Page 113 of Perfume Girl
“And you got to live in England.”
I forced a smile. “Made me the man I am.”
She looked like she was going to say something else, but then closed her eyes in defeat.
“What’s wrong?”
“My Porsche needs servicing.”
I hoped she wasn’t lying. “I’ll have the money transferred.” Keeping my sister on a budget seemed controlling, but this was my way of keeping her out of rehab.
“How was Mom this morning?” she asked.
I shrugged. “Didn’t see her, just visited the horses.”
“You always were her favorite.”
Penelope’s words made me want to pull away from her. No, I wasn’t Mom’s favorite, not even close. I had been the one to be sent to Havana and forbidden to have any contact with my family. Every time Penelope spoke those words I wanted to break something.
Fuck.So much damage created from one reckless decision. Those haunting memories always found me. Penelope had a way of laying them at my feet…
Once, when Cuba became too much and they were threatening to send me to England, I stole a boat and tried to return to Miami. I’d failed to even get out of the harbor, though at fourteen it was a decent try.
The pain I’d felt over that long ago rejection hadn’t faded with time and distance. In recent years I’d tried to salvage the time I’d lost with my family, but failed. I’d returned to a mother who hardly knew me and a sister who stared at me with confusion in her gaze. I reminded them of our horror-filled past.
Yet I couldn’t find it in me to stop loving them.Or not forgive them.
“Go see Mama,” I said softly.
“Next week.” She raised her gaze to mine. “I’d die without you.”
I stepped away and raised the folder. “Let me get this to the lab.”
I was glad I had an excuse to leave my office. Penelope’s energy made me apprehensive and her impertinence had ruined Raquel’s creative focus.
I stopped off at reception to talk with Taylor. “I want all the staff out by two. That gives everyone time to get home.”
“I don’t think the hurricane’s on course to hit us.”
“These things can turn.”
She pointed at me with insistence. “You leave, too. Go hunker down.”
I gave her a kind smile. “Taylor, call me when you get home.”
She rolled her eyes.
“I mean it.”
“Got it, boss.” Her frown narrowed and she swallowed her nervousness.
I turned to follow Taylor’s line of sight toward Penelope. “Do you need me for anything else?” I called over to my sister.
She came toward me. “I’ll get a percentage?”
“Of the perfume, yes, of course.”
She had delivered the notes of our new scent so she deserved a generous commission. But I was ready to send her to an investor who would tie up her money until her taste for Miami’s vices had faded.
