Shopping for a Billionaire 4(32)
Author: Julia Kent

Red.

“Amanda!”

He flushes again.

“Oh, this is fun.”

“What is?” he asks. “Talking about women’s thighs?”

“How about Amanda’s thighs?”

Red.

“It’s warm in here,” he mumbles. “Need to turn down the temperature or the ice will melt.”

“The temperature isn’t the problem. Amanda is.”

“She sure is. This is all her fault,” he announces.

Declan’s words from earlier ping through me. “Declan said she set this all up. Is that true?”

He nods, then chuckles. “That friend of yours is a determined one, I’ll tell you. Marching into my office like that yesterday.”

“WHAT?” I motion to the wall of bottles and tap my glass. The mystery shop says to order two drinks, but what the heck—I’ll pay for my third.

He gives me a single shot in a glass and upturned eyebrows. “That’s it for now.”

“Tell me more about Amanda barging into your office!”

“She came to find out the story about Declan and how our mother died.” Something in him dials down a bit. The bar’s emptying out and I look at the clock. It’s early dinnertime, and people are either commuting or getting ready to eat.

“We know how she died,” I say with as much sympathy as I can.

“Amanda wanted the whole story.”

“Did you give it to her?”

“Yes.”

“And….?”

“And told us we needed to go undercover for this mystery shop. To get Declan to see you.”

“Huh?”

He runs a frustrated hand through his light-brown hair and looks like a younger version of Declan. It makes me smile. Then again, the television news could show footage of a serial killer and I’d smile. What’s in this scotch that makes the world so…good?

“Shannon, I have never seen my brother so happy with any woman before. When he was dating you he was happy. Happy and Declan don’t go together. Not since Mom died and Dad blamed Dec for her death.”

“Why would he?” I gasp, horrified at the thought. “He was eighteen and a wasp stung her—what did Declan have to do with that?”

The eyes that meet mine are haunted. Just like Declan’s.

“Because on that day, I was stung and so was Mom. We only had one EpiPen.”

No.

“And we were at one of my soccer games, just goofing around. There were these long trails on the outskirts of the playing field, most of them two or so miles long. Mom loved to walk along the paths and see the creeks, stand on the bridges and listen to the water rush by. She said it was a welcome reprieve from the craziness of business life with Dad.”

My own inbreaths feel like icicles entering me and piercing my heart.

Andrew clears his throat. “The three of us were walking, a good mile away from the soccer fields, when a swarm hit us. Just blasted right over our heads, but a few strays stuck around. Mom was stung twice, I was stung three or four times. We knew about Mom’s allergy. She had an EpiPen.”

I’m stone cold sober suddenly.

“But we didn’t know I was allergic, too, until that moment.” His voice has a sing-songy quality to it. He’s reciting a well-honed story, one that took telling and retelling to shape.

I can imagine it all in my mind. All too well. Because I just lived it with Declan a very short while ago, in my own way.

“One of my stings was near my eye, another one on my neck, and Mom worked to find her EpiPen for herself, in her giant purse. By the time she found it I was wheezing. Declan started screaming about running back to get help, get an ambulance. I didn’t have my phone with me, and I think we later realized neither did Dec, but Mom had one in her purse.”

A sick dread fills me.

“And?”

“My wheezing got worse and I remember black spots filled my vision.” He shakes his head, hard, like he’s trying to force the memory out. “Mom was panicking and shaking, and then she dropped to the ground. Dec came running back and kept shouting. I don’t remember the words. Then he grabbed Mom’s purse and found her EpiPen.”

He gave me a rueful smile. “Mom trained us all—repeatedly—on how to inject her in an emergency.”

“Of course,” was all I could croak out.

“But when Dec went to her she pushed him away and pointed at me. It felt like I was breathing through a coffee stirrer by then, and the force of blood pumping through me made it sound like—”

“You were under a waterfall,” I say, interrupting.

We give each other a knowing look. My words seem to make him stop and close down a bit.

“Can you guess what happened next?” he asks. “Do the math. One EpiPen. One mile from help. One mother’s decision.”

A painful rush of emotion rolls up the muscles of my throat into the roof of my mouth, through my sinuses, making my eyes water. “Oh, Andrew. Oh, my God. She made Declan inject you, didn’t she?”

He closes his eyes and his jaw tightens.

“Yes.”

His phone buzzes in his pocket and he grabs it, desperate for a reason to be done with this conversation.

“Gotta go,” he says in a clipped voice. Then he pauses, tongue rolling in his cheek, lips parted slightly. His eyes have gone neutral, a skill he shares with his brother.

“So now you know,” he adds. “Dad blamed Declan. Said he should have treated Mom.”

“But your mother insisted!” Any good mother would. I know my own mom would have done the same, exact thing. Know it with all my heart.

“I know she did. Or,” he pauses. “I know she did at least once. I blacked out and woke up in the hospital.”

“And your mom…”

“Died the next day. Dec injected me, searched Mom’s purse in case there was something he could help her with, found her phone and called for help. Then he ran back to the field. By the time they got to us, it was probably too late for her. But he did everything he could have done. Everything.”

“But not enough for James.”

Andrew shakes his head slowly. “Never enough for my dad.” And with that he purses his lips, breaks eye contact, and steps out into the main lobby, leaving me shivering.

But I’m not cold any more.

Chapter Seventeen

It’s 5:17 p.m. now and I decide that maybe I should have a wee bit more than five or six shots of scotch in my stomach as I struggle to comprehend what Andrew’s just told me.