Page 20 of Filthy Rich

“Okay, I got you,” he said, before plopping his ass down beside me, and started to pour.

I didn’t answer until I was on my second glass of Lag, and the Cohiba had been cut, toasted, and was burning properly. I didn’t indulge often but I enjoyed the hell out of it when I did. Smoking a cigar was a lot like tasting a fine wine, because you never inhaled with a cigar. You sipped it. Sipped the smoke andthen blew it back out, leaving nothing behind but the flavor of ultrapure tobacco.

Smoking this fine Cuban cigar was perfect for my mood right now. I watched the white smoke swirl in front of me and slowly fade out. Lucas had a beautiful view of Black Bay from his game room. In fact, the whole house was amazing, and I was glad I had come to see my brother, regardless of what I’d discover tomorrow at Blackwater.

“Did you ever want something so badly that you were afraid for your future if you can’t have it?”

Lucas didn’t answer for a long time. He sipped on his Cohiba, and seemed to be far away in his own thoughts. My brother was probably lost in the past to a time when he didn’t have the scars that now marred much of the right side of his body, including his face. They looked mostly superficial to me, and always had, but I didn’t have to live in his skin, so I didn’t know how it was for him. Women didn’t seem to mind his scars. If anything it made him more attractive, his personal wealth notwithstanding, because he was a mystery. Pussy was never his problem.

“Yes.”

“What do you do about it?” I asked.

“You accept it for what it really is.”

“And what is that, exactly?”

He turned toward me and read me like a book. “You love her, Caleb.”

I shut up for a while and just let that idea roll around in my head for a bit. It seemed totally impossible for Lucas to be right, but no desperate urge to deny it as false came over me, either. And even weirder was the peaceful feeling of calm that settled in my chest. I felt relief for the first time in days.

How could I love someone I barely knew? Is that how it worked for people? They just met a person and fell for them that easily? I didn’t know the answers because I had nothing tocompare what I was feeling about Brooke to anybody else I’d known. It was a totally different experience with her. I had no guidebook to spell it out for me, either. This was one I’d have to figure out as I went along.

Time kept marching forward no matter what. The grains of sand continued to fall until the last one slipped through and there were no more. I thought of our dad and some of the conversations we’d had together before he died. One really stuck.

The idea that rightnowwas the most time you had left to live of your life. This day, this hour, this minute of your life—was the greatest amount of time you had remaining. The time you had left only grew shorter…and so, more precious.

Maybe the Cohiba was more potent than I thought, because my head was way out into the next galaxy tonight. I took another sip of the Lag and savored it across my tongue.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow, I would text Brooke and let her know I liked the picture she sent me—maybe ask her to dinner in the city. I’d go up to Blackwater in the morning with Lucas and evaluate the property. Then I would figure out what to do and have faith I was making the right decisions for the future.

“So are we going to play or what?” he asked with a nudge to my shoulder. “Because I wouldn’t dream of denying you the pleasure of losing to me. I have to keep you in line, remind you who has the better skills—the bigger brain.”

“Bigger brain, little brother?” I scoffed, “Bitch, please!” I grabbed a controller and started setting up the newest version of a game he’d created callediInVidiosa. I knew it inside out because I’d invested heavily in its development. Lucas was a brilliant designer, but he didn’t need to hear it from me. The proof was in the half billion dollars we’d made on this one game alone.

“Oh, before I forget—Victoria said to tell you hi.”

I caught it. The flash of emotion lasted for only an instant and just appeared in his eyes before he masked it, but I knew what I saw. “Cool,” he said after turning back toward the game. “Tell her congratulations from me.”

So the poor bastard was interested in Victoria, which might have worked out well for the both of them, if not for the fact his friend Clay was planning on marrying her.

One shared bottle of Lagavulin, one fine Cuban cigar, and eight hours of sleep with the sound of the ocean against the rocks had worked wonders. I woke up feeling much better, like the cobwebs had been blown out and the dark mask lifted away, so I could see clearly.

I grabbed my phone off the nightstand and fell back onto the bed with a stretch. I opened her text from last night and read it again. Then I texted her.

I am honored, Brooke. You remembered our deal to think of me whenever you see a meatball. I hope it was a good thought.

I felt so much better after that. It was torture not to respond late last night when it came through. I didn’t expect her to answer me right way, but at least she wouldn’t think I’d blown her off like an arrogant prick. If only she knew what I really wanted to do. I’d drive Lucas’s Escalade over to the cottages above the Fairchild Light, find the one that she lived in, and knock on her door. Then I’d?—

Then I’d do what? Take her in my arms and tell her she was the woman I’d been searching for all my life and demand she marry me?

That sounded really fucking stupid and a whole lot like a movie a woman would love to see—but a guy would have to be dragged into the theater with the promise of anal afterward.

This was all seat-of-the-pants stuff for me, and probably not a good idea to be pondering when I was naked in bed and sporting morning wood. I had no idea what I was doing anymore. Scary as fuck, too. To realize my whole life had destabilized because I’d met a girl who’d transformed my idea of what love might be about. I still didn’t know because, well…I didn’t even really know her yet.

My phone vibrated and my heart dropped like a rock when I read what she’d texted.

May I call you right now, Caleb?

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