And if Carlisle found the digital copy of her original grant application, figured out what he’d done to make sure Faith got a board vote for the Dig Greener funds… well that was a different sin than falling back in love with her over the past six months, wasn’t it? That was an intentional act on his part, and if there was a possibility that he could get fired for it, then maybe it was better to make a deal. Resign quietly to guarantee that her funding stayed in place. Carlisle might even go for it because if he went quietly, there’d be no scandal to attach to the foundation’s name because of his paperwork tricks.
He looked up to see William’s steady gaze on him. Supportive, no matter what.
Leo lifted his bottle in a resigned toast. “There are other jobs out there if it comes to that, right?”
“Buddy, if you can survive sharing a tiny tent with me for half a decade, you can do anything. We’ll figure it out.”
They tapped their bottles together and drank. Whatever happened tomorrow, he wasn’t alone. And he’d fight like hell to hold on to everything he loved.
THIRTY
Faith sat in the dark and stared at her phone.
She should call him. She should call him, she should call him, she should call him.
But her fingers didn’t move. She was huddled on her parents’ TV room couch at seven in the morning with the lights off, too scared to even send a text.
What could she possibly say? She’d panicked. She’d screwed up. She’d made assumptions about what he wanted, what he’d prioritize. She’d been careless with him yesterday, just like she’d been careless with him years before.
She loved him.
Any of those things would be good, but her fingers refused to move.
Because she was scared. He’d pushed back yesterday, and if she called him, she might find out that he really did think she was just another spoiled rich kid who hadn’t learned from her mistakes. And she wasn’t sure she could recover from that.
The lights in the den flipped on without warning, and both she and her mother shrieked.
“Faith! Why are you sitting in the dark?”
Her mother’s hands flew to the neck of her floral-print, quilted robe, exactly like the one she always wore in the mornings when Faith was a kid. Seeing her like that tugged something inside her to the surface, and rather than make excuses or slide out to hide in her room, Faith rushed forward and wrapped her arms around her in a hug.
Betsy hugged her back immediately, and as she guided Faith to the couch, she called, “Franklin!”
Her father appeared in the doorway a moment later, blinking at the two women. “What happened?”
“I… We…” Then to her horror, Faith burst into tears. The next thing she knew, both her parents were there bookending her on the couch, rubbing her back and murmuring soft words. Her dad handed her tissues, and her mom grabbed a throw pillow to put on Faith’s lap so she could fold in on herself to weep.
She relayed the Olive Twist confrontation between sobs, and when she was done, she was greeted with parental silence.
“Well?” She scrubbed at her eyes. “Can you believe he’d do that? That he’d pull my funding without a second thought?”
Franklin and Betsy exchanged glances over her head, which vaulted the whole morning into bonkers-land. “Wait, you’re taking his side?”
“We’re always on your side, kiddo,” her dad said. “But…”
She gaped at him, and her mom laughed softly.
“What’s so funny?” She turned her shocked glare on her mother.
“You haven’t cared what we thought for years,” Betsy said carefully.
She twisted to lay her head in her mother’s lap, pillow and all, and Betsy immediately started stroking her hair. She hadn’t experienced this familiar comforting touch in so long that she couldn’t speak for a moment.
“Well, I’m asking now,” she finally said through a tight throat. “What should I do?”
Her father hesitated before answering, “We want what you want.”
A year ago—hell, a month ago—she would’ve blown this off as her father not caring enough about her life to have an opinion, but something had shifted in the past few weeks. She’d changed, or they had, and she actually believed him. But that didn’t mean she had an answer for him.
