“I know.”
“We didn’t lose, Beth. Thirty days is?—”
“Iknow.” I stare out the windshield. “Can you—can you be mad for a second? Instead of strategic? I need you to be mad.”
His silence is brief and loaded. When I look over, Peter’s boardroom mask is gone. What’s underneath it is white hot. It’s alsohothot and makes me wanna jump him, right here in the parking lot.
“I’m furious,” he whispers. “I have been since he opened his mouth. The way he talked about this project—the way he looked at you, like you were some kid playing dress-up at a real meeting?—”
“He came to my job site.” It falls out. I didn’t plan it, didn’t build up to it, didn’t cushion it. It just… falls. “Last week. While you were in Toronto. He showed up and told me I was embarrassing myself. That the marina was a tourist trap. That I should stay in my lane.”
Peter goes still.
“He said the business stuff isn’t me. The planning, the organizing. I’m good with my hands, but I should leave the rest to… to people who are built for it.”
“Built for it,” Peter repeats slowly, so low it barely qualifies as sound.
“His way of saying my brain isn’t wired for it. Without actually saying the words ADHD, because he doesn’t believe in it. He thinks it’s an excuse I use for being scattered, and the PMDD is me being dramatic, and the bisexuality is a phase. Everything about me that doesn’t fit into his neat little box is a deficiency he’s been trying to correct since I was a kid.” I’m not crying. My voice is steady and flat, and that’s almost worse. “I didn’t tell you because you were dealing with your own stuff. I didn’t want?—”
“Don’t.” His hand is on the steering wheel so tight the leather creaks. “Don’t say you didn’t want to burden me. Please don’t say that.”
“I wasn’t going to.” And I mean it. “I was going to say I didn’t want to talk about it on the phone. I wanted to tell you in person.” I pause. “I didn’t get the chance to because we needed to focus on the meeting. And there was never a right time, you know?”
He nods. Barely. His jaw is working, he’s cycling through responses—the strategic one, the measured one, the one that would make sense in a boardroom or a therapist’s office. He discards all of them.
“He’s wrong,” he says. “About all of it. Every single thing he’s ever said to you about who you are and what you’re capable of—he’s wrong, Beth. You walked into that room today and presented a revitalization plan the mayor took seriously. The harbor master—a man who’s worked that waterfront for thirty years—agreed with your structural assessment. Your father sat in the back of that room and watched his daughter command it. And instead of being proud, he pulled out a folder full of storage units.” The last two words come out like they taste bad.
“Storage units,” I echo, and something between a laugh and a sob escapes me.
“Fucking storage units.” He drops his head back against the headrest and stares at the ceiling of the SUV’s cab. “I sat in that meeting and smiled and used my professional voice and talked about compound economic benefits while your father condescended to you in front of the entire bureau. I want you to know it took every ounce of self-control I have ever developed in my entire career to not?—”
“I know.”
“He doesn’t get to talk to you like that.”
“I know,” I repeat, softer this time.
“And he doesn’t get to talk about our project like it’s some naive fantasy when we have data?—”
“Baby.” I use the term of endearment, the one that’s reserved for intimacy and the fairy tale we’ve allowed ourselves to live these last few weeks. But I need to because this—the way he’s talking about me, the fact that he wanted to defend me but didn’t because he knew I wouldn’t want him to publicly—wasn’t born out of our working relationship. This is what blossomed slowly, over quiet moments and the comfortable familiarity we’ve come to know.
I reach over and put my hand on his forearm. The tension in his muscles is so tight, it’s almost rigid. “I know. I know all of that.”
When he turns his head to look at me, his eyes are bright with a fury that isn’t about the meeting or the project or even Tim. It’s about all of it. Every dismissal, every belittling comment, every time someone looked at me and saw my limitations instead of my capabilities. He’s angry for me in a way no one has ever been, and I don’t know what to do with that except hold onto his arm and let him feel it.
“We have thirty days,” I say, knowingwedon’t have that long, and the next time the bureau meets, Peter will be back in Toronto.
“We have thirty days,” he repeats.
“So, let’s use the time we have.”
He exhales slowly, and some of the tension leaves his shoulders. Not all of it. But enough. He turns his hand over under mine, and our fingers lace together. We sit in his car in the municipal parking lot while the sun peeks through the clouds, and we don’t drive anywhere for a long time.
CHAPTER 41
BELIEVING IT AND WATCHING IT HAPPEN ARE DIFFERENT THINGS.
DARCY
