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Arranged To Be Mine

Page 8

by Weston Parker

Cleo laughed. “Boys, play nice.”

Jeremy flipped me off, but he was smiling. He looked good. Rested. The modeling gigs with our New York cousins had been keeping him busy. According to our mother, too busy. She complained that she never saw him anymore.

“How long are you in town?” I asked.

“Two weeks. Then I’m off to Milan.” He said it casually, like jetting off to Italy was as mundane as a trip to the grocery store. “After that, who knows? Paris, maybe. Or back to New York.”

“Must be rough.”

“Someone has to be the pretty one in this family.”

“You keep telling yourself that.”

Cleo stood and moved to examine the awards on my bookshelf stuffed with various accolades I’d collected over my short but meteoric career. “We came to kidnap you for lunch,” she said. “You’ve been working too hard. Jeremy just got back. We should celebrate.”

“Celebrate what?”

“Being young, successful, and devastatingly attractive.” Jeremy sat up, running a hand through his hair. “Also, your llama thing. Cleo told me about it. Hilarious.”

“It was a serious legal matter.”

“You defended a movie star’s right to keep ten llamas named after cheese and candy.”

I couldn’t help but grin. I had done that.

Jeremy snorted. “God, I love your job.”

I glanced at my laptop, then at my siblings. The cease-and-desist could wait. The harassment claim wasn’t going anywhere. And I hadn’t seen Jeremy in almost two months.

“Fine,” I said. “Let me send one more email and we’ll go.”

“That’s what you always say,” Cleo complained. “One more email turns into five more emails turns into ‘sorry, I have a conference call.’”

“One email. I promise. And shouldn’t you be working?” I asked. “Last I heard, you had brides fighting for you to design their dresses.”

“I work all the time,” she said with a sigh. “My waiting list is a year out, which means one lunch is not going to make a difference. If they don’t like it, they’re welcome to find someone else to design their dresses.”

I laughed. “It’s always nice to have so much work that you can turn people away.”

I sat back down and pulled up my inbox. I fired off a quick response to my paralegal about the plagiarism case, then started to close my laptop.

That was when the notification chimed.

Google Alert: Corwin Gems.

I’d set it up back when Lou Corwin’s lawsuit hit my desk. Know your enemy and all that. I’d meant to turn it off after the verdict, but I hadn’t gotten around to it yet. The headline made me pause.

Queen of Diamonds or Queen of Ice? Corwin Gems Heiress’s Press Conference Takes Awkward Turn

There was a thumbnail image of Darcy Corwin at a podium, her face frozen in horror. Like she’d just witnessed a crime.

“Holy shit,” I said.

“What is it?” Cleo hopped up, came around the desk, and leaned over my shoulder.

“Ooh, is that the daughter? The one from the llama case?”

“She wasn’t part of the case,” I said.