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“Sure,” she said. “We can go to my office.”
They walked to the back of the store and then to the stairs that were between the floral shop and retail store.
Her office was small, but she had an extra chair in there and then shut the door.
“I’m on vacation this week,” Raine said. “I’m a teacher. I took a risk coming in and hoping I’d see you. I just knew where you worked but not what you did.”
“I’m an assistant to the owners. I run the retail store too. I guess you could say I do a bit of everything.”
“That sounds like so much fun,” Raine said. “I bet you’re never bored.”
“No,” she said. “It’s great. Best decision of my life was to move here to be by my sister.”
“Your sister works here too?” Raine asked.
Guess Raine didn’t know all that much. “Both of my sisters do,” she said. “Jasmine oversees the greenhouses and the flower shop. Dahlia is the Director of Finance. She’s in an office down the hall.”
“And she doesn’t know about my brother?” Raine asked.
“Nothing more than he was the investigator on the scene of our break-in.”
“Now things are making more sense,” Raine said.
“How is that? I’m trying to keep up here but not sure what is going on.”
“My brother is a strong confident guy. I’m sure you know that along with his other negative traits.”
“I do,” she said. “His negatives seem to outweigh the positives.”
“They do,” Raine said, grinning. “But he’s struggling right now. That isn’t like him. We all witnessed what he did the other night with you. Then when he came back to the table, he was...let’s say wound up.”
“Do I want to know?”
“Probably not. He said a few things he shouldn’t have.”
“Like what?” she asked. Ivy had a feeling she wasn’t going to like what was said.
“I really shouldn’t say this and the only reason I am is to prove my point to you. My mother asked who you were. He said he’d slept with you twice.”
She ground her teeth at the same time her eyes filled. Her hand went to the necklace her father gave her a few days ago and she hoped it calmed her.
Nope, it wasn’t when the first tear ran down her cheek. “He shouldn’t have said that.”
“No,” Raine said. “He shouldn’t have. And I don’t say it to be mean or insult you. I told him he was wrong. More than once. I said it was insulting what he did and I gave him crap over it.”
“You did?” she said. “You don’t even know me.”
“I don’t,” Raine said. “But I know you’re troubling to my brother and that isn’t like him. I wanted to meet you myself and see what I could. You seem very sweet and have your act together.”
She laughed. “Not many think that.”
“Really?” Raine asked. “You do a good job fooling people then. You seem younger than me but have a job with a lot of responsibility. The fact you are putting up with my brother not once but twice and then seemed to give him a hard time on top of it says you’re plenty strong yourself.”
It felt so good to hear someone say this to her.
Someone that didn’t know her and wasn’t judging her on how she’d always been.
Maybe her family was bringing her down rather than pumping her up.
