Before I could pelt him with more questions, my cell phone rang. I pulled it out of my pocket, glanced at the screen, frowned.
“I need to take this,” I told Kieran. “It’s Siobhan. If I don’t talk to her, there’s a good chance she’s going to sic the FBI on you and Knox.”
Kieran’s eyes glittered with amusement as another smile pulled at his mouth.
I hit the talk button, answered with, “Hey, girl. I was about to call you back.”
“Mmm-hmm,” she said, her tone ripe with disbelief. “I’ve heard that before. Whereareyou? You were supposed to be in class today.”
I sighed. I hadn’t yet figured out how to tell her that I didn’t think I was coming back to school. Although I hadn’t made a final decision, I knew I was leaning in that direction.
“I’m dealing with some family stuff,” I told her. It wasn’t exactly a lie. Delta June’s could be classified as family stuff.
“You told me you didn’t talk to your family,” she probed.
I sighed. “I don’t. It’s … it’s complicated, but I promise, I’ll let you know all the deets as soon as I can.”
“You better.” She sighed. “Remember that Mitch guy?”
I had to think about it for a second, recalling a guy named Mitch in our organizational behavior class. “Yeah,” I said hesitantly.
“He was asking about you.”
I could hear the smile in her voice, and I probably should’ve told her I had no interest in Mitch. However, if I did, I knew it would spur a thousand questions, and I wasn’t ready to answer any of them yet.
“You can tell him I’m all right.” I peered up at Kieran, saw he was watching me. “Look, Siobhan, I’ve gotta run, but I’ll call you later, ’kay?”
“Whatevs, girl. Don’t you keep me hanging.”
“I won’t. Tell Priya I said hi.” I disconnected the call, tucked my phone in my pocket, and peered up at Kieran again. “What’s next?”
“Is there a problem?”
“Nope. Just Siobhan wondering where I am.”
“She’s a good friend, huh?”
I shrugged. “I wouldn’t call her a good friend, but yeah, we hung out a lot. I’m sure she’s wondering when I can get her into Obsession again; she just hasn’t gotten up the nerve to ask.”
Kieran started walking again. This time he took my arm, cradled it against his chest as he had when we’d gone for our walks in New York.
“Tell me what it is you’d like to see different?” he prompted.
I knew a conversation ender when I heard one. And since he wasn’t going to regal me with the history of Knox and Kieran as I’d hoped he would, I relented, giving in to the redirect and offering up the few ideas I’d come up with so far.
~~~~
Knox
The day passed in a blur ofmeetings.
It was how I spent a significant amount of my time, no matter the location. The demand for my attention was so high I had two proxies who often filled in for me, groomed to make certain decisions, trusted enough to halt progress when there was something I needed to be apprised of, and paid ridiculous salaries to remain loyal. Today, I wished I had three.
No doubt about it, my patience had been tested, but it had more to do with Emily and Kieran than running multi-million dollar companies. I could do the latter in my sleep. The former I merely wanted to spend every waking hour with. And because that wasn’t possible, I couldn’t focus, and that was no one’s fault but my own.
My cell phone buzzed, had me glancing down at the screen. My insides went cold the same as they always did when I saw Kitty’s name.
“Kitty,” I greeted coldly, leaning back in my chair.
