Page 84 of Twisted Knight

“Yet you came back to claim that reputation anyway.”

“I did,” she says softly. “Originally it was to figure out how to move forward after Cassie passed.”

“I’m so sorry,” I offer.

“It was a long time ago. A car accident that was her fault…”

I don’t ask her for anything more because I know all about the circumstances around her death. Cassie Rothschild died at age seventeen, three days shy of her eighteenth birthday, when she drove her car into a telephone pole while texting and driving.

What I didn’t know until now is that the Rowan Rothschild I thought I knew at the club most likely wasn’t really Rowan.

It was Cassie.

My head spins but her words pull me back into the conversation before I can spiral too much out of control. “Her … being gone. It ruined me for longer than I’d like to admit.”

“I understand that. The being ruined and struggling to get over it.” I say the words, offering more of myself to this woman when I’m not supposed to be.

“How?”

“A younger brother.” It’s all I say. As much as I’ll admit to when I’m not supposed to be admitting anything to anyone.

“I’m sorry too.”

“Like you said, it was a long time ago.” I clear my throat and redirect back on her. “So what happened next? You came back?”

“Yeah. For my last semester of high school. That summer. Then off to college.”

“And then owning the business pulled you back for a final time?”

“That. And my gran.” Her smile is automatic at the mention. “She was just like me but born generations too early to be able to act on it. She’s the reason I have the position I have at TinSpirits. My dad was against it. ‘It’s a male-dominated industry’ and all that bullshit. But Gran guilted him into it. The whole ‘I never got the chance to because of when I was born,’ and she convinced him to let me start at the ground level and work my way up. To learn it from bottom to top while Rhett got to ride the elevator to the top floor.”

“Clearly that bugs you—as it should.”

“It did. But I also realized I’m better for it. How can Rhett fix an issue six levels below him when he’s never had to figure it out on his own?” She sighs. “I don’t know. I always wanted to run the company, but the more I worked my way up, the more I saw his gross incompetence and complete arrogance in his entitlement. Then profits started to drop. At first, I thought it was just the downswing of the economy. Then I thought it was something he was doing—taking money out? Making poor purchasing decisions? I don’t know. Maybe it’s his blatant misunderstanding of how the company is supposed to be run. Perhaps a little of all three.”

Perhaps a lot of all three and the flagrant spending on all things Rothschild while he’s at it.

“I’ll just leave this here,” the waitress says as she slips our check onto the table.

“Thanks. We’ll be out of your way soon,” Rowan says. “I’m sure you want to get out of here and home to your family.”

“I do. Thank you. I have a sick kiddo at home.” She taps a button on her apron of a little boy in a baseball uniform.

“I hope he feels better soon,” Rowan says, and as the waitress walks away I pull out some cash beneath the edge of the table, disguising a few hundred-dollar bills beneath a twenty, and slide it onto the receipt tray.

“No. Let me.” Rowan digs in her purse.

“I’ve got it covered.”

“The least I can do is add more of a tip for her. She’s working her ass off.”

I reach out and put my hand on her wrist. “I assure you, I have it covered.”

It’s then that Rowan looks down and notices the large bills beneath the twenty, her eyes flashing back to mine, and nods.

She narrows her eyes for a beat, almost as if she can’t reconcile the man who just did that with the man she normally sees.

The problem is, right now I’m struggling with making the same damn correlation.