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“Right, well, that will work for us too, right?”
“Sure,” Monty agrees. “As long as my mother doesn’t find out you work for me.”
“Right,” I reply. “So, what’s the plan for the weekend? Is there an itinerary?”
“Of course there’s an itinerary,” he says, as if he couldn’t fathom going on vacation without one. I doubt he’s ever done anything impulsive in his life. “We’re having lunch with my mother when we get there. Then we should have some free time before dinner with my mom and her husband.”
“Easy. And if the goal is for her to not like me, I should complain about absolutely everything and be rude to everyone?”
“Yes.”
“Sounds easy.”
Monty huffs a laugh. “You love everyone and everything. I’ll be surprised if you can actually pull this off.”
Oh, I am absolutely going to be the worst version of myself ever just to prove him wrong.
9
Monty
Kendall looks gorgeous in her new dress and hat.
Too gorgeous.
It’s going to be harder than usual not to stare at her curves or her face. I have a strange obsession with her blonde curls.
“Ooh, I’ve never flown first class,” Kendall says as we take our seats.
Sitting beside her on the plane feels different from sitting beside her at work. I try not to think about why.
“When my father was CEO, we had a company jet.”
“No way!”
“That expense was one of the first things I got rid of when I took over,” I remark.
“And you didn’t want to run the company, did you?”
“How did you know that?” I ask.
“Lily told me. You were running a nonprofit building houses and didn’t really want to be a CEO, but you did it anyway.”
“We needed to keep the company from going under and make sure it stayed in the family, so I stepped up.”
“And for years you’re bored out of your mind, hating life instead of hammering away out in the hot, hot sun helping people who need it most?”
“I…I stay busy. My mom and siblings needed someone in the family to take over. And a lot of people depend on Crawford Holdings for their salaries. I don’t want to let anyone down,” I explain. “And speaking of letting people down… I typed up a list of things that drive my mother crazy.” Reaching into my briefcase, I pull out my brown leather portfolio and hand Kendall the list inside.
“Wow. You didn’t want to laminate it too?” she teases. “You could’ve just texted this to me or emailed it, Monty.”
“I don’t think I should do either of those things unless it’s specifically about work. Definitely nothing personal.”
“Why?”
“I’m just trying to think about what text I wouldn’t want to see blown up as a courtroom exhibit.”
“Why would our texts become courtroom exhibits?” Kendall asks, then her lips part, drawing my eye to her pretty pink lipstick she’s wearing. “You think I’m going to make some sort of human resources lawsuit because I agreed to do this favor for you?”
