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Today is the day of the board meeting. I’ve got one chance to present my ideas and hope that Dad accepts them. I’m doing this for Mom, too—the more I worked on my presentation, the more confident I became that she would love this direction for the winery. I feel scattered but invigorated. I pulled my best suit from my closet. I have to look the part of the heir to Everton today. Alistair even let me borrow a pair of his stupidly expensive cufflinks. I study myself in my bathroom mirror: hair slicked back, charcoal Ferragamo suit with a crisp cerulean tie, Patek Phillipe watch on my wrist. Wingtips. It’s like I’ve gone back in time. My newly shaven face accentuates my jawline. The tie brings out the blue in my eyes.
I hear a wolf whistle from behind me.
“Damn brother,” Alistair says. “You clean up well.”
“I’m only wearing this for today,” I insist. “It’s a one-time thing.”
“Sure,” Al says dismissively. “Ready?”
Alistair has work to do at the office today, so we’re going in together. I grab a satchel with the booklets I made for the presentation and as we head down the stairs to meet Alex with the town car, the doorbell rings. I open it and my face goes blank with shock.
Isla stands on the doorstep. She wears a pink sundress and ballet flats, her hair piled up in a bun. It’s like in the few days since I’ve seen her, she’s grown even more beautiful. Like my memory can never truly do her justice.
Her eyes pop as she takes me in. I haven’t worn a suit since I’ve been back.
I can’t repress the hope that she thinks I clean up well too.
“Hi,” she says. Her voice is breathy.
“Hi,” I say.
“Hi,” Alistair says, grinning like the Cheshire cat.
Isla blushes. “Hi Alistair.”
“Wait for me in the car, Al,” I tell him.
He bows. “As you wish.”
We stand in awkward silence for a moment. Her gaze keeps flitting down to my chest.
“You look, um, nice,” she says.
“I’m presenting my plan for making Everton sustainable to Dad and the board today,” I tell her.
Her eyes widen even more. “Really? Oh, Caden that’s wonderful!”
“Thanks,” I say. “Do you want to come in?”
“No, no, I won’t keep you,” she says.
“I don’t mind,” I reassure her, even as I see Alistair standing by the town car tapping his watch. I don’t care if I’m late. Isla is talking to me again and I’m not about to fuck things up a second time. She steps into the house hesitantly. I close the door behind her. I’m about to launch into an apology for what I said at the beach, but she speaks before I get the chance.
“I heard you found something that could help your mother’s case,” she says. “So I, um, started looking at the autopsy report and stuff.”
My brain screeches to a halt. “You did?” I assumed she would have deleted the files when she told me to leave her alone. “Did you find anything?”
“I only had a thought. It might be nothing.”
“Go on,” I say.
“Your mom was shot…” Her voice trails off and a dent forms between her eyebrows. “This is kind of explicit.”
“Please. I need to hear it, and…” I swallow. “It’s easier coming from you.”
She shifts from one foot to the other, then nervously tucks her hair behind her ear.
“She was shot directly through the heart,” Isla says. “And at pretty close range. Then the bullet exited her back and went through the window and probably out into the bay somewhere which is why they couldn’t find it.”