Page 14 of Sapphire Spring

“Let me know how that goes.”

Even at this subtle dig, Pete’s eyes flashed with anger.

PeteWortherwas a man whose everybreath, step, and move was defined by anger, and for most of his life Mason hadbeen the target of it. His father had never raised a hand to him in his life,but the man knew how to bruise with words.

“Stop beinglateor you can give memy house back.”

“You told me I had to live in the beach house.”

“I told you I wasn’t going to let a new employee with aknown drinking problem commute two hours from LA each day. The beach house is aperk.”

Mason nodded.

Pete gave him a once-over. “You wore those pants to thedesign team meeting?”

Mason nodded.

“Brave choice.Team’sgot a bunch ofcocksuckers on it. Don’t want to give them the wrong idea.”

With that, PeteWortherwas gone,leaving Mason with a racing heart and a fantasy of grabbing the man by the backof the neck and hurling him headfirst into the nearest wall, a fantasy he’d beennursing for as long as he could remember.

5

When she saw Naser and Jonasapproaching her across Sapphire Cove’s pool deck, PariKazemithrew her arms skyward and cried, “Naser-joon,brother of mine, how nice of you to dress like something other than the managerof a drug store!”

“Why would that be a problem?” Naser asked. “You lovedrugs.”

She clutched Naser’s shoulders, her manicured nails pressinginto the fabric of his suit like daggers poised to shred. He was lucky hissister didn’t design men’s suits. Otherwise, she would have forced him to wearone of her own colorful creations. He figured the radiant smile and air kissesshe was gracing him with were for Jonas’s benefit. The man had matched him stepfor step, poised to make good on his promise to ensure the Kazemi siblingsdidn’t start clawing each other’s eyes out in the minutes before Pari’s eventstarted.

“Any reason you didn’t return any of my text messages?”Naser smiled back.

“The party isn’t going to plan itself.”

“My messages were about the party,” Naser said.

Wearing a smile that looked more like a grimace, Paristarted brushing at Naser’s shoulders as if there were dust bunnies clinging tohis suit. Which there weren’t because Naser always took a lint roller tohimself several times before leaving the house, no matter the outfit. Which Pariknew because she always made fun of him over it. Which is what he figured shewas doing now. “I know, but sometimes you say you want to talk about one thingand then I respond and it’s six hundred other things, and because I run my ownbusiness, I have other things to do than to take ten pages of ever-changingdirections from myadorablelittle brother.”

She pinched his cheek. Hard.

In Persian, Naser said, “Pinch my cheek again and I will—”

She started responding in Persian before he could finish thesentence. “I can place both hands around your throat and squeeze and then wecan—”

“English,please,my dears!” If there was such a thingas a polite shout, Jonas had achieved it. He’d made Naser promise to keep theconversation in a language he could understand.Otherwisehe wouldn’t be able to intervene before trouble struck. “How’s prep going sofar, Ms. Kazemi?”

“Call her Pari,” Naser grumbled.

As his sister launched into a dramatic yet self-effacingmonologue about all the drama that had allegedly gone into transporting theequipment needed for tonight’s event, Naser searched the pool deck withoutmoving an inch. No sign of the mannequins that were supposed to display the newhandbags. But no blatant contract violations or evidence of hidden circus animalseither. Instead, he saw hotel staff setting up high-top bistro tables and barsand a gorgeous sunset primed to explode into a fiery symphony of pink andorange, right around the time Pari’s first guests arrived.

There wasn’t a trace of the Bliss Network’s giant gold B, alogo that had been attached to almost everything Pari had done for three yearsnow. The home shopping network in question had given a huge push to Pari’s mostrecent creation earlier that year, a cross between a scarf and a shawl designedto flatter full-figured women. Theshal,as she’d called it, was made of lustrous fabric that wrapped around the back ofa person’s neck, leaving much of the shoulders exposed before plunging towardtheir mid-section. Its two wide fabric flaps were lined with hidden buttonsthat allowed the person to cover as much of their stomach as they liked. Thenumber of buttons, Pari insisted, were about giving women options, somethingshe said was too often missing from women’s fashion. But it was her use of boldcolor and intricate geometric designs that made them a standout.

Their mother, on the other hand, had taken great exceptionto the fact that its name,shal,was the Persian word for shawl. In her view, this was a problem because whatPari had designed was not, in fact, a shawl. How would Americans feel, MahinKazemi had asked, if a foreign company launched a new brand of bicycle and calledit acar?Whenever she was confronted with this linguistic logic, Pariwould erupt with a fiery tirade on how she didn’t need her hospitaladministrator mother lecturing her on the intricacies of fashion marketing, andthat’s when Naser would slip away to text Connor about nonsense so he couldtake his mind off the yelling in the other room.

If the Bliss Network wasn’t involved in tonight’s event,maybe Pari had decided their specifications for the party weren’t up to herexacting standards.

Which meant she’d paid for it out of pocket with money shedidn’t have.

At least no one was trying to demolish anything.

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