Free The Billionaire's Heart (The Silver Cross Club Book 4) by Bec Linder

I’ll text you the address. 7:00, okay? Don’t be late, or else.”
    “That’s a pitiful threat,” I said.
    She laughed at me, and hung up.
    We met at a Thai place in the East Village. Kris was waiting for me outside on the sidewalk. Despite her bravado on the phone, she raised her hand to her mouth when she spotted me, and as I drew closer I realized she was crying.
    “Oh, Kris,” I said, my stomach knotting with a combination of guilt and terror. I never knew what to do with a crying woman. I took her in my arms and patted her back while she clung to my coat and wept. “Kristin. Please don’t cry.” We were making a scene. A passing hipster scowled at me, like I had done something horrible. Maybe I had. I knew Kris felt that I had abandoned her.
    Public weeping didn’t match Kris’ image of herself, and she pulled herself together after just a few minutes and carefully wiped her fingers beneath her eyes. “Did my mascara smear?”
    I dabbed one black fleck from her face and said, “You look beautiful.”
    “What a charmer,” she said. “God. Fuck you, Elliott. Don’t ever go away for two years and then not call me the instant you get back. That sucks. That was a shitty thing to do.”
    “You’re right,” I said. Looking at her tear-stained face made me feel like a pathetic worm. “I’m sorry. I wish I could go back in time and call you from the airport. I suck.”
    “You have too many daddy issues,” she said. “We all need therapy. Every single one of us. Especially Cassie. Dad has totally brainwashed her.”
    “Don’t pathologize,” I said. “She’s always been like that. Are you ready to go in now? Let’s eat. We’ll get a bottle of wine.”
    “Two bottles,” she said.
    The restaurant was one I hadn’t been to before, but the food was spicy and authentic, and the waiter kept our water glasses filled and otherwise left us alone, so all of my requirements for an acceptable dining experience were filled. Kris talked a little about her job—she was a junior editor at a major fashion magazine—and got me up to speed on the latest family gossip. Julie, my youngest sister, had never even attempted to do anything with her life and was still living at home and buying expensive crap with our father’s credit card, and Kris told me a delightful story about Julie’s new cockapoo puppy, whatever that was, pissing all over our father’s favorite oriental rug.
    “I wish I could have been there to see his face,” I said.
    “Me too,” Kris said, “but Cassie did a pretty good job of describing it. She’s gotten a little better lately, you know. I think maybe she’s finally realized that Dad is an asshole.”
    “Wonders will never cease,” I said.
    “Yeah,” she said. “Oh, by the way, let me tell you this before I forget. Mom’s attorney has called me a few times, trying to get in touch with you. He says it’s something about her estate. Probably some paperwork or something, I don’t know the details. But you should call him.”
    “Sure,” I said, and sighed. My mother had been dead for more than a decade, but it seemed like there was always more paperwork to sign. “Is it still that old guy, what was his name—”
    “Harrison,” Kris said, and grinned. “No. It’s a new one. Young. He’s pretty cute.”
    “Kris,” I said.
    “I’m just saying,” she said. “It doesn’t hurt to look. Anyway, please call him so he stops calling me.”
    “I’ll do it tomorrow morning,” I said. “First thing.”
    “Good,” she said. “Now I want you to tell me all about this company you’re starting. Don’t spare any details. I want every last boring tidbit.”
    “If you insist,” I said. “But we’re going to need another bottle of wine.”

 
     
     
     
     
     
    TEN
    Sadie
     
    It happened like this.
    Ben rolled over in bed one morning and said, “I don’t feel right.”
    One week, five blood tests, and two doctors later, he was diagnosed with acute myeloid