Page 531 of Lodestar

I snorted. “Not the love she has for her family?”

“Nope,” she said, popping the P. “Just what she can do with some beef and potatoes.”

“We both know you’re dreading seeing Lorelei tomorrow.”

She sniffed. “I dread the upcoming apocalypse from over-dependence on fossil fuels, Conor O’Donnelly. I do not dread seeing the woman who helped raise me.”

“Methinks the lady doth protest too much.”

“You would.” She glanced at me. “You working on your spreadsheets?”

“You make it sound like a seventh-grade project,” I grumbled with a pout.

She chuckled. “Trying to predict the future is definitely something you think you can do at that age.”

“I’m not trying to predict the future. Patterns are everywhere. Particularly in Italy where match-fixing is done as a fine art.”

“You settled on next season’s purchases?”

“In the process of doing so. We need to attract mid-level names from the upper leagues of the sport over in Europe. It’s hard when the team is worth shit.”

“It’s doing better now,” she argued.

“Yeah, but not Real Madrid or Paris St. Germain good.” I hitched a shoulder. “It’s a work in progress. Speaking of, I was thinking about inviting the Kensington FC chairman to your gala.”

“Why?”

“Alain Brentner has a good striker we want to buy but he’s holding out.”

“So?”

“So, he’s the son of Juniper Brentner, which will bring a nice glossy sheen to the event because she’s still a Hollywood A-lister, and I’d like to lean on him.”

“Lean on him. Ha. Rachel will kill you if you commit a crime at her prissy gala.”

“I’m not scared of her.”

She smiled. “You’re scared of me though, aren’t you?”

“When you’re armed, yes.” I grinned at her. “But you’re not armed around the house.”

“A pencil can be deadly in the wrong hands. This you know.”

“Yeah, but you’re not going to stab me with a pencil.”

“No, I don’t need to. With the amount of apple pie you eat, you’ll give yourself cyanide poisoning.”

“That’s if you crush apple seeds. I don’t eat apple seeds. Just apples.”

“Semantics.”

“Big semantics. Huge ones. So?”

“So?”

“Do you want to invite Alain Brentner to the gala?”

“Translation: Please invite Alain Brentner. What did he do anyway?”

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