I totally smile.
I’m still looking at the photo when the ding of the mudroom door sensor announces Raina before she rounds the corner. Even though I’ve invited her multiple times to come in through the front, my assistant insists on using what she calls the service entrance. I don’t argue too hard, because she’s been both my right and left hands for the past six years, so I’m not going to take a chance on pissing her off. At this point, she’s probably forgotten more about my life than I remember.
As always, her dark hair is pulled back, hazel eyes assessing me the same way she scrutinizes a quarterly report.
“I want to sell this house,” I say as a greeting.
“We need to talk about Avah Harris,” she says at the same time.
We stare at each other across the marble island.
“What do you know about Avah?” I pocket my phone like she caught me watching porn, the digital equivalent of hiding a love letter behind my back.
“Why do you want to sell this house?” she counters, her gaze tracking the gesture.
At one time, I loved what this house represented, although never the house itself. But somewhere between snorkeling in paradise and making love on a sagging camp mattress, those bullshit optics stopped meaning anything.
“If things go well with NorthStar, I’d like to make Colorado my home base.” I keep my voice boardroom neutral, the tone I use when I don’t want anyone to know I care about the outcome. “I’ll find a small place out here.” I glance at the fourteen-foot ceilings and the designer furniture that no human spine could comfortably rest against. “Something cozy.”
Raina’s brows go sky high. Have I ever uttered the word cozy? Doubtful.
“Avah Harris,” she repeats like I’ve answered a question she no longer needs to ask.
“Why are you saying her name like she’s a communicable disease?”
“I didn’t say she’s a disease.”
“Your face is doing the talking.” I lean against the island and cross my arms. “She’s a close friend of my sister’s and has been helping me with the Johnsons. They like her.” I hold Raina’s gaze. “I like her. There’s nothing more we need to discuss.”
She purses her lips and lets the silence stretch between us. Raina’s ability to weaponize silence is legendary. I’ve watched it work on venture capitalists, board chairs, and one particularly arrogant senator. I can hold out longer than most, but I’m not immune.
“Say what you need to say.” Awesome. I’m spouting off cloying John Mayer lyrics. This is going south fast.
“Has she told you about her father?” Raina asks.
I spread my hands on the counter and notice the cool marble underneath my palms in the same way my aging father’s knee registers a shift in barometric pressure—deep in my bones.
“He’s not someone she wants in her life.” It’s true, as far as it goes. Avah mentioned her dad in generalities, like recounting the childhood bully you survived but don’t want to relive. She told me just enough that I understand the wound without seeing the scar.
“Robert Ramsey,” Raina says. “Avah and her mother appear to have changed their last names at some point. Convicted of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit mail fraud for running a structured settlement scheme that targeted the elderly. He bought their life insurance policies at steep discounts, forged documentation to accelerate payouts, and pocketed the difference. Spent fifteen years in a low-security federal facility in Connecticut. He’s out now.”
The clinical delivery is so Raina that under different circumstances, I’d be impressed. Right now, I’m trying to reconcile the woman who threw a spatula at my head and refused to let me buy her a pair of shoes with a father who swindled retirees out of their insurance settlements.
“He’s been reaching out,” Raina continues. “Earlier this week, he contacted Grant Burlingame’s office. Grant runs the Burlingame Group out of?—”
“I know who he is.”
“Ramsey dropped your name in the context of you being close to his daughter. He also mentioned The NorthStar Way.”
“How do you know that?”
“Grant’s assistant is in my network.”
“Right.” I run a hand over my jaw. “The omnipotent assistant network.”
“It’s allDownton Abbeybelow-stairs stuff.” A faint smile crosses her face, gone before it fully forms.
“I pay you multiple six figures a year. Not exactly below-stairs wages.”
