Page 17 of Devil in a Tux

“Thanks for understanding,” I said. “It’ll work out better this way. One more thing.”

“Yes?”

“He wants to meet again Friday to discuss a cash gift.”

She didn’t miss a beat. “I got it. Just text me the details and his contact info. I’ll take care of it.”

“And we’re still on for Saturday brunch, right?”

“Sure thing.”

I got together with my besties, Chelsea and Gwen, as often as I could. We’d kept in touch since being Alpha Kappa sisters at Columbia.

Chelsea and I finished our conversation as we did many times, with a quick update on our younger sisters, Talia and Rachel Although both were fine now, five years was the medical community’s normal guideline for considering patients to have a clean bill of health. Neither had reached that point yet.

After sending Evan’s contact information to Chelsea, I went to the fridge to find a beer to celebrate. I hadn’t secured the money we’d planned on from Zoe, but I had escaped having to deal with Evan McAllister again. That counted as a win.

I was old enough not to need my father’s approval for anything, but it still felt like a huge weight had been lifted off me. I recalled the interview Evan had given last year. Why had I read it? Probably for the same reason people watched horror flicks—evil fascinates us, whether we want to admit it or not.

Evan had claimed his success had come from modeling himself after his father, Fergus McAllister. That sentence said all I needed to know about him. The elder McAllister had proved how dark his soul was.

CHAPTER5

Evan

The next morning,the light peeking through the curtains woke me too soon. It must’ve been around four in morning when I finally fell asleep. I’d been haunted by the endless mental replay of getting caught in the fountain with that girl.

Everybody else’s question had been,What were you thinking?The only answer to that was that Ihadn’tbeen thinking, which was decidedly unlike me. Even when I drank, I knew the general difference between right and wrong. I hadn’t always made perfect choices, but nothing in my past had been as disastrously wrong as this.

Once under the hot water of the shower, I decided my best course of action was to look at the bright side. But the fact that I didn’t have a pounding headache this morning was about the only thing I could put in the plus column for today. Everything else fell in the negative column, all driven by my own stupidity.

I put my face directly into the water to wash away those thoughts. It was water under the bridge now, and I had to deal with the situation that existed.

Now I was in charge of giving money away instead of bringing it in. That part I could control. It was simple: write checks. But Dad wanted us to be recognized for the good we did instead of the knuckleheads like me who ended up on Page Six for the wrong reasons. That part I couldn’t take back.

* * *

“You don’t lookany better this morning than yesterday,” Diane noted as I made my way into my new office.

I stopped at her desk. “Schedule, please. And aren’t you the one who’s supposed to cheer me up?”

“I checked Page Six this morning, and there’s nothing new about you. That qualifies as good news, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, great.” I held out my hand. “Schedule.”

She handed me today’s schedule, with only one item on it. “Anita called down. The PR firm, Jenkins and Vaughn, wants another half hour of your time this morning for Charlie Vaughn to come over, so I told her tentatively eleven o’clock for him. Although, you don’t have anything else, so we could move him up, if you want.”

A day with only one meeting and no phone calls had never happened in my last position. “Eleven works. What’s the agenda?”

“I’m just delivering the message from Anita.” Her words said she hadn’t been clued in, and her tone mirrored her displeasure. She picked up her phone. “I’ll confirm the time.”

“In the meantime, let’s gather up the other donation files so I can get a feel for how Zoe has been handling the office. And see if you can get an interoffice number for her in London, in case I have questions.”

She offered me a note. “Already done.”

* * *

It was approachingeleven when a woman appeared in my doorway and knocked on the frame. She held a manila folder in one hand. “Hello.”

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