AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I pat my stomach. “Obviously, I’m starving, but we still have a lot to discuss.” I shrug. “Why don’t I just order up some food, and we’ll make it a working dinner. Are you still on the vegetarian wave or have you gone full vegan?”
I’ve managed to wrong-foot her yet again. “I’m, uh, I’m pescatarian now,” she says as if she’s not quite certain what or where she is.
“Do you still like Indian food?” I ask, rising to my feet. “There’s a great place down the street.” I walk over to my desk and retrieve a menu.
Rachel’s expression is inscrutable. It’s some new mixture of sheer joy and excruciating torment. What must she be thinking? Joy over the fact that I appear to have forgiven her, but anguish and shame over all the horrible things she said to me? Is my plan working? Does she think that ultimately I’ll hand it all to her despite the way she treated me?
Fuck that.
I hand Rachel a menu and ask Gladys to collect our order and arrange the delivery. After Gladys leaves, I move onto the couch next to Rachel so we can review the financials and discuss in detail the revamping of the business model. She chafes a bit every time I mention Eliza’s name, but I also feel her relaxing into me as we close the distance between us on the couch. It’s 4:30 p.m. when Gladys enters the room with the cartons of food that she lays out on the coffee table for us. I note her surreptitious glances at Rachel. The only person I usually eat with in here is Parker, and Gladys knows it.
As nervous and anxious as I am, I really am starving, so I dive right in. For a woman as fit and trim as Rachel, she doesn’t hold back in consuming her cauliflower-based Gobi Manchurian on vegetable fried rice. At her urging, I try a bite, and it instantly becomes one of my new favorites.
Before I realize it, I find myself genuinely laughing, clapping a hand over my mouth to keep from spitting food. Rachel and I are effortlessly falling back into a more mature version of the people we were back in high school. Both of us seem to be genuinely thrilled to be in each other’s company, as if there were no other place in the world we’d rather be.
I notice that we’ve closed the physical distance between us. Her knee keeps brushing against mine, or maybe it’s mine that keeps bumping hers.
I glance at the clock and note that it’s well past 5 p.m. Does she have plans for the evening? A twinge of something bitter surfaces. I don’t want Rachel to leave. Idon’twant her to want to leave. Stay here with me, always.
Damn it. I need to get control of myself.
My phone chirps with a text. It’s from Eliza. She’s accepted the job offer and has e-signed the contract. Rachel glances over at my phone, and I swear the temperature in here just dropped ten degrees.
The next thing I know, she shoves her plate away and wipes her hands on a napkin. Her face is in turmoil as she grabs her laptop and shoves it into her bag.
“Rachel,” I say, desperate to get us back to the place we were before that damn text arrived. “W-we weren’t quite through discussing next quarter’s performance objectives.”
“It can wait till Tuesday.” She bites off the words as she slings her bag onto her shoulder.
I hurry after her, inserting myself between her and the door. “What’s wrong? I thought we were making real progress here.”
“It’s late,” she snaps, turning blazing eyes on me. “I don’t want to keep you from your precious date.”
“What date?” I say. “I don’t have any plans.”
Rachel’s shoulders slump, and she looks at me like I’m being unbelievably thick. “I saw the stupid text. Eliza’s waiting for you.” She tries to move past me, but I block her path. I can’t let her go, not like this.
“You’ve got it all wrong. She was just telling me that she accepted our offer. That’s it.”
“You don’t owe me any explanations, Rhence.” Her voice is angry, but her eyes well with tears. “You haven’t for a decade, so don’t start now.” She tries to move past me again. I block her way, but I’m careful not to actually put my hands on her.
“Please, Rachel, just hold on a second,” I say. “I don’t want you getting the wrong idea about anything.”
“I don’t care!” she yells. “I spent years searching for you, not knowing if you were dead or alive. Now you just show up out of thin air to steal my company so you can give it to your stupid bimbo girlfriend!”
“Mywhat?” How could Rachel possibly think Eliza’s my type? “Are you crazy?”
Her eyes narrow, and when she speaks, her voice is ice. “Get out of my way, Rhence.”
“Rachel, please…”
“Move!” she barks.
My body remembers how to read Rachel, even if my brain is struggling to form a coherent thought, and I act on instinct. I grab her by the shoulders and pull her roughly to me. “Do you really want me to move?”
She gasps and her bag slides off her shoulder onto the floor.
Her hazel eyes are wide and she’s breathing heavily, but she doesn’t try to break away. Instead, she melts into me.
