Page 170 of Brazen Mistakes

“Main house?” My voice is getting squeaky, but I don’t know what to do about it.

“Yeah. The boat house and pool house are down there as well, but we just passed the staff cottage at that last turnoff. And I guess the garage is a separate building too, but it’s connected to the main house by a tunnel, so I don’t really know if that counts.”

I swallow, then swallow again. “Trips? You know this is crazy, right? I haven’t even seen it, and it’s absurd.”

He flashes his teeth at me, more like the snap of an irritated badger than a smile. “Father wanted the best. He got it. This place was a resort in the late 1890s. I could give you the whole spiel, but I have no desire to relive the torture of performing narrative history for my father and his friends.”

We come around a bend, and I see it. Stone, three stories tall with a fourth floor on one side and what looks like a greenhouse on the other side of the roof. Staff rush around the yard working on last-minute touches, while what must be a fucking valet motions for Trips to stop. Trips ignores him and instead looks at me for the first time since the front hallway. “I’m sorry. I’m not going to be pleasant while we’re here. Showing kindness is showing my father weakness. And he doesn’t take weakness well. He’s always watching, always listening, and, well…” He trails off, glaring out the window at the poor valet as he knocks.

Rolling down the window, Trips just stares at the staff person, flurries whipping into the car, coating him in glittering sparks of white.

The valet gulps. “Sorry, Mr. Westerhouse. Please proceed to the garage. I’ll call ahead.”

He nods, saying nothing, and the man skitters back, a walkie-talkie in his hand.

The window closes, and he sighs, driving around the man and heading to the right where what looks like a large house sits separate from the fucking hotel Trips grew up in. “I’m out of practice,” he mumbles, more to himself than anything.

“At what?” I ask, even knowing that it wasn’t directed at me.

The garage opens and we spiral down to the basement, like a fucking downtown parking garage. Trips pulls into an empty spot in a spotless white basement. He clicks it off, his hands still gripping the wheel like it’s harmed him. Or more likely, hurt someone close to him. “At hating everyone and everything.” He glances at me. “Give it a day.”

A nervous giggle escapes me. “Is that another of your unexpected, brooding jokes?”

He bangs his head back against the headrest instead of answering. Then he reaches around, grabbing the bag from where he left it in the seat behind us. “Ready?” he asks.

“No.”

“Good. Trust me, you’re not. I’m hardly ready. But we’ll survive.”

I nod, nerves vibrating through me. Then, with one last tap on my thigh, I put on my calm, superior mask, and step from the car.

It’s time to wear this mask like my future depends on it.

Because it does.

Chapter 60

Clara

We’ve made it through the fucking underground tunnel between the garage and the house—which, what?—and have come up into a mudroom on steroids, when a squeal has me on my toes, spinning to see where the danger is.

Instead of death and violence, a whirlwind of a girl with the same dark auburn hair as Trips canters into the room and latches onto my hands before I have a chance for my brain to catch on. “You must be Clara,” she proclaims, half dragging me behind her as she tugs me into the house, nothing but paneled wood walls flashing by as we go. “I’m so excited to meet you. I want to hear all about all your,” she leans in and whispers in my ear, “boyfriends.”

Her grin is pure mischief as she goes back to her singsong cadence. “And don’t worry about including Archie. I get it. I’dleave him out, too. He can be a real sourpuss when he wants to be.”

Whipping back to Trips, I don’t know what kind of face I’m making at her blithe discussion of my love life, but it must be something, because he blanches.

Mattie, because this couldn’t be anyone else, catches the look on my face, and she giggles like the girl she is. “Don’t blame him. He’s easy to get secrets out of when he’s drunk and pissed. Low-hanging fruit. My mom put you guys in the blue suite, as father has some business people out in the pool house. You know how he is.” She throws a glance over her shoulder at Trips before continuing the half run through the house and up two flights of stairs, Trips and me caught in her wake.

“Nice to meet you, Mattie,” I say, defaulting on propriety. Isn’t that important in this world? Manners and using the right forks?

She just grins, hauling me down to the end of a hallway, pushing open the last door on the left, finally stopping once Trips and I are in the blue suite with her.

Because based on the pale blue wallpaper, the darker blue duvet, and the navy chairs spread out in a room larger than most studio apartments, that’s exactly where this forced march has brought us. There’s even a fireplace.

“Holy shit,” falls from my lips before I remember I’m supposed to be a classy bitch.

Trips grumbles as Mattie dances into the space, folding her lanky frame into a chair by the fireplace. And is that—yup. An actual fire. Who has a wood-burning fireplace in a guestbedroom? Speaking of which, who has enough bedrooms that you have to designate them by color?

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