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Cara:I’ve gone back to Witten.
Cara:I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression about things between us. And I’m sorry I left you at the hill. I just thought it was best that I leave. I’m not looking for a relationship right now.
Cara:I think it’s best if we return to our previous way of interacting.
Our previous way of interacting. What did that mean? His mind skipped back to all the times they had proclaimed their dislike for each other. Initially, they’d been in earnest, and then it had become a joke.
He could not go back to disliking her, as much as part of him wanted to. It would be so much easier. That’s what he’d meant, on the chairlift, when he’d used the wordinconvenient. But there was no going back. He wasn’t sure how it had happened at all, much less so fast, but helovedher. Part of him feared he always would.
After he left her bed last time, he’d noted a hollow sort of feeling in his chest. He hadn’t been able to make sense of it, because they’d had such an amazing time together. He understood now that that hollowness had been about the mismatch between hisactions and his feelings. He loved her, but he hadn’t been allowed to express it. He hadn’t even admitted it to himself at that point. So he’dactedlike someone who loved her—he had literally made love to her—but had been suppressing any impulse toarticulatethat love. The result had been an unsettled, ominous feeling he hadn’t understood.
The only way he could make sense of what had happened today on that chairlift was to reason that he’d been trying to fix that sense of unease, that mismatch. He’d thought being honest about his feelings would do it. How wrong he had been. Not only had he managed to completely botch his declaration, he had somehow deluded himself into thinking he should make one at all. There could be no way forward for them, even if shehadreturned his affections. His life was in Eldovia. No, it was more than that. Eldoviawashis life. And Cara never stopped moving. She didn’t do long distance. She didn’t doanydistance, because she didn’t do relationships at all. He thought back to the conversation in which she’d blithely said she liked to be “on to the next thing.” He’d asked her what happened to the first thing when she was on to the next, and she hadn’t answered.
He knew now.
What made him feel the worst was that none of this was her fault. She had explicitly asked him to name what they were doing. A time-limited affair. He, by contrast, had gotten swept up in... what? Torkel’s romantic ideals? Some muddled notion that since she wasn’t going to lay people off, it was safe to love her?
It didn’t matter. None of it was real. Cara had set out her terms, and he had agreed to them. And then he’d tried to unilaterally change them. No wonder she’d run away.
So what could he do but agree to what she was asking? He took off his gloves to type a reply. His fingers were clumsy, and not from the cold. They were resisting the message his brain was ordering them to send.
Matteo:Of course. My apologies for making things awkward.
He stood there in the cold, staring at his phone, for a long time, but she did not reply.
Chapter Sixteen
Two days until Christmas
Telling the king that Noar Graf had been conspiring with Brad Wiener—fucking Brad—to fleece Morneau was unpleasant.
But it paled in comparison with having to do that with Matteo seated silently at Cara’s side across from the king, who was sitting behind his desk in the library. As Cara spoke, she half wished Matteo would say something, even something antagonistic, but he just sat there, mute, expressionless.
The king handled the news well. Or at least he didn’t fly off the handle. He didn’t do much of anything. Like Matteo, he remained impassive. She supposed the bigger blow had been the initial news about Noar. Brad was merely the cherry on top. Fucking Brad.
“I am aware,” she said, after she’d laid out what they knew, “that you hired CZT to help, and that what we have in effect done is the opposite of that.” She was treading carefully here. She and Tonya and some of the other partners—the other partners; it was stillhard to wrap her mind around the fact that she was one of them—had talked through various scenarios, including the possibility that the Eldovians might bring legal action against CZT. “We’re prepared to refund you everything you’ve already paid, and to help you manage any of the fallout. I’m personally prepared to let Mr. Graf go on your behalf, if you’d like me to. And as for the actual work we were hired to do, I am still ready to hand in my report anytime. And, of course, to be back after Christmas to discuss it if you like, or to help in any way I can. Any further work by CZT on this file will, of course, be carried out at no charge to Morneau.”
The king turned an assessing gaze on her. “I had assumed your work would come to a halt, at least temporarily, given all this business with Noar.”
“I’m sorry to say that although Noar certainly had a draining effect on the company’s balance sheet, getting rid of him isn’t going to be enough to right things. When you read the report in full, you’ll see that the pivots we’re suggesting aren’t going to happen overnight. A leaner workforce is called for in the short to medium term.”
The king looked at Matteo, as Cara had been doing at various points during their meeting. There had been so many instances when she’d expected him to chime in with his disagreement. Perhaps the king was feeling the same.
“I have the report with me.” She got it out of her bag. “I know the plan was for me to present it to the board at this afternoon’s meeting—”
“I think the agenda for that meeting has changed. It’s nothing personal, Ms. Delaney, but my feeling is that we need to handle the Noar situation before we do anything else. And while I appreciate your offer to assist in this matter, we’ll be handling it ourselves. We know where to find you if we need help.”
All right then. “Shall I leave this with you?” She slid her report, the culmination of so much work, unceremoniously across the desk to him.
He picked it up. “I can’t say I look forward to reading it, but I look forward to having this exercise behind us.”
Ugh. Cara was accustomed to being unpopular, in some settings. It wasn’t like she expected people to jump for joy when she suggested they needed to cut their workforce, but she was usually better at this than she apparently was today. Today she feltshitty. “Mind you, my recommendations are not all around the staffing issue. I make some other suggestions as well.”
“Good,” the king said flatly. “If that’s all?”
“Yes, thank you.” Well, that wasn’t quite all. She had to say one more thing. “I wanted you to know that...” The king raised an eyebrow. “I wanted you to know that I couldn’t have uncovered all this without Mr. Benz’s help.” Because Matteo had sat in complete silence during the meeting, she feared it looked like he hadn’t had any involvement. Her feelings about Matteo were complicated, to say the least, but allowing that conclusion to stand wasn’t fair.
“That’s not true. You were well on your way to the truth.” Hearing Matteo’s voice ring out across the room, when he had been so quiet, was a bit of a shock. She loved his voice. It was deep and sure—and full of shit, in this particular instance.
