“It wasn’t her. Mostly.” He scrubbed a thumb over his eyebrow. “My boss caught us together at Olive Twist. Gave me an ultimatum: I quit, or she loses her funding. Or maybe both if he finds anything off about her paperwork.”
Which he very well could. Fuck.
“Fuck.” William said out loud, face slack. And didn’t that just make Leo feel even shittier?
“I’m sorry,” he said. “You warned me.”
“I did. But I’m sorry too.” William tilted his head toward the ceiling, the cogs in his brain already at work. “So the problem isn’t any self-dealing.”
“No,” Leo said immediately. That was the one thing he was sure of. The IRS rules against foundations enriching themselves didn’t apply here since they were talking about grant money instead of property or leases or goods and services. “There’s no private benefit, no disqualified people. The problem’s the foundation bylaws.”
He shoved his laptop toward William, who skimmed the same document Leo’d been staring at for two hours.
“So your boss is pissed that you gave money to your girlfriend?” Cece drummed her nails against the tabletop, the tap-tap-tap burrowing directly into his skull where a headache was brewing.
“I don’t”—God, he was already exhausted by the excuses he’d been making to himself and everyone else for way too long—“I don't vote on the grants. That’s the board of directors. I just vet them, then oversee them once they’re paid out.”
William gestured to the screen. “The foundation rules state that Leo needed to disclose his relationship with Faith and recuse himself from all involvement with her grant.”
He plunged his fingers into his hair. “Relationship… I mean, how do you define that?She and Ihave barely defined it. It’s only been a couple of weeks.”
His eyes snapped up at Williams’ scoff. “You two have been sniffing around each other since the day I got here.”
“Before that,” Cece said. “Vani and Jessie and I saw this coming from a mile away. He’s always been hopeless when it comes to the blanquita.”
Hopeful. He’d beenhopeful. Until today, anyway.
“She expected me to quit,” he muttered. “Didn’t even ask me about it. Just assumed.” He pressed his lips together, but it wasn’t enough to keep the next part in. “And she got a ride home from the bar with someone else. Some blond guy. I saw them leave together.”
The only sound in the room was the scrape of Cece’s chair over the wood planks of the dining room floor. She calmly unhooked one of her earrings, then the other, as she stood. “What’s her address?”
“Not necessary.” But Leo’s muttered words weren’t enough to cut through the sisterly rage.
“What. Is her. Address?” Cece was trembling now, and she had her phone out. Fuck, if she was texting Vani and Jess, there might actually be a murder tonight.
William shot him an alarmed glance, but Leo made a quick motion from under the table for his friend to stand down. He’d been dealing with sister drama from birth.
“Cece. Cecilia.” He spoke her name calmly, hoping it would get her attention. “Nobody’s going to anybody’s house. I said some things too, okay? Neither of us was at our best in the moment. And Faith’s a lot of things, but she’s not out looking for revenge sex right now.”
He hoped not, anyway. Coño.
His sister met his eyes for a brief stare-down before she huffed and dropped into her chair, shoving her phone back in her purse. “Okay.For now.”
That was one crisis averted. Now to the looming disaster.
“I don’t want her to lose her funding. But I don’t want to lose my job. Her dad…”
He breathed in hard, and Cece’s face softened. “What about her dad?”
“He was so nice to me.” He was almost embarrassed to admit how good that had felt. “We talked about Digham, about what I was doing there. It felt like I was finally good enough. Like this job is how I make myself good enough for her.”
“Fuck that.” This time the anger came from the opposite side of the table, and William’s hands fisted as he spoke. “You don’t have to prove anything to anybody.”
William didn’t know the whole story of their first breakup. But Cece did.
“I get it,” she said, her voice gentler than he’d maybe ever heard it. “Billy’s right. You’re the best guy I know, and you don’t have anything to prove. But I get why that job’s important to you. We weren’t exactly supportive when you told us about it.”
He shrugged, although the memory of his family’s skepticism still stung.
