Page 184 of Ice Princess

She sniffs haughtily. “I told the girls that they made a bad decision trusting you. And it turns out I was right.”

Annoyance hisses through my veins, but I keep my tone even. “We can play the blame game later. Benji’s at my apartment and I need your help convincing him to take the Lady Luck Society back.”

“Aren’t you the one accusing our family of theft and fraud? Why do you want to work with me?”

“Because this isn’t about you and me, or about the Kinseys and the Harts. It’s about the community we swore we’d help. The children and the senior citizens are more important than our feud.” I pause. “Unless you disagree?”

There’s a beat of silence and then Carol Kinsey grumbles, “The son alone won’t help our case. We need to meet with his father.”

“Rodney Howard isn’t answering my phone calls.”

“Where’s the son taking you?”

“I don’t know.” I talk fast in case Benji knocks on the door again. “A restaurant?”

“Find a way to get him to bring me along. I’ll handle it from there.”

“Great. Tha?—”

Carol Kinsey hangs up in the middle of me talking.

I mime a punch at the phone.

Ugh.That woman is a menace.

After taking a deep breath, I open the door again.

Benji was mid-knock. “Hey, is everything okay?”

“Yeah, but uh… change of plans. I forgot that I had a meeting with Carol Kinsey.”

“Can you reschedule?” Benji asks, looking disappointed.

“I’m afraid I can’t. But the good news is, she’s willing to come with us.”

“She… is?”

“Yup.” I hurry past him. “You said the limo was downstairs? Lead the way.”

I’mcertain that Benji won’t entertain Carol Kinsey’s request for us to meet his father.

But I’m proven wrong.

After a whole lot of chatting, compliments, eyelash-batting and a few too many ‘of course, darlin!’s, Benji agrees to call his father over to the restaurant.

When Rodney Howard arrives, questions well in my throat and ache to spring out. But Carol squeezes my knee and takes over, leading the conversation away from the Lady Luck Society case.

Instead, she asks about Benji’s work, engages Rodney about his latest travels and keeps the conversation going. If I didn’t know what she was doing, I’d be fooled by her frequent smiles and fake ditziness. By the time shedoesbring up the donation, both father and son have been completely disarmed.

“By the way, we were soverystunned hearing there were issues with the donation,” Carol says, flapping her thick eyelashes.

Rodney Howard stops with food midway to his mouth.

Carol beams. “I’ve known Rodney to be very kind and very fair. So I just knew once we sat down together, we could sort all this out.”

Rodney Howard clears his throat.

“You don’t have to explain, Rodney. Iknowyou are not the type of man who’d go back on his word. So this doesn’t need to be discussed at all.”

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