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“How exactly? You’re the most unselfish person I know,” she rolled her eyes as she shook her head.
“Being with Jamie is selfish. Moving in with him is selfish.”
“Why?”
“Because, Willow, it makes things complicated and messy and not just for me and him, but for our children.” I sat back on the edge of the sink with her. “But I love him and I won’t give him up, so that makes me selfish because I know that he wants more than just me from me and I might never be able to give him that. And still, I refuse to let him find someone who will give him another child.”
“You know, that would actually be selfish if I didn’t know that he’d take just you over another child.” She nudged me with her shoulder, “You’re getting off topic here anyway. This isn’t kid talk, it’s a you broke a bitch’s nose and now she’s gunning for you so what are you going to do about it talk.”
“Wow, that was a mouthful. How did you manage all that with a slur?”
“Is Quincy Cavendish trying to sass me? You’re so cute, but your sass doesn’t work on me. Anyway, my point is that you’re either going to apologise and give her the satisfaction she so desperately wants, or you could say fuck it all and accept this woman’s offer, this very important woman’s offer, and get paid a fuck tonne more whilst you’re at it.”
“It’s not the money. I don’t care about the money, Willow.” I turned to face her again. “I’ve always just wanted to help people. To save lives.”
“Rich people need helping and saving too.”
“Yes, they do, but they have money to pay for the best care. Right now I’m providing that to people that can’t afford it.”
“I know you’re a good person, you’re far too nice if we’re honest about it, but you’re not Mother freaking Teresa, so…”
“Why are you so interested in this anyway?”
“You’re my best friend and someone has to give you shit for being so…so good and nice.”
“Yeah, well you still haven’t told me what crawled up your arse earlier and had you moping in loneliness and rum.” I followed her towards the bathroom door, bumping into her as she came to an abrupt stop in the doorway.
Jamie
Once in a while there were certain people that I wanted to introduce my right hook to. Rupert Alastair was one of them. I’m pretty sure he was the reason the whole never trust a man with two first names saying came about. He was seedy and in general repugnant, but the last forty minutes he’d chewed my ear off about how I needed to rein Quincy in. About how I needed to make sure she was on her best behaviour. And that was making me see a bit too much red.
The irony of the conversation wasn’t lost on me. Here we were at an event trying to raise awareness and celebrate female equality and his old, bigoted arse was telling me to put Quincy on a leash. I was beginning to wish I’d never stepped foot outside for a quick smoke. There was nothing quick about the last four cigarettes I’d burned through and definitely not the one I was currently inhaling because I needed something to occupy my mouth before I told him where to shove his useless advice.
“Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Rupert, we both know I’m not going to take your advice,” I took a quick drag and breathed it out between us, “Just like we know that you can’t rein Sam in. It’s a pointless task and one I’m not even going to waste my time thinking about. We both know why you suspended Quincy and it wasn’t because you needed to.”
His eyes widened as his face flared a bright red.
“Let’s not pretend that Ms. Sterling is a saint, again, we both know she isn’t.”
“Excuse me?” He barked at me as he choked on the smoke of his Cuban.
“People talk Rupert, you being the chairman doesn’t make you’re exempt from the gossip.” I flicked the burning butt of my cigarette onto the step and stamped it out with my foot, imagining it was his smarmy face I was grinding into the ground. “She’s not going to apologise, and I won’t tell her to either. She’ll be back in three weeks and life will go on.”
“If she doesn’t apologise, Sam is going to take it to the board. I can’t stop her, I can’t guarantee that Quincy will have a job at the end of this, if it goes that far.”
“More fool you then.” I turned my back and started back up the stairs.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit…Shit!
“She says she’s emotionally unstable.” He called after me.
I wanted to turn back and grab him by the collar, push him up against the rough concrete balustrade and have him tell me everything that he knew about her history. I wanted him to go through it point by point and then I wanted him to go through all the people she’d helped, all the lives she’d saved, so that he would get it into his head that her aptitude, her ability to do her job had never been compromised because of her emotional instability.
Instead I carried on up the steps and then to our table. Sometimes the best response was no response, the best reaction was no reaction at all and this was one of those times.
I wish I could say that I was surprised about the whole thing going further, but Sam was well connected. Her father was one of the board members and her grandfather was a generous financial donor. Most of the people on that board were Sterling dinner table regulars. It didn’t matter that they were acquaintances of our families, because they were so much more of hers.
