A Love Most Fatal (Morelli Family #1)

23. Vanessa

23

VANESSA

James and Ryan Sinclair.

When I said I didn’t care which marriage candidates he invited to dinner, Nate invited James Fucking Sinclair and his rat shit little brother Ryan, and of course because they’re a family of bottom feeders, Ronaldo had to join, and he had to bring his wife to snoop around and make passive aggressive comments regarding my childless status.

I’ve been lucky enough to not see Ronaldo for the last two months since I all but banished him from my front room for trying to pawn his nephew on us, and by some cursed luck, Nate chose James and Ryan to interview first and thought that they were the most reasonable candidates to have for a follow-up dinner.

They’re getting settled at the patio table outside for some appetizers and I must pretend to be pleased about this. Nate stands with his hands in his pockets none the wiser to what he’s just done. It doesn’t matter if we’ve been friendly of late, doesn’t matter that he cleaned my nephew’s vomit off his clothes this weekend—he’s a little goblin man parading as a consigliere in nice clothes with big shoulders and he’s been letting this beard grow in a way that looks suspiciously handsome, and he’s invited my least favorite people into my house .

I look at him until I catch his eye and then incline my head towards the kitchen. Once he meanders in behind me, hands still in those damn pockets, I push him not gently into the pantry, the automatic light clicking on over our heads.

“Get your hands out of your pockets, you look stupid,” I say. He does as I say, looking wounded, and I would consider telling him I didn’t mean it if I wasn’t so angry. “What the hell are they doing here?”

“You said to invite someone for dinner,” he says. “Two people. I invited two people.”

“What made you choose them?!”

“I didn’t have a lot of great options, Vanessa, it was them, the creepy mortician or the man old enough to be your father!” Nate whisper shouts. “How was I supposed to know you hated them more than the others?”

“Maybe by the way I’d drawn violent X’s next to their names?”

“The one with the beard seems harmless, just stupid. I thought you were fine with stupid!”

He’s right. Ryan Sinclair is stupid, but he’s also a Sinclair and I would rather put needles into my toes than have anyone think I’m considering him or his brother as a romantic possibility.

God, Ronaldo must feel so smug about this!

The pantry door swings open revealing my mother, who’s got fury in her eyes. It makes me stand up straighter; it doesn’t matter how old I am, that expression and Vanessa Gloriana Morelli on the tip of her tongue still terrifies me.

“Is there a reason you are hiding from our guests?” she asks.

“I—”

“No,” Mom cuts me off. “Yell at each other later. Get out there. Now.”

She transforms her face into a syrupy sweet hostess smile before leaving us with all the dry goods. Her word is law, though, and I follow her out without question.

“Oh, it all makes sense,” Nate mutters near my ear. “I thought you must take after your dad, but I get it now. Your mom made you scary.”

I elbow him in the side, and plaster on my own smile at his grunt before joining everyone outside.

“Forgive me,” I say. “Work doesn’t break, even for brioche.”

“And what a delicious looking brioche it is,” Nate says, sliding into the seat next to my mother. “Claire outdid herself with this batch.”

“You made this yourself?” Ronaldo’s wife (Lisa) says, wary.

Bitch.

To be certain, my mother did not make that bread, but Lisa is a guest in our home and should outwardly believe all self-aggrandizing lies.

“Of course she did,” I say.

“Well, then you’ll have to share the recipe at our next book club, Claire,” Lisa says.

“Alas,” I suck my teeth. “It’s the kind of recipe that isn’t written, more just felt. Muscle memory. Very difficult to recreate.”

I dip a slice of said bread into an oil vinegar mix. The bread and oil were most definitely made by Leo (his favorite hobby is baking artisan breads) but he’d let my mom take credit for anything if it was at the expense of Lisa Sinclair.

“Thank you for joining us,” I address the table before she can push more about the bread.

“Always a delight to have the Sinclairs for dinner,” Mom says. Bless her, she sounds genuine.

“Nathaniel here is a good addition to your team. He’s sharp,” Ronaldo says, crumbs hanging off his mustache.

Someone who sees sense , he means. A man who sees the worth of his idiot nephews. I turn to look at them instead of justifying that a response. James’s floral shirt is unbuttoned almost to his belly-button, a spare patch of chest hair poking out. I can smell his cologne all the way down the table. Ryan’s beard is too solid, I know he uses makeup to fill it in. I have no problem with men wearing makeup, but Ryan has annoyed me since eighth grade, he could be delivering aid to war-torn countries and I would still be annoyed.

“Long time no see, Mary,” James says. “You hit a growth spurt yet?”

Brave, considering Mary could kill either of them in more ways than any of us could fathom.

“Are you any less of a disappointment to your mother yet?” Mary shoots back and then, with as sweet of a smile as she’s able, she says, “I hear she’s quite enjoying her travels .”

James and Ryan both scowl at this. Their mom and dad left the country to avoid arrest for tax evasion and the talk is that they’re enjoying their time and frequently visiting swinger resorts. The real pride of our community.

“Leo, Mary, why don’t you help me grab the food?” Mom says. Leo’s chair scratches against the floor as he rushes to vacate the table. Mary follows, her chunky high-heeled boots thumping against the concrete. I hope they know that 5’ 4” or not, she could (and would) crush their throats in those shoes.

A beat of silence hangs in the air while we wait, one that Willa would fill with ease if she was here. She’s with her walking group again, the new generation of Mothers much like our own mom and Lisa’s cohort.

“Ryan, how are you liking your new job?” I ask.

“It’s great,” he says. “NFTs are so much more than we thought at first, really the future of everything. Not just monkey illustrations. Real ground level shit. You’ll see. Still waiting for you to come visit me.”

As if I have any need for dick head investments. Last thing I need.

“I’ll have my accountants look into it,” I lie. “Or, you know what, Nate’s background is in finance, maybe I’ll send him to talk shop.”

Nate shoots me a look like he would very much not like to talk shop with him. He’s saved from this when Mom, Leo, and Mary exit holding platters of greens, seared chicken, and white wine pasta.

A meal this good should never be wasted on bad company.

There’s peace and murmurs of delight at the food, and for about six minutes, I think we just might be able to get through dinner without more incident, but then Ronaldo must speak.

“How is the Washington Street building going?” Ronaldo asks.

It’s a trick question. He knows how it is: horrible.

“Moving right along,” I say after taking a sip of water. No wine tonight, I need all my faculties to deal with them without shooting someone.

“Nice to hear after so many setbacks,” Lisa says.

The Washington Street development was hit hard by unforeseen circumstances with the site, first asbestos in the demolition, and then a hundred grand later, the prospectors discovered a water deposit. Amid dealing with this, one of our employees unearthed human remains on the property. The bones were a century old and not our fault, but they became our problem when we had to comply with a three-week investigation. Any one of these issues would be a setback, but all three? Logistical nightmare.

“All in a day’s work for construction. It teaches us to be agile,” I say. Please let that be the end of it, please let that?—

“Agile? Or too precious,” Ronaldo says. Mary goes still next to me; I would guess she’s thinking of how she might kill him right now just to get it over with.

“How do you mean?” Nate asks.

The rest of us know exactly how he means.

“Well, you know how it is for some. Wanting everything to be perfect,” Ronaldo says. He means women. “In this business, not everything needs to be exactly by the book.”

“It’s all about getting a faster return on investment,” Ryan says.

“Exactly.” Ronaldo sounds like a proud uncle as at least someone sees some sense. “Doesn’t look good for the company when things don’t move on a schedule.”

“Looks worse if the building crumbles later due to shoddy craftsmanship and cut corners.” I manage to say this with a semblance of a smile, my lips upturned at least. He wants a reaction from me, wants me to feel like an emotional woman to make a point to his nephews that he is stronger, smarter, more composed than the person who makes it possible for him to have food on his table.

“What does the project need to be perfect for?” Ronaldo asks, then turns to James at his left. “Women, see, victims to perfectionism.”

I fill my lungs with air as not to react. Their whole family gets on my last nerve, but some of the old heads do listen to him.

There are politics at play here, different from the ones my dad had to deal with, but he prepared me for that. Prepared me to hold my tongue when I need to and retaliate in quiet. But, once again, I really, really wish he was here.

I’ve not once let myself be a victim—to do so would be a victory to the men who’d like me to be weaker than them.

“Better projects beget more, bigger projects. And bigger projects line your pockets, Ronaldo. Those projects let you build your wife your beautiful home and send your nephews to college,” I say. I’m pleasant, but there is a warning there. “Reputation is not something I take lightly.”

“I’m just saying that perhaps you wouldn’t be having loyalty troubles if you moved faster.”

Lisa puts down her fork with a loud clack and it’s the only sound that fills the balloon of silence since he spoke. Both of his nephews shift in their seats, stupid, but never stupid enough to talk to me the way this man has. I hurt his ego two months ago and he’s not one to let that go.

“It would take a fool to willfully ignore the results of her attention to detail,” Nate says, surprising us all. Ronaldo’s eyes snap to him. “Sure, there’s short term returns, but the year-over-year ROI is astounding and has seen exponential growth with Vanessa at the helm. Maybe a little care for detail was needed to push the company to the next level.”

I don’t know how Nate knows what he does about our financials, maybe he’s searched into our public record and tax filing, but he’s right. Things have grown, and my sisters and I have made that happen.

“And the family has never been bigger, Uncle ,” Mary says, though the title sounds more like a poison than a display of respect.

“I didn’t realize you were questioning your own loyalty,” I say and purse my lips.

“I didn’t say that?—”

My mother cuts him off. “I thought you must be happy! What, with your new cars and helping pay the down payment on little Ryan’s house. Such a good boy he is, too. But if you believe you could do better, Vanessa would love to hear it, I’m sure.”

The look on his face is priceless. He’s been caught now; it would be impossible for him to pretend any respect for me after saying in no unclear terms that I wasn’t up for the job. But what did he think was going to happen?

Everyone is quiet waiting for his response. After a moment he lowers his head. His old, bitter face is flushed red, frown lines on full display.

“Ronaldo, I must be clear,” I wait until his eyes meet mine to continue, “this is the second time in as many months you have come into my home with derision and disrespect. My father was fond of you, and because of this, we tolerate you. But you know full well that if he was here, watching you disrespect his legacy, in the home he built with his own hands, he would shoot you where you sit. Uncle.” I add this last part as a reminder. He is where he is because I allow him to be.

“Of course. Apologies,” Ronaldo says. Lisa lets out the breath she was holding and Mom smiles into her drink. Nate and my eyes meet, and he tips his head.

I pick up my fork and knife. “James.” I take on my friendly tone once again. “Tell us about your new car.”