"What is it?" she said again, her voice softer this time. "There's a coffee shop on the corner."
The idea of a destination seemed to cheer him. He nodded and they set out. "I have to tell Jack something. Something awful. But I thought if I started with you maybe you could … smooth the way."
Was he going to confess? Cassie stayed silent, having learned in her years as a bartender that when people wanted to get something off their chests, it was usually best to get out of their way. Cassie watched Carl while the barista made their drinks. She assumed since he and Jack had gone to university together, they were roughly the same age. But Carl looked a decade older. Deep creases ran along the sides of his mouth, and his complexion was ashen. He drummed his fingers on the bar. Once seated at a small table in the back, he fidgeted and avoided looking her in the eye. Still, it wasn't her job to make life easier for him. Things might be weird with her and Jack, but that didn't mean she wasn't firmly on Jack's side.
After a full minute of increasingly uncomfortable silence, Carl finally managed to look at her. "I have a gambling problem. I've gambled away Britney's college fund."
"Excuse me?" This was the polite version of what Cassie was thinking.
"She wants to go to art school, study photography. You've seen her stuff-she's good. Could you imagine what she could do with some formal training?
Cassie had to agree there. "Carl, I'm not sure why you're telling me this."
"It gets worse," he went on, ignoring her objection. "I … I stole from the company, to try to win back what I lost. I told myself I was only borrowing the money, that I'd win it back and more. But … "
"You lost it all." Cassie recognized some of the same rationalizations from her years of back and forth with her mother. She'd come to learn that people like Carl and her mother actually believed their own lies, at least initially.
He slumped in his seat, looking nothing less than stricken. "I know it doesn't make sense." He shook his head in disgust. "It sounds ridiculous when I describe it."
Opposing emotions warred inside her. She wanted to berate him for stealing from the man who'd made him-gave him a job that allowed him to live in luxury, mentored his daughter. And he'd done it by taking advantage of Jack's one weakness. But he looked so pathetic, so miserable, that a tiny part of her felt bad for him.
"How much did you steal?"
He winced at the word steal, but if he thought she was going to sugarcoat things, he was mistaken. Of course she knew the ballpark answer, having reverse engineered his crimes, but she wanted to see if he was still in denial.
"A lot. More than I can repay. I can only hope that Jack doesn't decide to press charges, which would be more than I deserve."
"You have to tell him."
"I know. I will. I plan to. I've already asked Seth to book a formal meeting with him for the first day back. January second, I come clean."
Cassie started to say he should tell Jack sooner-now. He deserved the truth. She began formulating an "If you don't tell him, I will" threat.
"I don't want to ruin his Christmas holiday," said Carl.
That stopped her in her tracks. He had a point. Not about the holiday so much as about the Wexler trip, which of course Carl knew nothing about. Jack didn't need any complications that would jeopardize the deal. And though it was good that Carl was planning to come clean, dealing with the outcome of the confession would be a huge upheaval. It was better for the deal for Jack to stay angry and honed. So she would hold her tongue. For now.
"All right, but if you don't tell him when the office reopens, I promise you, I will."
"I will. Thank you."
"You still haven't told me why you're telling me this." It was bugging her. She hadn't done anything except be his involuntary confessor, and now she was saddled with this knowledge she didn't want. "You just met me."
Carl buried his face in his hands, and when he spoke his voice was muffled. "I don't know. It's just that Jack has never had a girlfriend who stuck before." Cassie winced at the word girlfriend. "I thought it would be good if you knew ahead of time, so you could … help him when he finds out. It's a big betrayal." Then he looked up. "That's not true. Well, it is, but it's not the whole truth. I think the real reason I'm telling you is because you're in college. God, the idea of you having to work so much to pay for school." He raked his hands through his hair and looked at the ceiling, as if seeking divine guidance. "That's what I've condemned Britney to."
A sharp burst of anger animated Cassie's limbs, and she had to bite her tongue to keep from saying something she would regret. Who did this jerk think he was? She settled for saying, "My life isn't so bad, you know." He was pulling some kind of psychological BS on her here. Like he thought if he confessed to Cassie the College Student, she could somehow absolve him for screwing his own daughter's future. Meanwhile, Cassie Jack's Girlfriend was supposed to smooth the way for Carl to confess his crime. Nope, all Cassie was going to do was keep his stupid secret long enough for Jack to do a major deal behind his back.
Carl looked down at his drink, some kind of awful Christmas-themed thing topped with a dollop of whipped cream dusted with red and green sprinkles. "It being Christmas and all that, I just wanted to be honest with someone."
A pit opened in Cassie's stomach. If he only knew. How ironic that there were two people sitting at this table, and only one of them was being honest-the compulsive gambler-slash-crook. Which left her-the liar.
Chapter Fourteen
By the time Jack picked up Cassie the next morning, he was in the zone. She'd been right-they needed the time apart to clear their heads. Two days from now, Wexler Construction would be his. He didn't care what he had to do, he was going to win the company-and the island. He was now fully focused on Wexler. There wasn't room for anything else.
Correction-maybe there was a little room. "Hi!" Cassie called as she burst through the door of her building. She had on big Sorel boots and a bright green parka with a fur-lined hood. How could she be so bundled up and still be so hot? Anyway, nothing to do about it. It was perfectly normal to admire an attractive woman like Cassie. It would be weird if he didn't notice her. The trick was to appreciate her from afar, like he would any other beautiful woman.
The trick was not to think about getting into her pants.
"Brr!" The temperature had plummeted overnight, and she did a little half-wiggle, half-hop as a gust of frigid wind hit them.
Yeah. So much for not thinking about getting into her pants.
"The car's all warmed up," he said, taking her suitcase and popping the trunk.
"Nice wheels!" she said as she settled into the front seat. "Ooh! And seat warmers!" Another little wiggle as she ground her ass into the heated leather.
God almighty, this was going to be a long trip.
"This is totally the kind of car you would drive," she said.
"What do you mean?" He glanced at her as he started the engine. She was stroking the leather seat.
"Aston Martin! Who drives an Aston Martin? But it's perfect-fast, refined, but not too showy. Very you."
He couldn't help but smile. He'd been worried this was going to be awkward, an extension of the weirdness that accompanied last night's parting, but it seemed they were going to glide into being friends with no trouble at all. As long as he kept his hands to himself. "What kind of car are you, then?"
"Ha! I'm a city bus! I wonder what that means?"
"Not literally how you get around, but what kind of car would you be?" he asked.
"Oh, man, I don't know. I'd like to be something classic but not boring."
"I got it. You're a VW Bug. One of the old ones. Timeless, but fun and quirky."
"Yes! A Slug Bug! But in a crazy color!"
"But of course," he agreed. "Lime green or something."
"I always wanted a Bug!" She clapped her hands with delight. "Okay. Trees."
He shot her a skeptical glance as he navigated onto the highway. "And after we decide what kind of trees we are, will we hold hands and sing Kumbaya?"
"You would be a birch tree," she said decisively. "Tall, straight, strong, yet, with the white bark, apart from all the other trees."
The back of his throat tightened at the truth of the image she conjured. "Okay, uh, you would be … " He ran through his admittedly limited mental catalog of trees. "I think you'd have to be some kind of coniferous tree."