The pinched expression didn’t quite resolve. It wasn’t surprise exactly, because she’d clearly been waiting specifically for Sawyer, but it still looked like surprise, as if the reality of her being here had somehow exceeded the theory of it. She went very slightly pink.
Sawyer fought the urge to run toward her and instead settled for a slightly hurried march.
Nellie unclasped her hands from the bag strap and stood. She took what might have been a preparatory breath. Then,apparently deciding that whatever she’d been rehearsing on the way over wasn’t going to survive contact with the actual moment, she babbled, “Martha gave me your home address. I don’t— I couldn’t get to the penthouse floor, because the elevator needs a key for it. So, I was just waiting down here. I was going to ask the concierge to call up, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to talk. I just, um, waited.”
“How long have you been sitting there?” Sawyer chuckled.
“About forty minutes.” Nellie pouted a little. “The concierge has been very nice about it.”
The concierge was, at this moment, demonstrating a pointed interest in his computer screen.
“I see.” Sawyer found herself lost for words. “Come up.”
She moved to the elevator and pressed her key card against the reader. The doors opened immediately. Nellie followed her in and stood two feet away while the doors slid shut.
As the elevator began to rise, Sawyer looked straight ahead at the brushed steel doors. She could see Nellie in the reflection of them, slightly blurred, the same way she had been hovering at the edge of Sawyer’s attention since the last time they’d actually stood face to face. She could feel the warmth of her from two feet away. Or she believed she could, her skin was on fire. The floor counter climbed. Four. Seven. Eleven.
Neither of them said anything.
Eighteen. Twenty-three.
Sawyer kept her eyes on the doors and her hands where they were and breathed, slowly, through the torment of being this close to someone she had spent three weeks unable to touch, while the elevator carried them in its quiet patience toward the top of the building.
25
CHAPTER 25 – NELLIE
The penthouse was exactly what Nellie had expected, which was to say it was nothing like any apartment she’d ever been in before.
Floor-to-ceiling windows on two sides, the city spread out in every direction, like someone had tipped a jar of lights and let it settle across the valley floor. Nellie winced at the dizzying height and turned her attention elsewhere.
The living space alone was probably the square footage of twenty Doloreses, and everything in it—the pale marble, the low furniture, the enormous abstract canvas taking up most of one wall—had been chosen with the kind of consideration that cost more than money. It cost taste, time, and an absolute commitment to never having anything in your home that wasn’t exactly right.
It was extraordinary. Nellie was going to be sick.
“Can I get you something to drink?” Sawyer asked, setting her keys on the kitchen island.
“No. Thank you.” Nellie put her bag down near the entry and did a slow, slightly manic survey of the room that she hoped looked like appreciation and probably looked like panic. The elevator ride alone had nearly finished her off, and her nervous system had immediately started running a full catastrophe drill. She wrung her hands together before blurting, “Martha told me about the vote of no confidence.”
Sawyer, who was filling a glass with water for herself, went very still. Then she turned around. She leaned back against the counter and crossed her arms—not defensively, more like she was settling into a conversation she intended to take seriously.
“Did she now,” she said. Statement, not question.
“She called me on Monday. She said the board is— She used the word ‘uproar.’” Nellie winced. “Is that true?”
“A portion of the board is agitated.” Sawyer’s mouth curved slightly at the corner. “Gina in particular has been expressing herself with some enthusiasm. She’llfind that enthusiasm curtailed shortly.”
“Sawyer,” Nellie groaned. “You could lose your company!”
“I could. But I very much doubt it.”
“That’s—” She pressed her hand flat against her churning stomach. “I am so incredibly grateful. For what you’re doing. For what you’ve decided. I genuinely can’t—” Nellie shook her head, because language was failing her in a way it rarely did. The thing was, she had prepared for a lot of scenarios on the drive over here. She’d prepared for anger, for coolness, for the controlled and clipped register Sawyer retreated into when she didn’t want to be read. She had not prepared for being this overwhelmed by the simple reality of standing in Sawyer’s home having this conversation. “I don’t want you to lose your position over this. I need you to understand that. I can’t be the reason?—”
“You won’t be.”
“I potentially very much could be.”
“Nellie.” Sawyer set the water glass down and pushed off from the counter. She crossed the kitchen into the living space and stopped close enough that Nellie had to tilt her chin slightly to hold eye contact. “I know how to run my own company. I have the board on side already. Gina’s vote of no confidence isn’t going to the floor. I am not losing anything.” She paused. “At least not where my job is concerned.”
