. “I don’t have any other friends who are nearly as entertaining as you are.”
His driver parks us about four levels underground beside a black Rolls-Royce Phantom with tinted windows.
Archie steps out of the car, and Margot slides into his seat.
She looks the same as she did last month, but nothing about this is the same.
“I hear you’ve been looking for this,” she says, handing me a folded note.
I peek at it, see Daphne’s name and a phone number, and it takes every ounce of control I have to not hug her. “You couldn’t have—I mean, thank you.”
“Had to make you earn it.” She quirks a half smile that’s far more like Daphne’s grin than Archie’s grin was but quickly sobers. “You’re walking away.”
“Entirely.”
“Saw the live feed. Do me a favor?”
I brace myself.
I don’t know if I’m talking to Daphne’s sister or to the business shark who’s going to one day run half of this city. “Yes?”
“Stall on distributing those stock shares.”
“Shareholder meeting’s not for three weeks.”
“I might need six or seven.”
“For…?”
Thatsmile is the shark smile. “Something you’ll approve of. Assuming you’re headed where I think you’re headed?”
“I’m headed where you think I’m headed.”
Her eyes narrow.
“And I’m sorry,” I add quietly. “If this hurts you. I truly am. That was never my intention.”
“Don’t apologize to me. Just be good to my sister.”
I eye her warily. “Not even a little mad?”
She smiles. Once again, I’m not sure which smile I’m seeing. “So long as she never tells me I need to be. I’m positive I don’t need to tell you the hell I would rain down on you to make you pay if you hurt her.”
“You do not.”
Her smile relaxes. “We’ll talk more later. Stall on that distribution. I’ll let you know when I’m ready.”
And then she’s gone.
