Page 46 of The CEO’s Assistant

Chapter 22: Wren

"You're chopping something," Lillian said.

"Yes," Wren said.

"Well. Go on, then. Don't stop on my account."

She went on. The knife wasn't sharpened, and the carrots were the fat, crooked kind from the market two blocks over. She had six of them, bought yesterday morning with no plan beyond the fact that they were there and she had a stove.

"What is it?"

"Soup. I have some chicken too."

"In June?"

"It was cold at six this morning."

"It was not. It was sixty-one degrees at six this morning. I know because I was awake. You're making soup in June, little bird, which means either you're sick or you went to a market on a Saturday and came home with more than you can eat. And I don't hear a cold in your voice."

Wren stopped chopping.

She stood with the carrots half done and the rest of it laid out around her—the celery, the parsley she'd bought because it smelled fresh, the chicken resting on its paper in the sink.

"Wren."

"I'm here."

"When did you last cook anything?"

She paused to think. "March."

"March."

"I have made things, though. Coffee, mostly. Whatever was at the counter on the way in." It sounded worse out loud than it had in her head. "It wasn't on purpose."

"No," Lillian said. "It never is."

An electric fan turned somewhere on her end, and through the window, Wren heard a dog out on the street yapping about something

"All right, little bird," Lillian said. "What's going on?"

"It's a work thing." She knew she said it a little too fast.

"All right."

Wren waited for the next question. Lillian, who had all afternoon, didn’t ask one.

"She's selling the company," Wren blurted out. "I just… I can't tell you who it is for privacy reasons."

"I don't need to know."

"It was set up before I ever walked in the door. Years before. And the whole thing I've been building since March, the reason they brought me in—that's what it's for. It's what gets her out."

"When did you find out?"

"April."

"She told you?"