Page 75 of Incisive

For their part, Mom and Dad are united in coming to the White House for Christmas, which I guess has Stella even more aggravated. She has yet to find any weakness to pry against to convince them to relent.

It must annoy the snot out of her that our parents aren’t the slightest bit materialistic like she and her friends are and that she has nothing to dangle over their heads to coax them into breaking their promise to spend Christmas with me.

I’m looking forward to having uninterrupted time with Mom and Dad here at the White House. If Stella decides to bounce and do her own thing, I suppose it means less stress for me in the long run. I’m done trying to placate or even understand my sister. I’ve spent my whole life emotionally wallowing in her shadow.

Time for her to find a new scapegoat. I’m all out of hope where it comes to her.

By the week before Christmas, Stella has canceled and uncanceled their visit to the White House several times via her staff talking with Jordan.

I suspect she’s trying to bait me into calling her and having it out but I refuse to do that. I don’t want her taping the conversation and threatening to release it to the public. I wouldn’t put it past her to edit it to try to make me look bad.

Or, maybe she’s trying to get me to beg her to come visit so she can use that for her own inscrutable reasons.

Don’t know, don’t care. Except it is unusual and over-the-top behavior, even for her. I guess without Grace Martin’s more subtle touch to temper Stella’s out-of-control ego when it comes to me she’s going to throw everything at the wall to see what sticks.

None of it will, though.

Not this time.

Jordan counsels me to stay the course. “This means she’s desperate.”

We’re in my private study. I sit back in my desk chair and stare at him. “Desperate?”

“Yeah. She expects you and your parents to behave in certain ways because you always have before.”

“We’ve always given in, is what you mean.”

“Yeah. Exactly. Now you’re defying her expectations. It’s throwing her a major curveball.”

“But this isn’t the way for her to get me to give in.”

“You and I know that because we’re not douchebags. Her life and the people she runs with professionally and socially exist upon transactional interactions and relationships. What can she get from someone else? What does she have to sacrifice to get what she wants or needs? To them it’s always a zero-sum game. McMurtry’s cut from the same cloth, with the addition of family money to soften what few consequences he’s faced due to his own actions.”

I chew on that for a moment. “Then she’s definitely underestimated me if she thinks I’m caving.”

“I think she’s trying to find a way to leverage me, actually.”

This is news to me. “What?”

Jordan shrugs, smiling that evil little smile that always hardens my cock. “She’s been chasing her tail, her and McMurtry both, trying to dig up dirt on me.”

“But…why?”

“She suspects there was something brewing between me and Grace. Either personally, or some sort of plan she wasn’t privy to.” He pretends to buff his fingernails against his jacket lapel. “She might think Grace was holding something over my head, or that I was feeding her intel about you or maybe Stella, which was why I was seeing her in private and Grace didn’t tell Stella. So Stella’s paranoid.”

It finally clicks. “And you’re salting tidbits here and there to send Stella on a wild goose chase?”

His smile widens. “Maaaaybe. For a while now.”

“Wow. She really doesn’t know a damned thing about you then, does she?”

“Nope. It’s kind of fun having her underestimate me.”

“I’m glad you’re on my side.”

He waves it off. “Remember, I wasn’t supposed to live. There were several times when I was a baby that I should have died. I spent most of my life before I left home simply trying to get along and blend in. Surviving. That means I’m kind of used to beating the odds and defying expectations. It’s my natural camouflage.”

“Do I need to know any of the details you’re misleading her with?”