“Harry’s happiness isn’t your responsibility.”
I glared at her, but she didn’t back down. She was completely right, but it didn’t explain why I felt like it was.
“He won’t be happy with her,” I said.
“How the fuck do you know that? It’s his relationship.”
I felt like I was backing myself into a corner. Whatever I’d say, she had an answer for. This shouldn’t be a struggle. I shouldn’t be fishing around for solutions to questions I thought I knew the answers to.
They weren’t even answers.
They were excuses.
“Look,” she sighed, “instead of making it a problem, why don’t you just be happyforhim?”
I clenched my teeth as I rubbed her toes, pulling another moan from her.
“You’re so good at this,” she groaned.
“Years of practice, Kitty Cat,” I purred as she fixed me with her wicked gaze.
“Just think about what I said, okay?”
I ran my tongue over my teeth. I loved her endlessly, but she could be a pain in the ass. All the Fischers were. “I will.”
“Good, now, come on,” she said, dropping her feet from my lap. “You do not want to miss out on Max’s pancakes—one of the many things he’s good at stirring up with his fingers,” she said, shooting me a wink, cackling as I glowered at her again.
Harry
Iwatched Mum storm towards me along the sunlight corridor in all her glory. Today it was an emerald pinstripe suit, matching heels that gave her a few inches on me, and her silver hair coiffed to perfection.
The only thing that ruined it was the scowl that permanently etched itself into her face ever since she had children. Her rare purple eyes were already filled with rage, but by the time we sat down in the boardroom, she would be all smiles and gentle laughs.
“Good afternoon, Mother,” I said as she screeched to a halt before me. “A lovely day for yet another board meeting, isn't it?”
I clutched the leather-bound folder to my chest, just in case she wildly grabbed it during our ‘conversation’. I doubted she would go that far, but I never knew with her. The last time my youngest sister, Jazz, returned home during a break from filming her blockbusters, Mum shattered an antique Ming vase in one of her piques of anger.
“You really think you’re going to get away with this, don’t you?” she hissed, not even bothering to greet me.
I looked at the heavy black double doors at the end of the corridor where the Board of Directors of The Fischer Foundation waited for us.
“If we’re talking about ‘getting away with it’,” I said as I countered her steely glare with a calm expression, “then it would be more apt to say that you have been ‘getting away with it’ for years before Grace noticed.”
The fact that I had openly mentioned Mum’s crimes didn’t deter her. It was another one of the many Fischer scandals that had been swept under the rug in the name of preserving our family’s integrity. We were only having this meeting because Mum had been using millions of Foundation funds to pay for her extravagant lifestyle.
My younger sister, Grace, had designed the entire security system for both The Fischer Foundation and the Fischer Group, run by our father, and she kept a fast eye on documents and transactions going in and out of both organisations. It was Grace who discovered that Mum had been accepting donations under the table, funnelling them into a private account with no record that the payment had ever occurred. It took Grace, Cat, and me three years and countless long nights of planning to get to this stage. No hard looks or threats from Mum had me falter.
“That is entirely beside the point.” Mum continued. “There is not a chance I’m letting you take The Foundation from me.”
“Yes, yes.” I nodded sagely. “And you’re doing everything you can to stop me, and you won’t give up your position, and you are the rightful Head of The Foundation,and—”
“You are still my son!” she snapped, gritting her teeth. “You should not be treating me this way!”
Ten years ago, I would have bent under a single stony word from her, but too much had changed since then.
With her hands on her hips, back straight, chin level, even in her rage, she managed to hold herself. Poised, as a perfect Fischer should always be.
With the Directors on the other side of the door, we couldn’t give too much away, even though they knew we were at odds with each other. I was sure that was the only reason she wasn’t shouting.
