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“Yes, it is. It shares the wall with Rivers Wilde,” she argues.
“I know. You know that the land Rivers Wilde is built on all used to belong to my family, right?” I ask.
“All of it?” she asks.
“Yes, all of it. That land beyond the wall,” I say and point to the short stone wall that was built to divide the land. “All of that still belongs to us,” I inform her.
“What?” she turns around to face me. “You own all of that? Habitat for Humanity is building on your land?” she asks.
“No, they’re building on their land. I donated it to them. Nearly fifty percent of what’s left. One thousand acres for their project,” I say.
“You … gave it to them?” she squeaks. Her head swings wildly back and forth between the expanse of green pastureland that’s one of the most unique things about Houston. Urban and rural blend within feet of each other. And it’s self-contained, but with easy ingress and egress to streets that are the major traffic arteries of the city make the location ideal for commuters going to all of the major commercial centers in Houston. The Galleria, downtown, Greenway, Katy, Sugar Land, The Medical Center. She stares at me for a few minutes, her face tight with concentration as if she’s looking at a puzzle that makes no sense.
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“What?” I ask.
She frowns. “It’s just that there’s a dissonance between your actions and words, Hayes. Last time we talked about this, you were shocked that we wouldn’t accept a settlement. Now, you’ve committed your family’s resources to doing exactly what you refused to do last week.”
“Well, it was actually almost two weeks ago, and then, I hadn’t been to see any of the properties. I hadn’t met Matt and Jasmine and their ten-month-old who couldn’t go anywhere without the machine they use to treat his asthma,” I say.
“I heard about your visits,” she says. “Your little notetaker was very proud of himself.”
“He’s a good kid. And after those visits, I decided to make that donation. Some of those units should have been condemned before the flood.” I shake my head as I remember the rubble and debris that still lay strewn in the parking lots of these units. It’s a disgrace and I couldn’t sit by while they suffered.
“Does Remi know that? Why wouldn’t he tell me that?” I ask.
“Because I asked him not to. I wanted to tell you myself, and I didn’t want you to know until I thought you were ready to hear it,” I tell her.
Her eyes narrow slightly. “Why do you get to decide what I’m ready for?” she asks.
“Because I’m the decider,” I say, mimicking George W. Bush’s infamous words.
“Oh, really?” she asks and crosses her arms over her chest.
“Yes. That’s what I do. I make decisions that I think are best for myself and my family. Sometimes they mean I will have to hurt the people I love. Not be candid with them. Move them around like pawns,” I say.
“How do you feel about that?” she asks, surprising me with how soft her voice is.
“I feel fine about it. I’m not impulsive, Confidence. When I act, it’s after long deliberation. There have been moments in my life where I didn’t think, where I just acted, and I hurt people without any really good reason. The ends didn’t justify the means.”
“You should hear yourself, Hayes. You’re a stage five control freak,” she says, but her voice is completely devoid of recrimination. In fact, I hear shades of pity, and I don’t fucking like it.
“I have to be,” I say tightly.
She holds her hand out to me and I step forward and take it.
She brings it to her lips and brushes the back of them in a sweeping motion. She looks up at me through her lashes, and I’m struck by how every time she looks at me, her eyes nearly lay me flat.
“You can’t control people, Hayes,” she whispers, and a knot tightens in my chest at the distress in her voice.
“I’m not trying to control anyone. I just take opportunities when I see them,” I say and before she can cut me off, I tell her what I’ve been dreading. “Like when I realized that Kingdom wasn’t going to do anything they weren’t forced to when it came to the tenants, I knew Remi would need the best lawyer on his team.”
“What do you mean?” she asks and then her eyes widen and her mouth falls open.
She drops my hand. “You didn’t,” she says quietly.
I’m shocked she hasn’t guessed already. She jumps to her feet. “If you say that you asked Remi to hire me, I am going to walk out of this room, and if you try to stop me I will scream at the top of lungs until someone calls the police,” she yells.
