Page 75 of All That Glitters

She chuckles, close to rolling her eyes, though she keeps herself composed. “He had a lot of things to do for the estate when, you know, everything shifted.” She says it softly. “There are a few things he never got around to, and I think it’s because he just couldn’t think about it any longer. Unfortunately for him, I am a Type A personality, and I don’t like to leave loose ends dangling around in the ether, if you know what I mean.”

“I appreciate it.”

My stomach flips at her words. Estate. It’s easy to forget that Marcus has control over me and this house, everything left behind by my parents because they’d died before I became legal. I needed a guardian.

“It’s just a couple of signatures on your end, and this will all be wrapped up,” Sherry adds, holding out a pen.

“Do you have any idea what it is?” I ask as I reach for the pen. “I mean, besides estate stuff.”

“No idea. I only know he needs you to sign this to finish things up.”

I glance up at her sharply. “He needs me to sign it?”

Sherry bobs her head.

And it becomes painfully clear what’s inside the folder once I flip to the first page.

TWENTY-EIGHT

Parker left a fucking shit show behind for me to deal with. To be fair, he hadn’t known he was going to die, had no idea his work would be cut short.

Knowing him the way I had, he always lived as though he had a thousand years or more to play with. Time, instead of being limited, was like chips at a casino table, and he tossed away his moments flippantly.

His paperwork is a fucking joke.

Stanic assured me he would have everything I needed sent to me. Everything in me wanted to go home and get piss ass drunk. I want to forget everything and everyone and let the world go straight to hell for a few hours. Or a night—however long I can get.

Instead, I sent a quick text to Sherry telling her where I’d be, then booked it to the office and found it empty. True to word, within the hour, Stanic had everything delivered, packed in boxes with discrete brown tape to keep them closed. There were currently seven waiting for me to go through, and I had literally a couple hours to get acquainted with the whole thing.

I glance at my watch, already over the edge with anxiety and pissed the fuck off.

I’ve got to get home and check on Empire. There’s no way she’s still asleep at this point, and she’s not answering any of my texts. So far, no one is getting back to me, and nothing goes according to any sort of logical plan.

I groan, letting my head fall back and staring at the ceiling to the count of ten.

The sooner I get this shit done, the sooner I’ll be able to get home.

Grab the bottle.

A little drunk might make it easier to keep my hands off Empire too. Hands, mouth, whatever else I’ve thought about sliding over her silken skin thousands of times. I’m fucked hard enough by life to do something I’d regret at this point.

Maybe staying in the office is the best idea after all.

“Goddamn Parker Heath,” I groan out loud.

I hope he rots in whatever purgatory or hell he’s in. No doubt I’ll be joining him eventually. I straighten and smooth out the line of papers in front of me. They fan out one right after the other, an endless sea of black on white, with several of Parker’s notes hand scribbled in the margins.

He’d blamed a lot of his production choices on Empire and the way I finagled her contract.

Fucking lies.

Nothing but a blame shift tactic to cover his own ass.

I groan, pinching both sides of my nose and drawing in a long, deep exhale through my mouth. If Stanic wants more money out of this picture, then I’ll give it to him. I’ll make him so much money on Wretched, he’ll trust me implicitly on any future projects, and that kind of trust gets me one thing I can’t buy: leeway.

Future projects without Empire.

The thought of her has me gritting my teeth as tension splits my head in two.

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