Bliss Brothers: The Complete Series Boxed Set, page 63
“Yes.” Charlie bites out the word. The other brothers echo him, Beau bringing up the rear.
“All right.” Roman hits a button on a phone next to the projector. “Bill, are you there?”
“Right here, Roman.”
“Bill, I’m here with all of my brothers and Everly Carson, Asher’s wife.”
“Great. All I need is voice confirmation from each of you, and then you’re free to proceed.” Clearly, someone filled him in about Asher’s wedding, because Bill didn’t miss a beat.
My mouth goes dry.
“I’ll start. Roman Bliss here,” Roman says into the phone, his eyes flicking skyward. It’s the first time I’ve seen him do anything to suggest that all of this borders on the absurd. He’s been holding it together all summer, and this is all a bit much.
I know that feeling.
“Charlie Bliss,” Charlie snaps.
“Huck Bliss,” Huck says, leaning back in his chair.
“Driver Bliss,” Driver calls. “Hey, Bill. How’re you doing?”
“I’m doing well, Driver,” Bill answers.
Beau takes a sip of his drink before it’s his turn to answer and it goes down the wrong pipe. He gasps and coughs, pounding his chest, and Charlie glares at him.
“I take it that’s Beau?” says Bill, a laugh in his voice.
“Beau Bliss,” chokes Beau. “At your service.”
It’s my turn, but when I open my mouth, my tongue sticks to the roof. I pry it apart, my face heating. Oh, god, this is the worst. This is the worst.
“I—”
I can feel all their eyes on me. Six sets of eyes, all roasting me like a pig on a spit. I cough and raise a delicate hand to my throat. Asher reaches out and pats my arm.
“Everly Carson-Bliss,” I croak, several beats too late.
“Asher Bliss,” Asher says quickly.
“Got it,” says Bill. “I’ll file this along with your other documents. You’re good to go. Enjoy.”
“Enjoy,” says Charlie under his breath.
Roman disconnects the call. “Everybody open your portfolios.”
Charlie snatches his up and flips it open, the cover connecting with the table with a loud snap. His brothers are slower, but not by much.
I can feel Asher watching me.
My hands tremble, but I try to force them to be steady while I reach for the blue portfolio with the Bliss Resort logo on the front.
It’s horrible, to be holding your doom in your hands.
Horrible.
Roman starts at the beginning, and I’m shocked to discover that Asher was right—this is not a document that gets off to a rip-roaring start.
Together, with Roman clicking through on the projector, we go through the structure of the trust. Charlie pulls a pen from one of his pockets and scribbles notes in the margin of his copy. Beau sips his drink and reads along from a reclined position, looking for all the world like he’s posted up on a beach chair with some chick lit and a cosmo.
I would kill for a cosmo right now.
“And that’s the end of the structuring section,” Roman says. “I’m not sure we’ve learned anything new.”
“We have,” says Charlie, still writing.
“Care to elaborate?”
“I have,” answers Charlie.
Roman waits another beat. “Moving on.”
Everyone shifts in their chairs. This is the moment we’ve all been waiting for.
Roman takes a deep breath and clicks through to the next page.
There’s a low-key intake of breath in the room, and Beau whistles. “Is that the amount for this section up top there?”
“It looks like it.”
The brothers take this in. What do they mean? The words won’t straighten themselves out on my copy of the document, so I have no idea what they’re talking about.
“Oh my god,” Huck says. “He started a university.”
“Bliss University. Founded…this year.” Roman’s voice sounds like a hundred questions rolled into one. “I don’t believe it.”
“Is that where the money was going?” Driver scans the page in front of him. “He wanted to have his own university?”
“No.” Charlie has stopped writing and stares up at the copy on the screen. “Those accounts don’t intersect with the ones we use to run the resort.”
“How?” Driver is incredulous.
“Separate funding,” Asher answers from next to me.
Charlie whips his head around to look at Asher. “That’s what you do?”
“Fifty fifty. Part of the time, I check on his investments. The other part, I look for new investment opportunities.”
“That’s what you’ve always said.”
“That’s what I’ve always done. I just didn’t share the details.”
“Why not?” Charlie asks, and then understanding dawns on his face. “Because Dad wanted it to be a secret.”
“Ouch,” says Beau, a hand on his chest.
Asher clears his throat. “The resort was the most important thing to him. He wanted the five of you to be able to keep your focus here. And my focus elsewhere.” He leans back in his seat and lets out a low whistle. “I didn’t know about the university, though. That’s a way bigger project than he led me to believe.”
“You managed his investments without knowing where they were going?” Charlie raises his eyebrows. “Without telling any of us?”
“It was what he wanted,” insists Asher. “And it was going to come out one day.” Pain twists itself into his voice. “If you want to fight with me about it, could we do it later?”
I think Charlie’s going to go for the jugular, but after a moment he softens. “Yeah, Ash. We can fight later.”
“Why’d he wait so long?” grumbles Huck. “I could have been king of the campus.”
A chuckle rolls through the room. “I think you were king of the campus,” says Roman. “Okay. Next thing.”
We work through a page that details the revenues from an oil well in Texas. A series of art galleries in Tucson. A women’s shelter in California. The university is by far the biggest project, and the brothers can’t stop whispering about it during the drier parts of the documentation. The amounts and details start to blur together, and the sick anxiety drains out of my gut.
It’s not in here.
Asher’s father, whoever he was, created an empire while he was alive. A sprawling, incredible empire, and he gave his sons the gift of simplicity.
He gave Asher the hardest job of all. But as Roman speaks, I see the tension go out of his shoulders. He’s been working to fund all these projects, and now they’re out in the open. He doesn’t have to keep things from his brothers anymore.
Envy spikes between my shoulder blades.
The meeting room chairs are made with some kind of memory foam, but my butt aches anyway. I make it through three additional projects, then half-rise from my seat. “I’ll be right back,” I whisper to Asher. He plants a quick kiss on my cheek. I’ll sneak out to go to the bathroom, and then I’ll linger outside as long as possible. Catch my breath.
I push my chair back from the table and put a bland smile on my face.
I’m one step from the door when Roman’s voice comes to an abrupt halt.
“And this next one…”
“Oh, shit,” says Beau.
I whirl around, the back of my neck like ice, lips buzzing with numbness, palms drenched.
“The Bliss Ranch,” Roman reads. “In Paulson, Montana.”
15
Asher
Fireworks.
Fireworks in my ears, in my brain, in my belly.
And they’re not pleasant fireworks. They’re fire and ash, falling over every inch of my skin.
The Bliss Ranch?
The Bliss Ranch.
Everly stands frozen at the door to the meeting room, staring at Roman like he just stuck a knife in her back.
“What the hell?” Charlie looks from the screen to Everly, then to me. “The Bliss Ranch? Out in Montana?”
It becomes clear in this instant that word has gotten out about the fact that I was in Montana.
“Charlie, I don’t know anything about a Bliss Ranch.” I put both hands up. “Swear it on our mother.”
His eyes go back to the screen, then settle back on my face. “Why do I get the sense that you’re telling the truth?”
“Because I am.”
“Are you?” Roman asks. “You’re telling the truth? You had no idea there was a Bliss property in the town you just visited last week?”
“I had no idea. I went out there with an address and a set of vague instructions, and that was it.”
“What were the instructions?” Roman’s voice is level, but I can tell he’s holding back.
“To make sure everything was all right, and then get back to Bliss.”
“That’s what kind of job you have?” Huck is wide-eyed. “You just knock on doors and check on people?”
“I didn’t knock on the door of a Bliss Ranch. That’s…not where he sent me.”
“Let me get this straight.” Beau leans his head back against his chair. “Dad sent you to this random town in Montana because he has a ranch there, but he did not send you to the ranch?”
“No.”
“Then where did he send you?”
I glance at Everly, who is as white as a sheet. “A different address.”
“Asher.” Roman locks eyes with me, and I can’t turn away. “We need a better explanation.”
“I don’t have a better explanation. I went where I was told. I came back.” A bullshit explanation springs to my tongue—that my father sent me to a town where there is a Bliss Ranch, but it’s owned by an unrelated family and all of this has been a random and coincidental mistake.
“You were gone all summer.” There’s a new edge to Charlie’s voice, and judging by the information on the screen, I deserve it. “We had all sorts of crazy shit happen here, and you were gone, and now there’s a ranch with our name on it in the middle of nowhere Montana and you’re telling us you had nothing to do with it?”
“What would I have to do with it?”
“I don’t know, Ash.” Charlie folds his hands on top of his open portfolio. “You manage a lot of secret investments for dad. At least, that’s what you were doing before he died.”
“No.” This is getting away from me, and I didn’t even know I needed my hands on the reins. “I managed secret investments that he put in place for the family.” A cold, sinking feeling like cement falling toward the bottom of the lake pulls down at my gut. I straighten my spine. “If you have an accusation to make, Charlie, then make it.”
“I’m not making accusations. I’m making inferences based on the data that’s right in front of us.” He points at the screen. “Money is going into that account, for that ranch, god knows why. And…” His razor gaze falls to the portfolio in front of him. “Yes. Here’s the chain of accounting. The money comes directly out of the resort funds, passes into the projected accounts from the trust, and flows out to the ranch. Why is that, Asher?”
“I don’t know.” There are only so many times I can say it. “I don’t know. He didn’t tell me anything.” I wish he would have told me something. I wish he hadn’t put me at odds with the rest of my brothers over this. I wish I could march down the hall to his office right now and demand to know everything.
But he’s gone, and he’s never going to stand by the window of his office again.
“You’ve never seen this information before?” Charlie has his teeth deep into the facts now, and there’s no way I can disengage him because I can’t explain it. I have no fucking idea about any of it. Not a one.
“No. No.” I look at each of my brothers in turn. They all look back at me with the same eyebrows-raised expression.
“Listen, Ash,” Roman says quietly. “If this was you, if this was a project you set up for yourself, just tell us. There’s no shame in wanting a bit more, even if—”
“Roman, that’s not what this is. I went out there with a few sheets of paper and an address. I came to the address. And…”
I can’t do it.
I can’t tell them about what Everly and I did, because that will make this all seem a thousand times worse.
“And your wife here asked you for some help,” Charlie says. “Maybe she asked you for a ranch. Maybe you did have a whirlwind romance in Montana, with more on the side.”
“Charlie—” Roman’s trying.
“What’s to say he didn’t? What’s to say he didn’t meet her years ago, when the payments started? Nobody would have known. And dad wouldn’t have cared. Look at everything he kept from his.”
“Good things.” I shouldn’t keep defending this secrecy, because it’s obviously poison. “But these are good things. They make money from us, they’ve created a safety net for us…”
“A safety net we can’t access,” counters Charlie.
“A safety net we have to access together,” says Roman.
“We haven’t read all the documents yet.” Charlie sets his jaw. “How are you going to explain it away if there’s a clause in here saying that Asher has solo access?”
A silence falls over the table. There is no such clause. There has never been such a clause. But I haven’t seen any of this documentation, either. We were in a haze when we signed the paperwork. Even Charlie didn’t read it.
“Come clean, Asher.” Charlie looks at me across the table, eyes flat with pain and envy and all the frustration of the summer. “It was you and Everly, wasn’t it? Maybe you made a mistake, taking from the resort instead of the trust, but everybody makes mistakes.” His voice has lost some of its edge. “Even Roman makes mistakes.”
“Does he ever. Or at least Jenny does.” Beau laughs at his own joke. Nobody else does. “God, you are the worst crowd.”
“I didn’t do that. I don’t know how you want me to prove it to you, but I didn’t take money from the resort.”
Charlie nods, then looks down at the table.
None of my brothers can meet my eyes.
Not even Roman.
“Stop,” says Everly miserably. “I can’t take it anymore.”
Everyone’s heads swivel toward her.
“Asher didn’t steal from you. At least, he didn’t steal from you for that ranch. Who knows? Maybe he’s a really gutsy thief.” She lets out a choked laugh. “I live next door to the Bliss brothers of Paulson, Montana. There’s another Bliss family there. Maybe your trust got…all tangled up with them, somehow. He had no way of knowing, okay? I didn’t tell him.”
I am dead. My heart has been shocked into lifelessness.
Roman shakes his head. “That would be a neat explanation, Everly, but I don’t think that’s what happened. I think you fell in love, and I think you got carried away. I think this was you and Asher.”
“Except…we’re not in love.”
Each one of her words connects with my mind like a sledgehammer.
“I met Asher last week, and I convinced him to marry me to save my own ranch. My father’s will—” A shiver goes through her. “It was unbelievable. Our marriage is fake. It’s going to end in another three weeks. I have proof, and I’ll show it to you if you want to see it.” She goes back to her chair and unhooks her purse from the back. Everly takes out the envelope with our marriage certificate in it. “Signed last week.” She walks it up to Roman and puts it in his hands. “This whole thing is fake. But Asher’s telling the truth.”
16
Everly
I have fucked up beyond all reasonable belief.
The knowledge shakes me, rumbling like the motor of a boat under my feet. I’m unsteady, five seconds away from tumbling overboard, and nobody here would reach out to catch me.
Not even Asher.
I thought that by throwing my secret out into the air, it would prove Asher had nothing to do with this. That I had nothing to do with it. But from the look on Asher’s face, that was the wrong move. He’s ashen, and then a horrible red color comes to his cheeks. I’ve embarrassed him in front of his brothers. I’ve betrayed him in front of his brothers.
If it were me, I wouldn’t come back to this meeting room for the rest of my life. Asher might not have a choice.
Roman opens the envelope and slides out the certificate. He unfolds it with the infinite care of someone disarming a bomb. His eyes travel slowly over the page. I want to snatch it back, put it back in its envelope, and clutch it to my chest, but I don’t. I keep my hands to myself and focus on staying upright.
“What are their names?” he asks quietly.
“Austin and Luke. Bliss,” I add, then immediately regret doing it. It makes it sound fake, and it’s real. I have to make him understand that it’s real. “They’ve lived next to me all our lives. I…dated one of them for a while. It didn’t work out, like everybody thought it would.”
It didn’t work out, which is why I was in that bar in the first place. Which was why I met Asher in the first place. Which is why we’ve had one glorious week together, even if we spent half of it trying to abide by rules that strike me as idiotic in this moment. I could have had him in my bed for twice as much time.
I could have made this even worse.
I can’t bring myself to look at Asher, but I can see him out of the corner of my eye, and it’s killing me softly, the devastated set of his face.
“What happened, Everly?”
I take a deep breath. “Like I said, my dad was…not the finest individual. When he died, he left the family ranch to me on the condition that I got married. I didn’t know how to solve that problem. Snare a man by telling him he’d get half a ranch? I couldn’t even offer that. My sister…she deserves to keep it, and she was never going to get married, and I…”
This whole thing sounds insane.
It is insane.
“Asher walked into the bar I was in two days before the deadline.” I force myself to meet Roman’s eyes. “I was buzzed, and I asked him if he’d marry me. A fake, temporary marriage. A Hail Mary to save the ranch. He’s not an idiot. He said no.”
