“Yes?” Pushing away from my desk, I rolled my shoulders and shrugged off my frustration. There were countless numbers of construction companies in the area, but none that I’d trust with the club and had time to work on it. In two weeks I should’ve been able to take over the world if that was what I wanted, but I couldn’t even find a quality construction company to build a sex club.
My dreams of world domination would have to wait.
Shane looked decidedly uncomfortable, so I pushed aside the bad jokes and mental wandering. The tense lines in his face weren’t something I could ever remember seeing there before.
“You asked me to let you know if your father had any…unusual charges in his account.” The carefully worded sentence said it all.
Shit.
I let my head fall back and I groaned. “What did he do?”
Shane coughed, clearly trying to cover a laugh. “I found a significant charge to what seems to be a Russian company.”
The meddlesome old fucker was up to it again.
Sighing, I lifted my head and did my best to look professional. It was harder than it should’ve been. “What kind of company and how much money?”
“Ten thousand and the company’s website talks about building relationships across oceans.” Shane cleared his throat. “That seems to be the down payment.”
“Because clearly, buying a spouse requires more money than that.” I slouched back in my seat and sighed again. “I don’t even like accents; what was he thinking?”
Shane barked out a laugh before straightening and frowning. “I apologize.”
Waving my hand, I smiled back. “Oh, I get it. I might even be able to laugh about it in a few years.”
Thirty or forty years.
“How would you like me to handle the situation?” Shane’s careful question made my head ache.
“God, I have no idea.” I closed my eyes, rubbing them and trying to ease the tension behind them. “Um, call the bank and see what you can do about having the charges reversed. I’ll talk with my father and make sure he understands the situation. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.”
There was a short pause. “I’m sure he didn’t understand the…gravity of the situation.”
“Oh, he got it. He just doesn’t think rules apply to him.” He’d gone too far this time. “We’re going to end up on the news if he doesn’t find his sanity.” I groaned. “Can you imagine?”
Shane chuckled, and the deep sound sent a shiver down my back that I tried to hide as he spoke. “Unfortunately, yes, and I think I would prefer not to live through that.”
“Fuck.”
Shane snorted, a sound I’d never heard from him.
“I’m going to end up bailing him out of jail.”
“Or married to a Russian alpha with very little accent.” Shane’s dry joke actually had me smiling as I opened my eyes.
“I don’t have that kind of luck when it comes to my father.” In anything else I would’ve had a fighting chance of winning, but my father lived on drama and being right.
Even when he was wrong.
Especially when he was wrong.
Sometimes I thought Austin and I had been switched at birth, but unfortunately we were almost a year apart in age, so that blew my theory all to hell.
“Then it’s good we caught it early.” Shane stood there in the suit pants that were always a little too tight and the white button-down shirt that wrapped around his chest distractingly.
But that wasn’t what I was supposed to be focused on.
Rolling my eyes, I grinned, finally starting to relax. “He’s going to be the death of me.”
