“Deeper than you know. Everyone I talked to says she needs to hit rock bottom.”
“Is there a bottom for her? I mean, the nanny covers for her in the mother department, and you and I run this place. Even the staff picks up after her.”
Raquel nodded. “And she has a stipend that allows her to do as she pleases. She doesn’t have a boss to answer to. No one to answer to but herself. Just like she wants it.”
“Yeah, but Dad thought that too, and then he had to tell us he was dying—that was the ultimate in having to own up to his behavior. Is Lunette going to have to do that to Hattie? Is she going to drink herself to death?” She flattened her palms against the desk, the pen cutting into her skin. “Are we going to let her?”
Raquel lifted her hands in defeat. “I don’t know what else to do.”
Kenzi rubbed at her stomach. “I swear I’m getting an ulcer.”
“You and me both, sister.” Raquel flipped her ponytail over her shoulder. “And I get to worry about you too.”
Kenzi sat forward. “Well, you’re not exactly Pollyanna yourself.”
“Pa-lease. I didn’t run off and get married. And setting aside the whole ulterior motives with the vote and Harrison, I have some major concerns. Who is this guy? What if he’s after your inheritance? I mean, the timing is all too suspicious, if you ask me.” She scooted forward and lowered her voice. “Is he blackmailing you?”
“What?” Kenzi practically shouted. “No! He’s not blackmailing me. What could he possibly hold over my head?”
“I don’t know. Please tell me you signed a prenup.”
Kenzi brought her voice back down. “I signed the mother of all prenups.”
“Who wrote it?” Raquel pressed.
“Harrison.”
She nodded her approval. “Then it’s leak-proof.” She fell back into her seat. “You scared the living daylights out of me, you know. Marrying him before Dad died could have cost the three of us everything—or at least a quarter of everything. When he had a vote, I thought for sure he was going to get a quarter of the inheritance too.”
Kenzi shook her head. “I checked into all that and knew we were fine.”
“ButIdidn’t know. And on top of that, Dad was dying, and then there was the funeral, and Hattie.”
“What about Hattie?”
“She spent most of the weekend in tears. It was all I could do to calm her enough to sleep at night. She kept saying she wanted Grandpa—only she’d say it like she does: ‘Gwapa.’ It broke my heart. I couldn’t leave her room.”
“Why didn’t you come get me? I would have taken a shift.”
“Your husband had just moved in. I didn’t want to interrupt.”
“It wasn’t like that.” Kenzi couldn’t tell her that they were in separate bedrooms. For all the world knew, this was a real marriage.
“How much do you really know about him?”
Kenzi grew wary of Raquel’s overconcern on her behalf. If that’s what all the questions were really about. She could be fishing for information, looking for a weakness … “Enough to marry him. Why?”
“I get the feeling that he’s not what he seems to be.”
“Oh?”
“He’s clean-cut, but there’s this edge of danger.”
Kenzi kept her mouth locked shut. She’d noticed the same thing and liked it. What she didn’t like was her sister checking out her husband.
“And he’s way too hot for you.”
“What the heck?” Kenzi got to her feet, pressing her fists into her desktop to keep from wringing her sister’s neck.
