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“Allegra…” I groaned.
“Spill it, Chap.”
Not speaking right away, I considered how much I wanted to tell her. Allegra had already made it clear that she didn’t want medisrupting the flow. Every time I thought about that I scoffed. If she truly cared about the flow, she should have fired Tiffany’s ass on my behalf a year ago.
“I did come back to work for a reason,” I admitted.
“Which was?”
“I’m really not comfortable talking about this with you, Lay.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re going to judge me and tell me not to do it.”
“Well, if it’s something bad, you should want your best friend to be honest with you, right?”
That was true… but still. In this moment, I didn’t need someone telling me I was wrong and to not go through with my plan. I needed a best friend to ask me how she could help me put in work!
“I already talked to Jerry about it, so…”
“Oh no.” She laughed with a shake of her head. “He doesn’t count. The two of you could be on a mission to burn the entire town down. Now Ireallyneed to know.”
All I could do was laugh because she was right. Regardless of what the situation was, Jeremiah and I always had each other’s back… even if we complained about it the whole time. He was such a bad influence at times, and I was the same for him, but we protected each other fiercely.
He was the only person in my life that gave me true, unconditional love and acceptance. Even when he wanted to ring my neck and do away with me, he was still there for me. Allegra would always talk about how unhealthy that was, but I didn’t care. I believed everyone needed someone willing to go along with their crazy if it helped them feel sane. For me, Jeremiah was that person.
“Fine,” I agreed, realizing I didn’t have that much of a choice. If Allegra didn’t get answers from me, she’d go to Jeremiah and try to get them from him. “You have to promise not to say anything.”
“Promise,” she agreed, wrapping her pinky finger around mine. We kissed our thumbs, then pulled away.
“Okay. My plan is to make Nova and Tiffany pay for what they did to me.”
Rubbing her chin, Allegra’s tone was uncertain as she asked, “How?”
“Well, I’m going to make Nova think he has a chance with me so he will break up with her, then I’m going to embarrass him publicly just like he did me. Then, I’m going to fire them both.”
With a slight shudder of her head, Allegra scratched her cheek. Her eyebrows squished together as she frowned. “Jeremiah knows about this, and he hasn’t tried to stop you yet?” My head shook. She released a low chuckle, but it turned into a shaky, vocal breath. “Why am I not surprised? No, Chapel, youcannotdo that.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because it will not only ruin the business, but it will ruin our crew too. It’s bad enough that things have been weird between us all since you lef—”
“You’re not going to blame my absence for whatever has been going on with the three of you. Nova is responsible for that.” I rubbed my thigh, trying to remain calm. “He’s the one who cheated and chose to tell me the day before our wedding in front of our wedding party, which included family and friends who were recording the moment. If you hold anyone responsible for this, it should be him, not me.”
“I hear you, and you’re right, it is his fault, but a year has passed, Chapel. The time to make Nova pay was a year ago. It’s taken a lot of work to try to find a new sense of normalcy and I just don’t want you to do anything to jeopardize that. You might not be thinking about the hard work you put into your business and how much we all helped you, including Nova, but I am. What happened between the two of you was personal, leave WCSF out of it.”
For a second, I avoided her eyes. My nerves released in my laughter. Cocking my head, I took in a small intake of breath.
“Was it just personal when he had an affair with my associate?” With a huff, she sat back in her seat and crossed her arms over her chest. “Was it just personal when you all gave her my position at WCSF knowing my relationship had just ended because he slept with her!”
“Okay, you know what…”
“No, Allegra, that’s it.” My pulse quickened and body twitched as it heated. “I appreciate you trying to be a leveled, calm voice for me, but you’re wrong. You’ve always had my back and at least tried to understand where I’m coming from. With this, I feel like you’re trying to make me the bad guy and I’m not exactly sure why.”
I stood, preparing to leave. This was the mistake I was hoping it didn’t turn out to be. As long as we didn’t talk about Nova and Tiffany, we were okay, but as soon as they were brought up, things always went left between us.
“I’m not trying to make you the bad guy; I’m just trying to get you to see the big picture. You didn’t just punish Nova by leaving; you punished all of us. If you do what you have planned, you’re going to do the same thing all over again.”
