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Jillian Sharp.My mind worked in overdrive as I swiped away a bead of sweat. So that's how I recognized her. She was the CFO of BSX, Brant's digital conglomerate, and the face of the company. She conducted all of the news conferences, interviews, and led their board of directors.
"I spoke to Brant this morning. He mentioned your little..."--she sniffed in a way I took to be disapproving--"meetinglast night."
The polite thing to do would be to invite her in, but I didn't like her tone, or the sour look on her face. I decided to let her stand there. "And?"
She glanced around. “Maybe I should come in? This is, after all, a personal matter.” She sniffed again.
“Sure.” I finished peeling off my sweaty socks and stuffed them inside my shoes, then tucked them under the bench. “You've already trespassed into my backyard, might as well bring you inside my home." I reached for the shower’s hose and washed down my feet, taking my time as she waited. Normally, in the privacy of the outdoor shower, I would have stripped. Scrubbed the sweat off my body and enjoyed the hot water on my tired muscles. That would have to wait, and my irritation at her intrusion grew as I walked around the edge of the pool and unlocked and opened the back door.
Inside the crisp air conditioning, I grabbed two bottles of water from the fridge and slid one across the granite island to Jillian, who inspected the bottle before setting it back down. She watched as I guzzled every drop from my bottle before wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.
Silence stretched, and I damn sure wasn’t going to say anything. She was the surprise guest of the hour, a busy executive who probably had a list of things she should be doing. I could stand there all week without skipping a beat.
She delicately cleared her throat, and she pulled off elegance well, but I knew her background. She was one of the most powerful women in Silicon Valley, but she was--under all of those expensive clothes--straight middle class. She’d attended a community college and worked as a substitute teacher until 1997, when her nephew, one aforefucked Brant Sharp, built a computer in his basement. A computer that made IBM's latest creation look like a bowl of marshmallow pudding. A computer that made his parents drop every future plan and invest their savings in Team Brant. He was only eleven years old and needed a chaperone. So Aunt Jillian quit her job and hitched her wagon to Brant. She lived off food stamps and her savings in a spare bedroom with Brant’s family for two years. Then she brokered Brant's first deal, and all of the Sharps moved their bank account balances seven decimals to the right.
"I'd like you to stay away from Brant.” She raised her chin and it jutted out at an unattractive angle.
Well, that was unexpected. I'd half expected her to pull out an appointment book with plans to pencil in our wedding date while the summer calendar had openings. "Excuse me?"
"Brant doesn't need the distraction of a relationship right now." She remained in place, back rigid, a stick firmly wedged somewhere up her ass.
"That seems like a decision for Brant to make." I leaned my forearms on the counter and met her gaze squarely. "Last I checked, he's not eleven years old anymore."
Her dark red lips pursed together. "Don't assume that you know him or anything about me just because you did an internet search. He’s not built for a relationship and doesn’t have time for you. I'm coming here, woman to woman, to ask you to stay away."
"And I'm tellingyou, woman to woman, that it's none of your business." Any interest I had in Brant was skyrocketing with each word out of her mouth. I had obediently colored inside the lines for decades. I was looking for any opportunity to rebel and kicking this schoolteacher to the curb would be a fun start.
She unclasped her purse, a cream Hermes that I owned in green, and reached inside.
A laugh bubbled in my throat when I saw her withdraw a checkbook. "You're going to try tobribeme to stay away from him?"
She ignored the question and placed the book on the counter, her jaw set as she clicked a pen into action and bent forward, writing my name onto the first line.
"We spent one night together. He's not preparing to propose."
"It's better to be safe than sorry," the woman said stiffly. "Plus, at this point, there are no emotions involved. Walking away should be, in your case, a breeze. You’re a smart girl. I'm sure you'll make an intelligent decision." She completed the amount, then signed her name and ripped it from the deck. She dropped it onto the granite, then used her pen to slide it across the island toward me as if it might burn her fingers.
I ignored it. "I appreciate the visit, but I think it's time for you to leave."
She didn’t budge. “It's for your own good, sweetheart. You don't want Brant. He's damaged goods." The cruel words were said with affection, the tone not minimizing the truth in her eyes. She believed it, and I had only spent a few hours with him, butdamagedwas not the word that I would have used. She returned the pen to her purse and buckled the gold clasp.
"I don’t want your money."
"A million dollars never hurt anyone, dear."
I dropped my eyes to the check, surprised to see her name across the top.One million dollars. To me, it meant an extra vacation home. Maybe a condo in Colorado. Nothing that would change my life. But it was still a significant amount of money, especially to be written off her personal account. "It's worth a million dollars to you for him to stay single? Or is it me that you have such personal disdain for?"
Her eyes flickered, and there was a tropical storm of emotions in this small woman. "Trust me. I want what's best for Brant. And, for you."
I pushed back the check. "No thanks. And it has nothing to do with Brant. I'm not going to be bought off from anything."
She chuckled, and the sound was anything but jovial. Instead, it scraped long, dead fingernails down my spine, reducing me, in one squeeze of her vocal chords to a misbehaving child. "Oh, how easy it is for a child of wealth to take the moral high ground. I imagine, if you’d had to work a single day in your life, that you would react differently. If it were your money that built this house and purchased your ocean-front view, you’d be taking my check and thanking me for it.”
She was probably right, but that didn’t mean I was going to let her stand here and lecture me. She wanted to buy my distance, and I didn’t want to give it. I tore the check into two and let the two halves float to the counter.
“Fine.” She shrugged. “You don't want my money? What about HYA?"
My fingers tightened on the counter, and everything changed between us with that question. She wouldn't. She couldn't. "Whataboutit?"
