There was a small independent coffee shop halfway between Williamsburg and the luxury hotel that they were both staying in uptown. It had the name of a flower, with greenhouse-like decorations all around. The barista was a white teenager with blonde dreadlocks. Her eyes were heavily lined.
By the time Melanie got her latte, her brother and sister had already arrived and carved out a spot for themselves in the middle of the café. Her brother was dressed in a navy blue suit that he had obviously had tailored to fit his dimensions and possibly make himself look broader in the shoulders. He looked even more like their father than Melanie remembered. Ann’s hair was now shorter and she was wearing so much makeup that Melanie could no longer see the mole that used to be on her chin.
Perhaps she’d even had it removed.
“Mellie!” Ann greeted, standing up with open arms, as if she was the kind of person who hugged, even though she’d always refused to so much as brush arms with her younger sister without making a big show of wiping herself off with hand sanitizer. As such, Melanie refused to step into her arms, and instead sat down at the table.
“So,” she said, curtly, “what was it that you two wanted to talk about?”
“Can’t we just have a simple cup of coffee with our little sister without there being some kind of secret agenda behind it?” Ian asked. “How have you been, by the way, Mellie? You look good!”
“I’ve been fine,” she said, crossing her arms under her buxom chest. “What do you want?”
“Why would we want anything from you?” Ann asked, taking her own seat and brushing off the hug snub with poise. “We’ve got our own things going. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but I just signed a multi-million dollar contract with a rather lucrative company. Now, I’m not allowed to say the name, but it looks like I’ll be getting that vacation home in Malibu after all.”
“Yay you,” Melanie said, dryly, and then turned to Ian with a raised brow.
“I’ve just been declared a billionaire,” he said, coolly, as if he hadn’t been waiting for something like that his entire life. “A lot of good investments really pays off in the long run, you know?”
“I bet some good seed money helped plenty, as well,” Melanie pointed out, thinking of the inheritance that they had pretty much stolen from her.
“Yes, well, it’s what you do with seed money that’s important,” Ann said. “Besides, the point is, we’ve pretty much dominated the scene in Chicago. They might as well rename it New Brunswick—or something that hasn’t been taken by New Jersey.”
“We’re ready for our next adventure,” Ian added. “So, we were thinking that we would come and join you in New York City. After all, if you can make it here…”
Melanie’s heart dropped into her stomach at the thought of her siblings being around all the time. Even if neither one of them would ever deign to live south of SoHo, they were bound to invite her for drinks so they could laude their successes over her head. They thought that they were so much better than she was, just because they had been born first.
And had been legitimately conceived.
But she could practically see their father shaking his head at how his two eldest children turned out. He had always been a stickler for humility, even if he had also been somewhat of a playboy himself. He didn’t let greed get the better of him, the way these two obviously had.
“So, how has your career been doing, Mellie?” Ann asked. “Do you have any leads on new investors or job opportunities?”
Melanie thought long and hard about how to answer that question. If she told the truth and informed them that she was now working with Aiden Carmichael, she knew that her siblings would be pretty pissed off. Especially Ian, who had always considered himself their father’s favorite until he had taken on a student. And as satisfying as angering her older brother would be with that little tidbit, Melanie knew that, with her brother’s connections, he could see to it that she failed in every investment she made with Aiden in the future. She didn’t know how she knew that, but her brother had always worked in mysterious ways.
He had always done his best to make her life a living hell whenever he found the opportunity to do so.
So, instead of telling the truth, Melanie lied for her own good. “No,” she lied. “I thought I had something, but it didn’t quite work as I had planned.”
“Aw, that’s too bad,” Ann said, pouting. “I’m sure you’ll bounce back, though, Mellie. Brunswicks are nothing if not the least bit…bouncy.” She cackled and Melanie fought the urge to roll her eyes.
“So,” Ian said, ignoring his sister’s laughter, “we heard that you had a meeting recently with a certain…individual. Do you want to tell us about that?”
“Not particularly,” Melanie replied, furrowing her brow. They couldn’t possibly know about her meeting with Aiden.
“Aw, come on, Mellie,” Ann said. “Tell us. We told you about our lives.”
“Without my asking you to,” Melanie retorted. “Also, please stop calling me Mellie. You know that I don’t like it. Annie.”
“I don’t care if you call me Annie. In fact, I quite like it.”
“That’s good for you,” Melanie said. “But don’t call me Mellie. It’s Mel or it’s Melanie. Period.”
“Whatever,” Ann sighed. “Tell us about Aiden Carmichael.”
Melanie’s eyes widened at that. How did they know about Aiden? Had they been spying on her? Having her followed? She’d have liked to think that she would notice if somebody was following her, but then again, Aiden Carmichael had been following her entire career and she hadn’t even noticed that she was so much as a blip on his radar.
She decided to play dumb.
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, I think you know exactly what we mean, Mel,” Ian said, with a sideways smirk in her direction. “Everybody knows that he met with a pretty young newcomer to the scene. There were even whispers that this newcomer had connections to the Brunswick estate. Now, with Dad’s past, that could have been anything in a skirt, but since he hasn’t been around for a couple years now, it didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out who they were talking about. Now, are you going to tell us about your meeting with Aiden Carmichael or not?”
“It was nothing,” Melanie lied. “We were just meeting for a drink and talking about Dad, for the most part.” That wasn’t exactly a lie. They had just met for a drink and they did speak about James Brunswick and what he had taught both of them. Melanie just didn’t think it was important to mention the fact that she was now working under Aiden Carmichael.
Especially not to Ian, who had no love for the man he had perceived had stolen his chance at bonding more closely with their father and taking over his investments after his untimely death. Not that Aiden had even done that. Their father had passed on his business to a successor that had been unrelated to him, even before his death. He rather preferred his children to make their own way in the world without too much of his help.
But Ian didn’t see it that way. The way Ian saw it, his father had chosen Aiden over him and he could never forgive him for that. Even though, it wasn’t Aiden’s fault, technically, that their father had chosen to take him under his wing. Obviously, he had seen promise in the man and he had been right in doing so, considering Aiden’s recent success.
But Ian was successful, too. He was a billionaire now.
“Why do you even care?” Melanie asked. “It’s not like it has anything to do with you.”
“My adversary meeting with my sister? My own flesh and blood? That has everything to do with me, Melanie. It’s bad enough that he stole my father from me. Now he has to steal my sister, too. No. Not on my watch.”
“He’s not stealing me from anybody,” Melanie huffed. “I was never anybody’s to begin with. Especially not yours. You’re just angry that he decided to teach Aiden the ropes instead of you, even though Dad handed you every single opportunity, including a third of his wealth, postmortem. Look at you now; you have over a billion dollars in successful investments. Why preoccupy yourself with somebody like Aiden Carmichael. I can guarantee you he’s not thinking about you.”
“As far as you know.”
“Just let it go, Ian,” Ann sighed. “What else have you been up to, Melanie? Any recent investments?” There was something that twinkled in her steely gray eyes that unnerved Melanie. So much so that she found herself straightening, almost in defense against her sister’s snakelike smirk.
“No,” she lied. “Nothing like that. I’ve just been trying to relax, you know. Post-grad.”
“Relaxing isn’t going to get you that career you’ve always wanted,” Ian pointed out, with a satisfied smirk. “I mean, what would dad say if he knew that you were taking time to relax when you could be building your future?”
“I don’t know, Ian,” Melanie retorted. “What would he say if he knew you stole part of my inheritance to make your first billion? Do you really think he’d be proud of you for that?”
“He’d understand the sacrifices we have to make to make a living,” Ian brushed off. “Even when it comes to family. After all, it wasn’t like he was the strictest family man.” He looked Melanie up and down, his eyes doing a hell of a job to remind her that she wasn’t like either of them. That while she had inherited the same Brunswick facial features, she clearly hadn’t inherited their metabolism. Not to mention, that her existence was borne out of infidelity.
Melanie stood up, tugging her wallet out of the back pocket of her jeans and placing a couple bills on the table. “I have to go,” she said. “I have a meeting.”
“With whom?” Ann asked, looking very nosey.
“Nobody you know,” Melanie retorted. “It was nice seeing you both, but I have more important things to attend to. Send me a postcard from Chicago, when you go back.”
She didn’t wait for their response as she made a beeline for the door, breathing in the fresh air as her heels hit the pavement. Spending any time with those two was always toxic, threatening to suffocate her if she didn’t make her escape as soon as possible. How she had lasted that long in their presence was beyond Melanie, but at least she was out.
She hailed a cab with one hand and checked her phone with the other, pulling up the list of possible investments as she slipped into the back seat of a yellow taxi and gave the driver her address. As he drove her home, she started to narrow down the list, suddenly more anxious than ever to complete her first assignment.
Her siblings wouldn’t know what had hit them.