The confusion written on my face must have told him all he needed to know.
“Why don’t we step into my office?” he said as he opened the door and ushered me in. He craned his head back out, “Allison, will you tell Mr. Meyers that I’ll be a few minutes late to the pitch meeting?”
“Yes, Mr. Hart,” the receptionist said as she picked up her desk phone to make the call.
The click of the office door might as well have been a shotgun blast. The two of us faced each other in a standoff. The tension was thicker than a gust of summer heat.
“Why does it seem like you didn’t know I was going to be here?” I hedged.
A wry laugh that was full of age and completely disingenuous slipped from his mouth. It was the kind of laugh he probably used in meetings to seem easygoing. “I didn’t know you were coming by, Autumn.”
But . . . But we had . . .
“You look well,” he said as he scratched the back of his neck.
I look well? What the fuck?
“You didn’t know that we made plans three days ago?”
He let out that robotic laugh again. “Honest to God, I didn’t know you were coming.”
I pulled my phone out of my purse and swiped through my text messages until I found the quick back and forth where I had excitedly accepted his invitation to grab lunch.
It was right there.
His brow furrowed as I showed him the screen. “Autumn, I didn’t make those plans. I’m gearing up for our fall campaign launch. I have back-to-back meetings today.”
My stomach sank as he pulled out his own phone and scrolled through his messages. His face went copy paper white when he saw the exact texts I had on my screen. “I didn’t—I wouldn’t have?—”
I reared back. “Youwouldn’thave?”
“Autumn, I—” he paused and looked at the time stamp. “Your sister sent these.”
My blood went volcanic. “She what?”
“I was having dinner with her and she asked to use my phone because hers was dead.”
I couldn’t even begin to unpack every facet of what he just said. I couldn’t even wrap my head around what Amber had done. And for what?
What did she have to gain by humiliating me?
A whisper was the only thing I could get out. “Why won’t you just talk to me?”
He clammed up. Greg Hart—my own father—didn’t have a damn thing to say to me.
“I’ve tried to see you for months. And the one time I think I get to see you, you’re telling me that it was Amber being . . . being Amber?!”
He turned and pulled a tissue out of the box on his desk, and dabbed the beading sweat on his forehead. “Perhaps we can schedule something before you leave town,” he offered magnanimously. Like I was just some angry client he was trying to appease before he lost the deal.
I bit back my tears and shouldered my purse. For the last two and a half months, I had chosen to play second fiddle to my mom because I was trying to bond with her. I was really fucking trying. But I wasn’t about to play second fiddle to someone who had chosen every other weekend and radio silence.
“No. We don’t have to,” I said as I turned to the door. “I hope your meetings go well. They sound very important.”
Greg huffed. “Autumn?—”
“Have a nice day, Allison,” I said to the receptionist as I hurried out of the building.
Ryan foundme under the willow tree. I hadn’t even bothered to go inside after I pulled into the driveway. I hadn’t even texted him on the way back.
