“But the watch,” Mr. Schultz insisted.
I rubbed my arm, twisting the watch sadly. “He made a mistake. We all make mistakes. You shouldn’t blacklist his company because of it. I know you believe that it is important to do business with people who are family oriented, and Blade is the most family-oriented person I know. His siblings mean everything to him. He would go to the ends of the earth for them. He’s great with his little brothers—you should see him, he’s adorable! He’s a good guy. If I hadn’t come along,” I said, my voice cracking, “he probably would have won the contract on his own merit once you saw what I saw.”
“We appreciate the explanation, Avery,” Mrs. Schultz said finally. “I’m sure you don’t want to keep Mr. Hollande waiting.”
“Let’s talk in the conference room, shall we?” he said, gesturing. “It has better natural light.”
I sat at the table and looked out the window as he inspected the watch.
“It’s in excellent condition. I had the luxury of appraising Grant Holbrook’s watch, which was of a similar line. Yours is in much better condition than his. One obviously can’t say with any certainty, but with the publicity surrounding your, ah, incident with the watch, I believe it could fetch at least twelve million, maybe even thirteen. I would suggest striking while the event is fresh in people’s minds. There is somewhat of a marketing component to these things, you know.” He handed it back to me. “I’ve already had several interested men of means inquiring about this piece.”
I felt ill thinking about the watch being bought and worn by some other man. Blade was the one who really wanted it. A part of me had been planning my own proposal of sorts. On our honeymoon, I had been planning to put it on his wrist in a grand gesture. If I sold the watch, that would be it. The watch felt like the last thing that tied us together. Once it was gone, the relationship—the fake, the real, the good, and the bad—would be totally, completely, and forever over.
I stood up. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Hollande, but I need to think about this for a bit longer.”
69
Blade
“Do you like big bunnies or small ones?” the woman at the pet rescue center asked me.
Weston snickered behind me.
“I’ll take whichever rabbit needs a home.”
“Rabbits, plural,” Weston said. “He wants a whole family of rabbits.”
“All our rescue bunnies are spayed,” the employee said, taking us back to the rabbit hutches. “They breed like, well, rabbits, and two rabbits can quickly turn into a hundred rabbits if you don’t take the proper precautions.” She opened a cage and took out a huge, fluffy, white bunny. “This is Clementine; he’s a French Lop.”
“What about that one?” Weston asked, pointing to a chubby black-and-white rabbit.
“That’s Napoleon, but if you take him, you need to take Princess, too,” the rescue worker said, handing me an even bigger gray bunny. “They were from the same household and know each other.”
“I guess I’ll take these three then,” I said.
“Could I take a picture?” she asked hopefully. “It’s difficult to convince people to adopt rabbits, and we need good publicity.”
“Funny enough, so do we,” Weston said, grinning. “Blade will take as many bunnies as possible so that people forget about the video of him that’s still on the front page of Reddit being hit in the face with a chair by a little girl.”
“It was a grown woman, and it was not in the face,” I snarled.
“We don’t want to overrun you with animals. I think three is a good number of rabbits,” the rescue worker said.
I held up all three bunnies as the employee snapped pictures.
“Smile!” Weston said with a cackle. “Let’s change those headlines!”
The bunnies went into a carrying cage as I signed the paperwork.
“We will also be making a generous donation to your organization,” Weston assured her as she waved goodbye.
In the car on the way to my condo, Weston said, “Hopefully Chuck Schultz will see all these great photos before your meeting with him.”
“I doubt he follows animal Instagram accounts.”
“But I bet they’re following your hashtag.”
“I have a hashtag?” I said in alarm.
