“Are you okay?” My heart rate picks up a few beats.
“Yes, I’m fine. Just some routine stuff.”
My stomach chooses that moment to roar again. She chuckles.
“C’mon, let’s go get some food in you. Okay?”
“Yeah, sure.” I take her hand, and we leave together.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Harrison
Ican’t believe my eyes, so I blink a few times, but the scene before me doesn’t magically disappear. Delaney sitting at a table having coffee withherperplexes me.
Why is she with the woman I naively allowed to steal from our company and my family?
I watch Delaney pull a catalog envelope—identical to the one she took from my office last night—and slide it across the table to the other woman. Cassandra’s face lights up, and she smiles.
Delaney scoots her chair back and, before she can stand, Cassandra grasps her forearm and says something. Whatever she says makes Delaney sit, but her posture is rigid, and she’s tapping her fingers against her knee like she does when she’s nervous or uncomfortable.
What’s making her feel that way? I stand about thirty feet from them, and they still haven’t noticed me. Seeing Cassandra again makes my blood boil, but it also brings back a storm of the emotions I felt the day I learned that, to her, I was just a piggy bank that never ran empty.
I grab my to-go mug of coffee and head to the living room, where I find Cassandra nestled in blankets on the couch, flipping through television channels. Apparently, she’s not planning to leave my house right away this morning. That’s been happening more and more when she stays the night. She never wants to stay at her place; it’s always here.
I sit at the end of the couch opposite her, just as she stops channel surfing, settling on a show where people match up and then marry someone they barely know.
I clear my throat and then take a sip from my cup. Cassandra glances at me.
“I’m leaving for work in a second. Looks like you’re not quite ready to head out. No work for you this morning?” I’m never clear about when she works, but I imagine that as a paralegal for a law firm, she should be there more than it seems she is.
“No. They don’t need me today. Maybe I’ll come meet you for lunch.”
“Today’s not good. I have a meeting at eleven-thirty that will be at least an hour and a half. I’ll probably eat at my desk.”
She repositions herself so she’s sitting upright, then narrows her eyes at me. “When are we moving in together?”
I sputter as I’m swallowing another sip of coffee. I take several seconds to recover.
“Cassandra… that’s not on the table right now. We both agreed to take things slowly this time. We’ve only been seeing each other for,” I pause to think, “four months this time.”
“Yeah, Harrison.” Her words come out with a hint of whininess. “Four months. That’s a long time. We should be together every day.” She pauses, and her eyes roam over my face before she pierces me with her gaze again. Her eyes mist, and I’ve come to suspect that she can cry on command. She looks away and turns her gaze to the television. “I thought we’d be ring shopping by now.”
Where in God’s name did that come from? Shit, this won’t go over well.
“Listen, we’re not—” I’m interrupted by my phone ringing, which is unusual this early. Most of the time, I have until nine or ten before the calls come in. I slip the phone out of my pocket and find that it’s Leah, our accountant. That’s odd.
“I’m sorry, I have to take this.”
Cassandra rolls her eyes and turns away from me as I answer the call. I stand and walk to the kitchen for some privacy.
“Leah?”
“Hi, Harrison. Do you have a few minutes?”
“Sure, I’ll call you back in a minute.”
I walk back to the living room, tell Cassandra—who ignores me—that I have to leave and make my way to the car. Once I’m in the car and backed out of my driveway, I call Leah.
