“Repeat in your head after me:The meeting will be fine. The world will not end while Holden is gone. Everything will be all right.” Before she could try to counter, I added, firmly, “I don’twant to see your name pop up on my phone again until Monday. Are we clear?” I hated talking to her like a toddler, but this girl was going to sabotage her future career if she couldn’t get it under control. And I could not deal with her while I was trying to solidify Anna’s future.
“Yes, sir.” Again with the puppy guilt.
“Good. And one more thing. After the meeting tomorrow, I want you to do something to de-stress. Whatever that looks like for you. You’ve got a big bonus coming next week before you head back to school. So go splurge, all right?” My eyebrow was kissing my hairline. I wasn’t asking.
“Okay.” Her laugh was quivery. “Thank you, Mr.—”
I cleared my throat.
“Thank you, Holden.”
We hung up.
Sometimes, I wondered if I’d picked the right field. Honestly, it was no wonder Audrey was an anxious mess at the moment. We were currently representing Senator George Bromhorst from Iowa. According to the press and Jolie Mansfield, the accuser, four years ago Bromhorst had paid her two thousand dollars for one night together. And he’d filmed the two of them in a skeezy motel, off the beltway in Maryland, without Mansfield’s knowledge.
But now that he was a famous politician, the videos had magically come into Mansfield’s possession and she was suing for three million dollars. One million for each hour he’d filmed her. But, once others had heard about the case, more women had stepped forward. To date, eight women were telling similar stories and had the videos as proof. If it had been up to me, I wouldn’t have taken the case. I didn’t agree with most of Bromhorst’s politics and he oozed shadiness. But Caldwell, Caldwell, Sipsby, and Anderson hadn’t built up one of the biggest firms in the metro area by turning down high-profilecases.
I cracked my neck from side to side and let out a big breath. For the next twenty-four hours, I would let it go. For the next twenty-four hours, my biggest and most important client was Annaleise Nicole Dupree.
I cranked up a country song, recommended by my youngest brother, Ford, pressed down the gas pedal, and flew over the green, rolling Virginia hills toward my hometown, Seddledowne.
two
CHRISTY
My head fell onto the wooden desk with a thunk.
Silas was married.
A half-crazed cackle teased my vocal cords. I stifled it. Of course he was. He and Lemon had only been together for a total of…I actually didn’t know. According to him, he and Lemon had kissed the day before Beach Week began. So, less than a month.
Who drops the anchor that fast?
No man I’d ever known.
I groaned, lifted my head a few inches, and let it crack against the desk again.
A man who’d been pining over a woman his whole life, that’s who. Two people who’d known each other for years and already lived together for three months, that’s who. A couple who couldn’t wait to kick the bedroom door closed whenever they wanted,that’s who!
I was such an idiot.
My phone rang, and I lifted my head to see who it was. I squeezed my eyes closed for a second before putting it on speaker. “Hi, Mom.”
“Hello, Christianna. How did your first day go?” she asked, but not in the concerned or hopeful tone of a normal mother who wants her oldest daughter to succeed at her new job. Though I’m sure a tiny part of her wanted that. My mother loved me. I knew that. But right now, she was still angry that I’d taken a serious detour from her life plan for me. If I replied that there had been four fights, three drug busts, and the entire school had burned to the ground, she would’ve given me a fat “I told you so,” and a “that’s what you get for leaving Laramie,” and hopped on the next plane to pack me up and move me home.
I pressed my palms against the cool wood of the desk and ran my hands over the top, trying to calm myself. “It was fine. Everything’s great. The teachers and staff are very welcoming.” I left out the part where the cafeteria oven had caught fire, burning the pizza that was supposed to feed every kid on the first lunch shift. And I skipped over the two boys who’d been caught smoking weed in the bathroom during second period. I’d had to expel them. On my first day.
“And Silas? How’d he take the news that you’re his boss?” Her tone was a touch proud that somehow I’d wrestled the job out of the school board’s hands before he could get to it, and a touch hurt that the cowboy she’d grown to love was not going to be her son-in-law. I actually hadn’t confirmed that yet. Only that our relationship was on the rocks. And technically, I wasn’t his boss. The Seddledowne School Board was. But there was no point in arguing with her.
“It was okay…I think. His first day isn’t until Monday. But he seemed fine with it.” It was a lie. I mean, yes, he’d acted unruffled. But there was a terrifying fire in his expression too.
“Maybe now that he sees you’re a force to be reckoned with, he’ll come to his senses.” It was almost a question and I hated the hope in her voice. “Tell him your dad is still willing to cut him in on the ranch if he’ll reconsider.”
I rolled my eyes. Mom could’ve lived in the eighteenth century, no problem. Love? Romance? Sure, if you happen to find that, great. But to her, marriage was a contract. A negotiation where two people used each other for whatever they most wanted. For her, it had been children. For my father, it had been a ranch.
My mom’s family, the Lawsons, owned more land in Wyoming than the next three richest families combined. More than five hundred thousand acres broken up into three parcels. Yup. I was Laramie royalty—if that were a thing. Silas could’ve been a proprietor in one of the biggest ranches in Wyoming. As a matter of fact, my dad had tried to basically bribe him into the family the first time I brought him home to meet them. Because no way could Christy land a decent man without some kind of strings attached. Silas had simply lifted an eyebrow, slid his arm around my waist, and said, “I’d live with Christy in a trailer by the creek.” Then he’d shrugged. “My family has a ranch in Virginia.” It’s one of the things I loved about him.
Hadloved about him. I rubbed my temples. Silas was past tense and the sooner my brain remembered that, the quicker my heart could do the same.
