“You’re right, Gavin,” Ethan said mildly. “It’s none of your business.”
“Yeah yeah yeah, but just listen. You know that woman you hired? Kerri Wilson?”
So Gavin had figured out Kerri wasn’t just an employee. But then he had never been slow, except when it came to his own romantic relationships. “What about her?”
“Do you know who her grandfather is?”
“No. What difference does it make?”
“Barron Sterling.”
Now he had Ethan’s attention. “Sterling & Wilson?”
“The one and only. Her father was David Wilson, and he was married to Barron’s daughter Renée.”
Ethan digested that, then shook his head. “Do you know how many women have the name ‘Kerri Wilson’?”
“Quite a few, I’m sure. But I’m right about her family.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. If that’s who she is, she’s the sole heiress to Sterling & Wilson. What would she be doing freelancing for me?”
“Learning all our business secrets?”
Ethan considered the idea for a couple of seconds. “I approached her, not the other way around. And convincing her to work for me took some effort.”
Besides, if she really were Barron Sterling’s granddaughter, why wouldn’t she ever say anything about her family? She’d deflected questions about them as though they were some kind of a shameful secret. Barron Sterling wasn’t just any man. He was a legendary investor and venture capitalist. A family connection to him would’ve boosted her i-banking career, smoothed things out for her. Assuming that she would have had to work at all.
Living a life of moneyed leisure wasn’t the vibe Ethan had gotten from her. She’d been working at the christening party, playing in that quartet. Word around campus had been that she was constantly scrambling for money. Why would an heiress worth several billion dollars do that?
He thought about her wardrobe. Everything was nice enough, but she had nothing super-expensive, nothing that screamed, “Look at the platinum-plated life I was born to!” He’d bet a year’s bonus that she shopped the clearance racks at upscale department stores more often than not.
An heiress wouldn’t do any of those things. And an heiress born to the Sterling fortune would’ve lived her entire life amid luxury and indulgence. She might volunteer time at charities, but she wouldn’t know that things like clearance racks in department stores even existed.
“She could’ve made you think that,” Gavin said. “Women who know how to use their bodies can make men think anything.”
“Gavin, you’re starting to piss me off.” Ethan reined in his temper. “It wasn’t that way. Besides, TLD is doing so poorly that there’s no way Barron Sterling’s going to toss his only grandchild my way to snoop around.”
“Barron doesn’t know we aren’t doing so hot.”
“That’s beside the point!”
“It’s exactly the point.” Gavin looked at him closely. “Ethan… This isn’t going to turn into another Lisa, is it?”
Ethan went rigid. “Don’t even mention her name.”
“There’s something about Kerri—the odd tension and pain.”
He ignored the tension part. He’d sensed it too. “What pain?”
“When you showed her the photo. You couldn’t see her since she was right next to you, but I could. There was nothing on my tablet that should’ve made her react like that.”
“Like what?”
“The expression on her face. It was so…tragic. I actually had a flashback to Lisa there for a moment. Your ex was strange like that, all those ups and downs. And the bitch framed you at the end.”
Christ. Gavin still hadn’t let it go. Ethan knew his family had been furious at how the situation with Lisa had evolved; Ethan had been enraged too, though not entirely at his ex. There had been a lot of complications and issues that he hadn’t bothered to tell them about once his name had been cleared. He’d assumed that they’d decided not to think about her any longer, but apparently he’d been wrong. “Lisa was nothing like Kerri. Don’t compare them.”
The muscles around Gavin’s eyes tightened, creating tiny lines. “All right. I’ve said my piece, so my duty’s done. I hope you aren’t making another big mistake, but like you said, you’re a big boy. So maybe you know what you’re doing.”