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The ocean knew.
In the office, I’d loitered by reception, prolonging walking over to my desk by my father’s door and taking a seat. By eleven o’clock, I couldn’t postpone the inevitable. I was making the twelfth pot of coffee that day—for whom, no one knew—when Max walked in and leaned his arm against the door. He looked like a weasel in a suit, reeking of a pine-scented disinfectant. He always smelled like he bathed in aftershave.
“Your dad wants to see you,” he announced in his signature chilly tone before walking away. The flash drive burned inside my pocket. I made my way out of the break room, leaving the coffee I never planned on drinking behind me. I passed by Trent’s office. The door was open. I knew he knew. Knew that among other things, this was a test. Knew that I’d failed. I stopped in front of him, briefly. His head was bowed down, and he was signing some papers. I cleared my throat, feeling like my whole body was foreign and strange and not mine.
“Is this a trick?” I croaked. I hoped, prayed, willed for it to be part of a bigger plan that we could both share. Trent’s eyes were still on the papers. Like he hadn’t held me in his arms hours ago and breathed life into me.
Not shaking his head—not even moving—he said, “Nope.”
“So all the information is th…” I started before he shot his head up and stared at me, his face blank. Chiseled out of titanium. God-like and angry.
“Everything is there, Edie. Every single file, and plan, and contract. You made your choice. If you want to be strong, be. Now, leave.”
I wanted to argue with him. Wanted this to turn into a loud, ugly, angry, real argument after which I would be convinced there was another way to save Theo. But I also acknowledged that all those things would just serve to show that I was still an indecisive teenager, and he was the older man who’d seduced me. And we weren’t those things. We were so much more.
My legs took me to my father’s office, and I don’t remember how I got there, but I do remember the door clicking shut behind me. The sound it made was concluding and grave.
There was an ocean of space and unspoken words between us, every inch a toxic drop of bitterness. I wanted to keep it that way. With Jordan Van Der Zee, I preferred to stay dry and guarded.
“Well?” he asked, sitting back in his leather chair and arching one skeptical eyebrow. Not once had he asked me how my mother was while I was sleeping, eating, and living in the hospital by her side. This, combined with what he’d made me do, with what my life looked like, triggered my anger to overflow. My mouth was paper-dry and every muscle in my body was taut with the need to launch at him.
I wasn’t sure where the next words came from, but I was certain I couldn’t stop them from pouring out even if I tried. “Can I ask you something?”
He huffed, sitting back in his chair. He rolled one hand in a go-on motion.
“Now that you know what happened to Mom, do you wish you would have waited? Maybe not pushed her to doing what she did?”
A part of me realized I was being irrational—perhaps even pathetic—trying to reason with him. Looking to find a person with a heart. Because if he was a monster, then I could become one, too. But if there was a sliver of humanity inside him, maybe I could bargain with him and save Trent. Jordan flicked his gaze to his watch, sighed like my very presence was an inconvenience, and rubbed the tip of his chin.
“I didn’t push your mother, Edie. We’re all responsible for our own lives. Dumping the blame on someone else is for the weak.”
Again with the power games. My father didn’t care. What’s more, I was starting to suspect he actually took pleasure from this screwed-up situation. I was the one to coax Mom off the ledge time and time again, while he was the one to push and watch her fall, all the while waiting for me to let her go. This was where we danced. On the edge of her sanity. I needed to break this cycle—smash his foot in—to make sure he wasn’t going to hurt her.
I sucked in a breath, swallowing down a juicy curse. My mind was made. “I have the flash drive.” I changed the subject, looking straight ahead at him.
His face was smeared with delight, confirming how cocky and self-assured he was. “Well, are you waiting for a royal invitation? Give it to me.”
“Not until you tell me why you hate him.”
“It really is none of your business, Edie.” He rolled his Cartier pen between his fingers.
