He turns to me.
"I'm sorry," he says. "That shouldn't have happened."
He's watching me.
"Are you all right?" he asks. His hand comes up to my elbow, warm and solid.
The harbor is slowly returning to its normal activity level. The naga couple at the far end of the pier has turned back to the water. The dog trots past us on its mission, undeterred by the drama. Somewhere nearby, someone has a speaker going and the music drifts over the sound of the waves.
Everything is exactly as it was. Except it's not exactly as it was, is it?
It's like an illusion breaking and revealing the mechanism behind the curtain. Nothing with Demetrius can just be, can it? Not even an ice cream date on the piers.
"I'm fine," I say. "Let's just go back, okay?"
He searches my face for a moment. He doesn't push. Then he pulls me in and wraps one arm around my shoulders, and I lean into his side. We stand there for a moment on the pier with the harbor in front of us and the last of the gold light making everything look briefly, unreasonably perfect.
I'm fine, I said. I lied.
It's not fear. It's not even doubt.
It's something quieter than both. A door slightly ajar in a room I wasn't looking at. A room full of doubt and sorrows that I don't want to take a peek in.
Because I'm absolutely not fine. Not by a big margin.
Chapter Sixteen
Demetrius
Ittakesmefourtimes as long as it should to read the lease for the penthouse I'll be renting in Long Beach for the Windemere acquisition.
It's a nice place.
The penthouse is nine thousand square feet on the thirty-second floor, floor-to-ceiling glass, a private elevator, a private rooftop garden and a 360 view of Long Beach. The kitchen is all white stone and chef's appliances and I made sure a fitness room and a hot tub were included.
I sign it with an uncharacteristic tremor in my hand.
I don't know why I'm so nervous. I have no trouble with decision-making. Never have. A decision is a calculation: the correct result for the given variables, arrived at through the proper method. The penthouse is the correct result. I need somewhere to live with Maddie and I found it. So that's done.
I set the lease aside and open the next file. The Meridian Pacific paperwork has arrived, which is slightly ahead of schedule, which means Marcus's people moved faster than promised, which means the chief of staff personally expedited it.
Maddie is going to have the offer in front of her by tomorrow.
The relief is almost physical: a specific easing in the chest. The position at Meridian Pacific's ICU is the kind a nurse with Maddie's credentials would normally spend years competing for. She deserves the position. She's fully competent for it and it might put her career back on the track it was before Grace's diagnosis.
It's objectively perfect.
Then why does it feel like a shameful secret?
I sigh, then massage my brows, trying to ease the stubborn headache that dug in its claws hours ago. When I open my eyes again, I look at the clock and shake my head. It reads eleven forty-seven. I have been working without a break since nine this morning.
I lean back and look at the ceiling and the question that makes my stomach twist in painful knots shoots through my tired brain.
Will Maddie even want to come with me?
Agatha's words rise uninvited.
Have you asked her what she wants?
