AllFreeNovel
Share Us
WILLOW
“At least we got the deposit. That's still an awful lot of money.”
“Yeah, onward and upward, right?” The thing is, no matter how I fight to put on a happy face for my best friend's sake, I'm numb. Like my body’s been dipped in icy water. I'm not sure how I'm functioning, honestly, considering I barely got a wink of sleep all night after taking an Uber back to the city. It didn't exactly feel right to ask for the helicopter in the wake of my resignation.
Sarah rubs my shoulder, offering an awkward half smile before biting her lip. “Are you going to be okay?”
“Define okay,” I manage with a weak laugh. “Sure, I guess. With time, everything will be fine. We'll be able to expand the way we've talked about for so long, for one thing.”
“You know what I mean. The business isn't what I'm concerned with.”
“Isn't it?” I ask, lifting an eyebrow in the face of her support. “I mean, it's your livelihood.”
“And you're my best friend.”
“Listen. If I'm hurting, it's nobody's fault but my own. Truly. I walked into this with my eyes wide open.”
“I know,” she murmurs, leaning against the corner of my desk. I hate seeing her look so worried and want to tell her not to bother, but it would only come off the wrong way with my emotions bubbling so close to the surface. I can't take my frustration and pain out on her.
And to think, I have to go back there in a couple of hours. I can't skip the luncheon. For one thing, I told Alistair I'd be there. I'm not going to back down. I will not tuck my tail between my legs and hide.
“I'm telling you, any lingering questions about how Sawyer got to be the way he is were answered the second that man barged into the room.” Just the vaguest memory makes me shudder from head to toe. I will never forget the way my stomach dropped at the sight of him. “He made me feel cheap and pitiful. The only time I ever felt that small was back at school.”
“You want me to beat him up for you?”
Her sudden question paired with the way she blurted it out works its magic, and suddenly I'm laughing. She joins me, and it isn't long before we're both giggling helplessly with tears in our eyes. The thought of my gorgeous, model perfect friend throwing down against a shrewd old man is almost too funny, but strangely gratifying to imagine.
Finally, once we’re both blotting our tears away with tissues, I admit, “I only resigned to take the heat off Sawyer. It's not like I wanted to. Do you think he thinks I wanted to?”
“I'm not the person to answer that question, and we both know it. Why don't you try giving him a call and asking for yourself?”
“I can't do that.”
“Why in the world not?”
“You don't think I want to call him?” I pick up my phone from the desk, where I dropped it like a guilty child when she entered my office. “Do you want to know what I was doing when you barged in here? I was staring at his contact in my phone, debating on whether or not I should go through with a call.”
“Why didn't you go through with it?”
“Because you walked in.”
“Stop being cute. I mean it. Why haven't you called him by now?”
My mouth opens. My mouth closes. “I don't know,” I finally admit. “Maybe I don't know what to say. And I'm afraid of going too far, saying the wrong thing. There's a difference between knowing he's aware of what an asshole his father is, and actually coming out and saying it.”
“But this isn't about him. It's about the two of you.”
“There is no two of us. He is a client. That's it.” I don’t sound like I mean it, probably because I don’t. He’s been more than a client since the beginning.
“Fair enough.” She makes a big deal of checking the time before pushing off my desk. “Well, you'd better get moving if you want to make it up there in time for the luncheon.”
The luncheon. I have never dreaded an event the way I'm dreading this. Knowing exactly what Alistair Cargill thinks of me, but having to smile and be polite just the same. For someone working in public relations, it seems odd that I'm so uncomfortable with the idea of faking my reaction to him. I guess it's one thing to put on a pleasant, professional aura when you aren't directly involved.
Funny how I've lectured countless clients on the finer points of behaving themselves in front of their adversaries. Now I have to follow my own advice no matter how much I don't feel like it.
I should at least call Sawyer and let him know I’m coming—then again, he hasn't called me, has he? It's probably petty of me to think about it that way, but I can't help it. The phone works both ways. If anything, he should be the one to call me and apologize for his father's rudeness. He could at least let me know he doesn't see me the way the old man immediately did.
I'll call him. I'll make the first move, be the bigger person. That's who I am, anyway. I've always known it. We can keep it professional, the way it should have been from the beginning. I can forget the thrill of his touch, the way he kisses, how right it felt to have him inside me.
