“That family relies on old connections and cheating to run their business.”
I roll my eyes, grateful for the freedom that I don’t have during our in-person meetings. And I’m definitely not going to tell him I just spent the morning helping Gavin with a sale. Or that I kissed him.
I don’t know which one would make him madder.
“So you’ve said, Dad. Listen, I better go. I think Harrison just arrived.”
“Okay, okay. Did you do the reports for the quarterly meeting?” Dad has an infinite amount of trust for me to do mindless tasks.
“Yes. I did what I could remotely, and I sent the rest to Sonia to finalize. She’ll have them on your desk by the end of the week. Well before the meeting.”
Dad grunts his thanks. When he’s not talking about Loot or his hate for Carlyle’s, he’s not very loquacious.
“What’s an influencer?” he asks before I can hang up.
“Excuse me?”
“Someinfluencercontacted the office to register for our next sale, but I don’t know what they do.”
I sigh. “They’re famous on social media and can encourage people to buy certain products or use certain services.”
“Like an advertising company?”
“Sort of? But they can get famous on social media, doing reviews or videos or posts or going viral, and making connections with other influencers, until they’re famous themselves. Or they can be already famous themselves already. And then the people who follow them buy the things they tell them to.”
There’s no response and I take the phone away from my ear to make sure the call is still connected. It is so I bring it back to my ear. “Dad?”
“No. That can’t be a real thing.”
“Have Diego take the meeting.” He’ll be able to suss out whether the influencer is legit and can report back to me. This could help Loot quite a bit, depending on who’s calling.
“Fine,” Dad says. This is a familiar tone. I most recently heard it when I had to explain what Bitcoin was because a buyer wanted to pay in it. That was a very long day for everyone.
“Love you too, Dad.” I try to wrap up this conversation.
“Good luck with Harrison. Tell him I have some new Mughal paintings he might like.”
He hangs up before I can respond.
I look at my phone in bemusement, always feeling a bit like a tornado hit me after a phone call with my dad. The in-person meetings are one thing, and I can prepare for them, emotionally and with information. I have no warnings for his phone calls, and they touch down whenever he wants, toss me around for a few minutes, and then spit me back out, leaving as quickly as they came.
But that’s one thing I have to give my dad. He makes every other task seem minuscule in comparison, so I’m prepared to get on a large horse now.
I walk back to the entrance, finding a larger crowd that I had left. I nod to Gavin, who looks like Hollywood’s version of the cowboy. He’s wearing worn jeans (and I would put money on him buying them pre-worn instead of doing any of the work) and a flannel shirt. His hair has the wind-blown effect, but I know that came from product and skill, and not any time spent in the actual wind.
He moves toward me as I join the group. “Are you okay?”
“What? Why would you ask?”
Gavin shrugs. “You look...off. Did someone say something to you? Was it Nate? I knew there was something off with that guy.” Gavin looks around, apparently to do who knows what to Nate.
“No, nothing with Nate. I’m fine.” I’m not freaked out that Gavin Carlyle can read me like I’m a book at a first-grade reading level with more pictures than words. Not freaked out in the slightest.
But before he can follow up on my lie and before I can plan an escape, probably involving a cleverly fashioned shiv made out of a filed-down eighteenth-century porcelain bowl, our host comes down the stairs.
“Is everyone ready for some time with nature?” Harrison says.
God no. The sun can give you an illness, and nature has ticks that can make you allergic to delicious meat and there are wolves.
