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Islump back in my chair. Damien is pacing the office, obviously full of a hundred times more energy than I can even remember having. Luc is sitting across the desk, thinking.
“Okay, maybe it was sort of a stupid plan,” I admit.
“I didn’t want to say anything about it,” Damien agrees, nervously. “It felt like it was your decision, and if you wanted to make it really badly, then that was your right.”
“That’s pretty much where I was,” adds Luc. “I thought maybe it was a bad excuse you were making and what you were actually going to do was just go back to Raven.
I’m a little hurt by that. “You mean you didn’t ever think it was a little clever?”
“Well, no, not really,” Damien replies. “I mean, because it wasn’t. She’d just sue you over the divorce terms and then we’d have nothing except she’d also be twice as mad as before.”
“Or she’d just have a prenup that would nip the whole thing in the bud,” Luc notes. “Most families as rich as hers are very cautious about that kind of thing.”
“Well, sure,” I say. “Obviously I thought of that. I mean, it would be silly if I didn’t think of it.”
“And that’s not getting into the consequences of all her family being mad at us too,” Damien adds.
“Good point,” Luc agrees. “It’s one thing to have one heiress. It’s another if the whole family thinks you’re a gold-digger who tries to use weddings to get at their money.”
“Okay, but it would still have bought a little time, right? And time’s something.”
“And Emma too,” Damien continues. “She would have been furious if she hadn’t found out and that would have affected our reputation and your emotional state.”
“Plus there’d be press coverage of the whole thing,” Luc says. “So even the people Raven didn’t have any influence over would decide we were probably bad news.”
Damien nods. “Honestly, it’s a good thing she stopped. Actually going through with it would have been completely ruinous.”
“Alright, fine I get it!” I cry. “It was never a very good plan! At least it was something!”
“I still have a few more comments I could make about it,” Luc says.
“I think he gets it,” Damien tells him.
“I think I do,” I agree, grimacing slightly. “But I’ll have to come up with something.”
Damien shakes his head. “Okay, maybe you aren’t getting it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He stops pacing and spins around to face me. “It’s what Emma was trying to say. You’re always trying to come up with some big, flashy way to deal with things. Something clever. But sometimes, the only answer to a problem is the obvious one. There’s no easy way around it— you just have to actually sit down and do the boring, hard thing.”
“And I’m bad at that?” I say.
“Do you really want me to answer that question?” Damien asks.
“I’ll do it for you if you don’t,” Luc offers.
“Not necessary,” I snap. “I get the point.”
“I think you can beat Raven and get out of this,” Damien assures me. “It’s just not going to be a quick or clever fix. Do you think you can do that?”
I think about Emma, and her plan. Going to school every day, applying to scholarships and doing all of it again at law school. I think of how hard she works at the law firm every day, even though she’s just a paralegal.
“Can I have the office for a little bit?” I say.
“Sure, bro,” Damien answers.
With that, he and Luc walk out. I sit there, silently, thinking. Nothing fancy. Just doing the slow, obvious and boring thing.
