“When I was little, I wanted to save the world. I didn’t. I couldn’t. But you—Oliver, you’ve been saving the world. You’ve beendoing it. All of that money you funneled into nonprofits? I work for one. I have a job—I have apurpose, I have a direction, I’m finally making a difference every day—because of what you did at Miles2Go. You—you did so much good. I hope you know that. Because it matters. It matters to me, and it matters to the world.”
I swallow hard while I drop my head against hers. My skin is too tight and my lungs are shrinking and my pulse is hitting those zones that used to result in my executive assistant calling for the in-house doctor to come check me out. “Daph, I’mnotgoing back. It would—it would literally kill me.”
“I know,” she whispers. “You look like a really, really, really old man.”
This freaking woman.
One minute, she has me on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and the next, she’s insulting me so poorly that I’m snorting in amusement.
While still hovering at the edge of a panic attack.
“Oliver, listen—you deserve the life you want to live. But I—I need you to know that no matter what anyone said about stock prices and profit margins and brand loyalty and all of that other bullshit corporate stuff—the choices you made changed the world for the better in a million tiny little ways. And I’ll forever be grateful toyoufor that. Not to Miles2Go. To you. Because no one else in your seat would’ve done it.”
My eyes sting.
If people sent thank-you cards for the revenue I funneled into charities, I didn’t see them.
The day-to-day of saving M2G from the brink of bankruptcy kept me chained to my desk and not out in the world to see the impact. The marketing and PR departments wanted me out at fundraiser dinners every weekend, but after the first six months, I was so burned out that I refused to go anymore. I didn’t even have regular interactions with people outside of normal work hours unless it was my mother harping on me or Archie showing up to occasionally force me to go golfing or out to dinner on the days that he didn’t meet me in the gym to spar in an attempt to work off the stress.
I hadn’t even seen my own pet project—the butterfly gardens—until a few days ago.
Everything I did—I had no idea how it was being received or if it was making a difference.
“It was half spite,” I confess. “My father hated how low I kept the profit margins, so I kept pushing them lower and lower and lower with more and more donations and investments in various causes that I kept making my staff find for me. Just to piss him off.”
She turns to look up at me. “Do you know the first memory I have of you?”
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the past five days, it’s to not answer questions like that.”
“You should’ve learned that five seconds after meeting me.”
I shouldn’t be smiling.
I shouldn’t.
Yet here I am. “Fair enough.”
“My first memory that I have of you was you telling me that I should quit getting myself arrested if I wanted to ever have peace in my family.”
I blink at her.
Then blink again. “When’s the first time you were arrested? Not third-grade jail. Honestly arrested.”
“Maybe eight or nine years ago? I was in college.”
“So your first memory of me isn’t until after I started dating your sister?”
“Yep.”
“We went to grade school together.”
“But not the same year group. You were in Margot’s class.”
“We were in the same school for half of high school too.”
“Yeah, and I don’t remember you. You must’ve been even more boring than I thought you were.”
My eyes cross, but this one isn’t nearly as enjoyable as when they crossed last night.
