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CeCe is already threading her arm through mine and turning me toward the garden. “That’s all right. She’ll show you. It seems she likes you, Mr. Whatever Ivy Called You. We’ll return soon.”
I glance back to see Heath pull the dog against his chest. He puts his hand up to her little mouth, and I realize why she hadn’t tried to bite his face off. The pup could smell the meatball in his hand.
And that is the moment I decide this partnership of ours just might work.
Chapter Eight
A tuxedoed man opens the door that leads us to the garden. Some New York City brownstones have green spaces, quaint little courts where the owners can place a bistro table and a couple of plants and pretend they’re in a private park.
CeCe’s is a private park.
I take in the elegant patio and the garden just past the soft lights. It’s one of those that looks like a wild jumble of plants, but it’s actually carefully curated and landscaped by the young man she lovingly calls Gardener. Harper would love this space, but then she’d always wanted to come along with me. I didn’t think CeCe would appreciate Harper taking pictures and measurements and asking questions about the craftsmanship that CeCe would likely have zero idea how to answer.
CeCe stops at the edge of the elegant stone patio and stares out at the garden. I wait because she’s figuring out how to handle me, and the fact that she doesn’t have a prepared speech means I’m a mystery to her. It’s a good thing. CeCe likes a mystery. After a moment she turns, her arms crossing her chest. “You didn’t call me.”
Here is the dressing down I’ve been expecting, but at least it didn’t start with the actual business. “I was ashamed to, and you know why.”
“Well of course I know why, darling,” she replies. “You let yourself think with your pussy and it got you in trouble, but I’ve also taught you that shame has no place in your life. Shame is nothing but a social construct meant to drag you down. Especially in this. You hurt no one but yourself.”
That’s where she’s wrong. “My former employees would disagree.”
I still think about them every night. I had promised a lot to get them to go on a journey with me, and I’d crashed and burned.
“Your employees were given all the tools they needed to find other jobs,” she points out in a firm tone. “I know you took as good care of them as you could. Your board has gone on to find new positions. You’re the only one wearing a hair shirt and hiding in Hell’s Kitchen.”
I don’t know what a hair shirt is, but it sounds terrible, so I get what she means. “It was my company.”
She points an elegantly manicured finger my way. “And you should have used every resource you had.”
I sigh because I knew what had gone down. She hadn’t been there. “You couldn’t have saved it. I was too heavily leveraged. You would have looked at the books and what we were bringing in and decided to let it go the same way I did. There is no use throwing money into a sinking ship.”
She’s the one who’d taught me that lesson long ago.
“I would have liked to have had the chance to make that decision myself.” She goes silent, the moment lengthening and weighing between us. “I understand that I have a certain reputation, but not all of my decisions are made with my pocketbook. I reserve the right to throw my money away on people I care about. The good news for my bank account is I don’t care about many people. You and Benjamin have been my real family the last decade, and you’ve been gone for half of that. When you come home, you don’t even bother to call me. I have to throw this lavish party simply to get you to talk to me.”
She might not appreciate shame, but the woman is good with guilt. “I’m sorry. I feel like I was the biggest disappointment. You trusted me and I failed.”
She sighs, a long-suffering sound. “Everyone fails, Ivy. It’s how you fail that counts. Men in our business tend to fail up. They don’t allow shame to drag them down, even when they wreck and ruin lives. They pull the ripcord on that golden parachute and find the next position of power they’ll be handed.”
“It’s different for us.” Women aren’t allowed the same amount of chances men are. It’s just a fact of life.
“Then we need to change that, and you won’t change a damn thing hiding in your mother’s apartment. Have you ever wondered if we don’t get those chances because we don’t demand them? Because we play by rules the men never have to.” Her hand moves, gesturing to my dress. “This is an excellent first step. You’ve always dressed like a stuffy old man. You have tits. Use them. I assure you if it was acceptable for men to wear codpieces in this century, every one of the men in that room would be stuffing theirs, showing off like peacocks. No more business suits. Dress to flatter yourself. Now who is Heath Marino?”
