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“Where’s Barry?”
I turned and saw the voice was Rand’s. He was wearing a look of complete innocence, but I knew better than to buy it.
“He just had to run. His sister has a newborn and they needed an emergency babysitter. He’s hoping he’ll at least be able to catch the end of the party, but who knows?”
“Ah,” Rand said. “That’s too bad. Look, I’ve been thinking. I know we’re both gunning for the same thing. We want Mrs. Glass to name us her successor, but I think lately it’s becoming clear that your heart really isn’t in the game anymore. I wanted to officially offer you a position as my assistant if I get the job.”
I hesitated, then smiled. “Thanks, Rand. That’s… really kind of you.”
He shrugged. “It’s nothing, really. I was also thinking how it might be better if the two of us could come to some kind of mutual agreement. It doesn’t benefit Glass Designs to have us butting heads all the time. If we told Mrs. Glass we’d decided between ourselves that one of us should take the leadership position and the other could support them, well… I think it would be best.”
Rand was skirting the topic, but I knew the barbs hiding behind his words. Normally, I would’ve chosen a more subtle approach, but I decided I really didn’t want to listen to his bullshit. He thought he could hold my relationship with Travis over my head to force me into giving up the position to him? Well, I was going to enjoy this.
“Maybe you’re right,” I said. “Maybe we should just go talk to her right now.”
Rand sputtered, clearly trying to hide his surprise. “If you think that’s best. But maybe we could talk about a more professional time to—”
“Nope,” I said easily. “I think this is a great time.”
I strolled out to the back patio and found Mrs. Glass was just finishing a conversation with a man who was walking away.
She smiled while greeting us. I could still see something was troubling her. She wasn’t her usual, strange but high-energy self.
“Mrs. Glass, there’s something I wanted to tell you,” I said. “Barry and I have feelings for each other and are planning to continue pursuing those feelings. I know your company policy on—”
Rand stiffened beside me. I could almost feel his pain and disappointment. Not only was he realizing I had no intentions of going along with his stupid little plan, but he was missing the brownie points for being the one to tell on me himself.
Mrs. Glass looked tired and simply waved off my words with her hand. “I’m well aware you two are in a relationship, Elizabeth. You’ll recall I practically set you up. I thought we were already clear that this wasn’t an issue.”
“Oh,” I said. I’d known as much, but it was still worth looking clueless to Mrs. Glass just to see the look on Rand’s face. “Well, I thought it would be best to formally tell you.”
Mrs. Glass looked at Rand and understanding seemed to pass over her face. She shared a small, conspiratorial smile with me. “I see. Thank you. Rand, would you mind giving us a minute?”
He tried to say something, but she shooed him away. “You asked me to look into Barry.”
I went rigid. I’d completely forgotten about that, and I wasn’t sure I knew what to do if she confronted me with the truth about him right here and now. It felt like that would be a moment of choosing my allegiances, and it was a moment I wasn’t ready for.
“Yes,” I said slowly.
“Well, good and bad news. It looks like he might’ve fibbed a little on his resume.”
My chest went tight. Understatement of the century.
“He didn’t graduate with honors from Princeton. But he had impressive enough grades that it’s honestly not that much of a stretch.” She gave a little shrug. “A fib. That’s all.”
“Oh,” I said, all the sudden tension draining out of me. I felt like laughing, as insane as that would’ve made me look. “Right. That’s not really anything worth worrying over, is it?”
She wiggled her brows. “Not at all. I’d say you have yourself a winner.” The good humor drained from her face. She reached for a glass of wine she’d left sitting on the railing and took a long drink. “Take my advice and don’t let him get away. You may only get one truly good man in your lifetime. If you assume another will come along, you may find yourself old, wrinkled, and kicking yourself for being so stupid.”
She was talking about Enzo again. If only the man had the courage to show up here. Travis had a maddening obsession with being “mysterious,” which meant he’d refused to go into detail about how his plan with Enzo was supposed to play out. But I could connect the broad dots. Mrs. Glass was conflicted about her loyalty to her husband, Brandon Glass. Lately, she’d seemed more and more melancholy about letting the love of her youth, Enzo, slip away. Travis must be thinking if we could get them to rekindle their attraction, her loyalty to Brandon would evaporate. And if there was no loyalty to Brandon, there was no motivation to pursue a lengthy, complicated legal battle with a very expensive team of lawyers.
