The water shut off in the bathroom as she exited the room, and the headlights of the car she’d called cut across the front of the hotel. She hesitated for a second, then typed out,I’m fine. Got a ride, and hit send.
She jumped in her ride, her eyes stinging. The car pulled away, and she caught sight of herself in the reflection of the window. Thank God her driver was utterly oblivious. She looked like a girl who had just gotten fucked. Her hair was tumbled, clothes in disarray. She tugged at her jacket to make sure it covered her breasts.So much for being healthier.
Her nose twitched, and she placed her finger under it, trying to stave off the flood of emotions.You’re a tough cookie. Hang in there.
She opened her conversation with Nicholas again, aware she was getting dangerously obsessive. That made five texts she’d sent him now.
A bubble popped up on the bottom of the screen, indicating he was typing, and her breath strangled. He’d never replied. Not once. She waited, hand clutching her phone tight.
The bubble went away and tears stung her eyes. Unable to look at the damn thing a second longer, she typed,Bye, hesitated for a second, and sent it. Then she deleted the conversation and sat back, wishing she could delete him from her life just as easily.
She’d lied to herself, but that was nothing new. She was weak. For never being able to stop wanting Nicholas, for using the same dumb rationale every year to see him again, for accepting the crumbs of his physical affection.
She sniffed, hard. She’d said it before, but this time she meant it. She absolutely had to move forward. It was done. They were done. For good.
Chapter 8
NICHOLAS WALKEDaround the exterior of the house, his polished shoes squelching into the damp ground. His grandfather had left him a voicemail asking him to come as soon as possible. Nicholas had canceled a meeting and gotten in his car.
When John Chandler said jump, no one at Chandler’s wasted time asking how high. Except his dad, but then Brendan actively wanted to fuck with John.
He found his grandparent hunched over his beloved late wife’s rose garden, carefully pruning the dead heads off the branches. Nicholas came to stand next to his wheelchair. “Grandpa. You called?”
His grandfather didn’t stop what he was doing. “There’s some weeds over there I can’t reach.”
Most corporate executives probably weren’t ordered to weed in the middle of the workday, but then, most executives weren’t employed by a man who had changed their diapers. Nicholas stripped off his jacket, draped it over the banister of the porch, and rolled up his sleeves, tossing his tie over his shoulder so it wouldn’t get in the way. Hegrabbed the soft foam knee rest near John’s chair—laid there for him, he assumed—and knelt on the ground, pulling the offending weeds out.
Unlike his grandfather, he didn’t count gardening among his hobbies. Nicholas frowned at a stubborn weed. Actually, what were his hobbies? Working out, but that was out of necessity and discipline. When was the last time he’d engaged in an activity for pleasure?
Five nights ago.
He ripped the weed out so hard, dirt sprayed on his white shirt. He glanced down in dismay. He’d have to shower and change when he got back to the office.
“These protests. What’s happening?”
Nicholas sat back on his heels and swiped his arm over his forehead. Right. Business. Work. Things that had nothing to do with Livvy and that seedy hotel room where he’d fucked her and left her lying naked on the bed.
Shame and self-disgust wrestled inside him, but he tried to focus past them. “I got the report today. The store the activists are protesting is selling a tomato sauce from a company that uses prison labor to farm tomatoes and a honey from a company that hires inmates to raise bees. There may be a few others. It’s hard to source back to every ingredient.”
“Have you told your father?”
It was always “Brendan” or “your father.” Brendan had stopped being John’s son when he’d bought Tani’s shares behind John’s back. “Yes.”
“And what did he say?”
“He said the products are fine sellers and it doesn’t make sense to go down the slippery slope of discovering where everything comes from.”
“I bet he said, if it became more publicized, we could spin the discovery as corrective rehabilitation, correct? A good deed.”
Nicholas reluctantly nodded.
“I looked into this particular program myself. If the prisoners are lucky, they earn a few thousand a year.”
“Yes, sir.” Nicholas wasn’t surprised his grandfather had researched it. John was more than a little technologically adept.
“That’s exploitation.”
“That’s one way to look at it,” Nicholas said diplomatically.
