Crazy Thing (The Brighton Family #5)

Chapter 6

6

DARIUS

T hese days, my life is basically a steaming crap sandwich with a pile of shit chips on the side.

This evening, I’m back in Starlight Falls. Working. Always working.

I’m in my office at the converted industrial building I recently acquired to serve as my local headquarters. It’s long after the hours printed on the main door. But right now, I’m on hold with my lawyer. Brimming with impatience, I pace the plush carpet in front of my desk. I’m apparently not paying him enough to answer my calls without his assistant screening me and making me wait.

Speaking of assistants, my own new assistant sucks .

I had to hire the first person I interviewed, mostly because no one else applied. I can’t afford to be picky. I have more work to get through each day than is humanly possible. I can’t be in four or five places at once.

Three? Maybe.But definitely not four or five.

I’m drowning in work. The harsh reality is, I need someone here at my office to at least field calls for me throughout the day.But it seems that finding someone competent enough to answer a telephone and write down some notes and put a little appointment on my calendar is just plain out of the question.

And my biggest productivity killer today? I can’t stop thinking about Ziggy Beaumont. Or rather, how I treated her.

I’ve been feeling guilty ever since I got back from Honey Hill a few days ago. I’ve been overthinking how I handled things back at her shop. I probably came on too strong. And I definitely said all the wrong things.

But in my defense, there’s just something about Ziggy that makes me lose my cool.She makes me lose my mind.She always has.

And I’ve never liked feeling that way.

I’ve made my fortune by keeping a very tight rein on my emotions. A man doesn’t become a billionaire without focus, without discipline, without self-control.

The app that shot me to billionaire status wasn’t a sexy one. It was a boring but practical piece of accounting software that I developed during my sophomore year in college. While my classmates were out partying night after night after night, I was working. Always working.

And when my app got acquired by a tech giant from the Valley, I woke up to a cool hundred million dollars in my bank account overnight. I’ve spent the past few years investing and reinvesting my money, cultivating it into the billion-dollar fortune that it is today.

All that to say, I’ve always had the ability to shut everything and everybody out. Despite stress or pain or fear or even boredom.

For me, excitement has never been a requirement for crushing my goals. I’ve always prided myself on having the laser-sharp focus to block all distractions. Whenever necessary, I can ‘grind it out’ to complete the task at hand. It’s a skill that made me the man I am today.

But within days of Ziggy Beaumont strutting back into the picture, my ability to concentrate has gone to hell in a hand basket.

I hiss at the sudden pain in my foot. I’ve been experiencing this weird tingling feeling in my right foot since lunchtime. It’s the cherry on top of my shit-tastic day.

My curse is spreading! I’m fucking sure of it.

I’ve been trying to stay off the internet forums but I’m fairly certain that whatever this curse-driven diagnosis is, it’s going to be fatal. And the experts on Reddit agree. I’m officially dying.

As a last ditch effort, I found a new doctor in a neighboring town that I’ll have to see on the sly now. Felix and Mason just aren’t taking me seriously anymore at the Brighton Family Medical Clinic. How sad is that? I’m going to die from unknown causes even though my own brother and brother-in-law are goddamn doctors. And I can’t even let either of them find out about my new medical provider because it feels like I’m having a sordid affair.

Fun-freaking-times.

I should just pack up and move back to the city to get the quality medical attention I need. I didn’t used to spend this much of my time here in Starlight Falls. Just over a year ago, I used to split my time between New York and San Francisco.

But now that I’m dying from an untreatable curse, I’ve been in Starlight Falls more frequently. It might seem ironic that I’d want to stick around the strange small town that’s put a hex on me, but this curse has really shifted things into perspective for me. These days, I’m just feeling the urge to be close to home, close to the people who matter.

“Darius? Darius, are you still there?” my lawyer’s tired, crackled voice sounds through my phone. Finally.

“Yes, Frank. Still here,” I answer, heading for my desk.

“Great. I presume you’re calling about the property acquisition of the retail lot out in Tribeca?”

“I’ve got the property acquisition covered,” I tell him impatiently. “I need to know what I can do about the waterfall here in Starlight Falls. Legally that is. I sent over a draft of my initial thoughts on that. Have you had a chance to review them?” I drop down into my chair, silently wiggling the toes on my right foot. Yup. It totally doesn’t feel right.

“I have,” my lawyer says. “Your first step will be to get an injunction to pause the sale of the property to this Edison fellow.”

“Great. Get on that,” I instruct him.

“I’ll start the paperwork tonight,” he assures me.

That’s what I like about this guy. He works hard, around the clock. And there’s rarely anything I can throw at him that he can’t handle.

He continues, “Though it would help move the needle in your direction if you have some locals to testify on your behalf,” Frank suggests.

I grunt. Of course it would. Except I know that 99.99 percent of Starlight Falls residents don’t trust me. And the other 0.01 percent share my last name.

The locals hate me. Having them speak to a judge on my behalf would probably backfire in the worst way.

Frank and I trade a few more words, and then I hang up. I yank my tie away from my throat and roll my sleeves back to my elbows. I rub my gritty eyes and stare up at the water stains on the ceiling.

Sitting in my lonely office, the silence echoes so damn loudly around me. Now that one of my many problems seems to be somewhat under control, my mind drifts back to Ziggy.

Shit. I’m still thinking about that frustrating, free-spirited woman. Even after she chased me out of her shop with a broom.

Finding her after all these years was surprisingly easy. I’ve looked her up on social media a few times over the years. Okay, fine— way more than a few times. Anyway, all it took was a quick phone call to my private investigator to pin down her current location.

And seriously, though—what’s the situation with her finances? Is it really as dire as it appeared?

I don’t think she would have reacted so…violently if this was nothing.So that tells me it has to be something .

On a whim, I pull up her boutique’s public records and find the name of the man who owns her building, the landlord who’s basically evicting her. I don’t know a thing about the guy but instantly I don’t like him. Which is completely hypocritical of me, I’ll admit. How many of my own tenants have I kicked out on their asses for owing much less in unpaid rent?

Before I even know what I’m doing, I’m finding the man’s personal number, calling him up, and reading my bank card information over the phone to arrange payment for all of Ziggy’s back payments.

What the actual fuck…?

“Y’know what? While you’re pulling that transaction, how about we just go ahead and pay off the next twelve months of her rent as well?” I hear myself saying.

“Um…the next twelve months?” The man sounds just as shocked as I feel right now. I don’t even recognize myself in this moment .

“I expect that this payment will secure the renewal of her rental agreement?”

“Y-yes? Of course. Yes!” he says brightly.

“So make sure to put that in writing.” I spout off my email address and he repeats it back to me, confirming that he’s jotted it down correctly.

I hang up, practically banging my head on the surface of my desk. Why the hell am I even doing this? The woman hates my guts!

Seriously. There is no way in hell I would just pay off some random woman’s debt. That isn’t something I’d normally do.

I’m not in the business of giving handouts to strangers. Sure—I take care of my family. But that’s family . I don’t even go around giving handouts to my friends.

Truth be told, I don’t have friends. I have business associates. And they’re all as rich as I am, so they don’t need my handouts anyway.

The point is—why the hell would I do something this crazy for Ziggy Beaumont?

I tell myself that my moment of insanity is just because I’m still feeling guilty over insulting her. And maybe a little bit for the way I treated her all those years ago.

So, that’s my why . That’s my justification.

It’s definitely not because I like the woman now.At least that’s what I tell myself tonight.

Dammit. What am I doing? Ziggy doesn’t deserve my help. The woman chased me with a witch’s broom.

But deep down, I think I…I think I liked it.