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“Oh my god,” Izzy cries at the same time Kip says, “Sweet, so we got them half price.”
“I didn’t suck his dick,” Davis assures us, throwing a cushion at Kip as he chuckles amusedly.
“So, we got them all?” Princess asks, her voice slightly disbelieving.
“We got them all,” I confirm.
“What now?” Izzy asks the question I’m sure we’re all thinking.
“Now we start a coup,” Kip says. “The annual shareholders’ meeting is in less than two weeks’ time. We’ll attend the meeting and submit a formal request to remove your father as a director and have him terminated from the company. Assuming that whoever inherits now isn’t in attendance, then we should be the majority shareholders present, and there won’t be anyone there who can oppose us.”
“Then what?” I ask, looking at my girl. “Do we just walk away?”
“That’s up to Penelope and Izzy. We have the sex tapes we can use, plus the rest of the paperwork we haven’t been through yet, there might be something else we can leak to the press in there,” Kip says.
“Where is all the rest of the stuff we took from the girls’ house?” Gulliver asks.
“It’s still in the case in the back of our closet,” I tell him, jumping up and jogging toward our room. Grabbing the small carry-on case, I smile as I look at how full our closet is. All of my Princess’s things are hanging next to mine—her shoes on the racks, her makeup and jewelry filling the shelves—she’s settled in and made this place her home. I know we’ll be leaving for college soon, but this boat, my favorite place in the world, will always be full of her now too. My favorite person and my favorite place all blended together in the perfect mix of freedom and home.
Carrying the case into the living room, I place it down on the coffee table and open it. “Here, everyone take a pile and start looking through it,” I say, pulling out handfuls of paperwork and passing them out to everyone.
The room falls silent, except for the sound of shuffling papers as we all concentrate. “I have lists of investments,” I say, looking up from the paper in my hand. “Looks like your dad bought shares in the companies of his top ten son-in-law choices,” I sneer.
“How much Winslow stock does he own?” Gulliver asks.
“Not too much,” I say, handing the stock order over to him and placing the others on the floor at my feet.
“Jewelry,” Davis says.
Looking up, I find him holding a black velvet jewelry box in each hand.
“I found those in Mom’s safe, I’m guessing since they’re identical, they’re actually mine and Izzy’s,” Penelope says. “Our passports and birth certificates are in there too.”
Davis throws the box at Penelope, and she catches it and opens it. Peering around her, I see a large diamond hanging from a simple gold chain nestled against the black satin of the box.
“Here,” he says, throwing her passport and birth certificate at her next. “Hey, there’s something else in here too.”
Opening the passport, her face twists into a grimace. Closing it, she glances at her birth certificate, then folds it in half, slides it into her passport, and places them both with the jewelry box on the floor.
“Hey, this is a letter addressed to you, Pen,” Davis says, holding up a sealed envelope in his hands, her name written in swirling black ink across the front.
Turning to look at Penelope, I watch as the color drains from her face. Her hands are shaking as she stands and crosses the room, taking the envelope from Davis’s hands and running her finger across her name. “This is from my great-grandfather,” she whispers, fear lacing each word.
“Open it,” Gulliver orders.
Sliding her fingers beneath the seal, she pauses, lifting the envelope up to her face and examining it. “This has been opened already and then pressed closed again, I can feel the hardened glue.”
“What does it say?” Izzy asks.
Pulling the thick sheets of paper free, she lets the envelope fall to the ground and starts to read. For a few long moments, she scans the letter, her face twisting into an expression of confusion until her lips part and a whoosh of shocked air bursts from her.
“What does it say?” I ask.
“It says…” Trailing off, she hands the letter to me and then sits down in my lap, burying her face into my chest like she has no idea what to do. Curling my arm around her, I hold her close, then lift the letter up and begin to read it aloud.
Dear Penelope,
I’m hoping you won’t ever read this letter, because if you are, it means all of my hopes and good intentions have failed.
