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My phone goes off yet again. I’d left it face down on the console table behind my couch, so when it vibrates, we both hear it. But I ignore it for my tea.
“Could be important.”
Sighing, I ask, “You’re not going to let that go until I look, are you?”
“You know me well.”
“But Mom doesn’t text, so it’s not her, and that’s the only situation I’m willing to interrupt girl time for.”
“Please. For me.” She bats her eyes at me.
“Oh, fine.” I grab my phone and look. “Yep. Beau. Told you.”
“Indulge me further and read it.”
“Why?”
“Because I feel bad for the guy, and if people are alive, then they deserve a second chance to make things right.”
“Okay. I’ll read it.” Just to get her to stop harping on it, I read the text out loud, “I don’t blame you for not responding or picking up when I call. But I want the chance to explain, and since you’re not picking up, then I’ll explain it here. It—"
“See?” she asks. “Sounds perfectly reasonable to me.”
I roll my eyes and read on. “It was Cormac who hired Pavel. Not me. He set it in motion to take something off your plate and to get me the designer he thought I wouldn’t fight with. He believed he was helping us both, and he did it while I was with you and getting your father sorted out. I didn’t know anything about it and I had nothing to do with the decision. If you hate me, then you hate me. But I wanted you to know everything. I am so sorry about how things happened.” I roll my eyes and set the phone aside to drink my tea.
Savannah gives me big puppy dog eyes.
“What?”
“What are you going to tell him?”
“Nothing.”
She gasps. “Elsie Braudel, you have to respond to that! He didn’t know!”
“It’s an excuse to get himself out of trouble with me. That’s all.”
“But he said—"
“He always wanted to work with Pavel, Savannah. From the start, I was the replacement. The substitute. I was never what he wanted.”
That last sentence stings way more than it should. But it’s true. As much as I thought things between us had escalated, I was obviously wrong about the depth of his feelings for me. This is why I don’t get involved with people. They’re not worth it. But my career won’t leave me behind.
She sighs. “You don’t think he changed his mind after working with you? You said he liked what you’d shown him last.”
“It doesn’t matter. Obviously. I am shifting my priorities back to where they should have been all along. My career is the only thing that matters, and Apple is thrilled with me, so I’m taking that win instead of focusing on my losses.”
“But he said—"
“Quote, ‘and he did it while I was with you and getting your father sorted out.’”
“So?”
I take a breath and wonder if what I’m about to say is true. “This text shows me exactly how he thinks of those couple of days. When he was with me and getting a medevac sent to us and getting his doctor friend to help us and all the rest of it, he didn’t so much as bat an eye about the expense or the effort.”
“Because he didn’t want you to feel bad about everything he was doing for you.”
I shake my head. “He did it like he does these things every day. It was momentous for me, but for him, it was Tuesday. It didn’t mean anything special. He was just a rich guy, throwing money at a problem until it went away. The same way he solves all his problems. I meant nothing to him. I was just another problem to be fixed.”
