18. Aaron
18
AARON
“ Y our wife is here to see you.”
“I don’t have a—wait.” I looked up from the policy documents I was reviewing, safe in the work week and away from Daisy and her pity and her pampered life.
I shouldn’t have let her or her enmeshed family come poke around my garden.
It had been physically painful to watch the Colemans. I liked to tell myself that I hadn’t been missing anything, that all those rich families were dysfunctional and barely tolerated one another.
But not the Colemans.
Saturday had been as close to perfection as I thought I’d ever had, and I couldn’t handle it. Couldn’t handle her family being loving with one another. Couldn’t handle the way her mom and dad gazed at their kids when they weren’t looking, like they were the most precious, wonderful things in the world.
In fact, I decided viciously, I’d just have the whole garden ripped out—the trees, the wall, the raspberries, everything.
Just to be an asshole.
But I didn’t really want to.
When I’d first taken over the deed to the house and promised that I’d spend the money to restore it, I had thought I might be able to do something with the garden. My mother had liked to sit outside after we’d been rescued, just admiring the lush green of Michelle’s garden.
I’d delusionally believed that if I could restore this one, maybe she’d come visit, but after scores of brushed-off invitations, it became clear that the only interaction Emily wanted with me was to complain or ask for money.
The garden had fallen by the wayside with the massive undertaking to restore the crumbling house. After the decades of neglect and the abuse from all the construction, it seemed more fiscally responsible to bulldoze the garden and start over. Until Daisy thought it was worth saving.
Now, she stomped into my office.
“You’re not answering your phone.”
“Of course I’m not answering my phone. I’m working. I can’t just sit around gossiping all day like you and Reese do at the coffee cart.”
“Correction. I also flirt and eat leftover cookies,” Daisy said mildly, perching on my desk.
No matter how much I snapped at her, she still just looked at me like that, like I was a victim, like she felt sorry for me.
I needed her to match my anger.
“We are going to the English department mixer.”
“Go by yourself.” I shoved her off my desk.
“It’s on your calendar, sugar!” Betty yelled from her desk outside my office.
Dammit. The event was on my calendar.
“Just helping to fulfill the terms of your contract,” Betty added.
“For someone who claims she’s deaf, she really can hear everything,” I muttered.
“What was that? You’re giving everyone a raise?” my assistant called.
Daisy’s mouth twitched with a smile.
I sighed heavily, set down my pen, and started to stand.
“We’re not leaving now,” Daisy clucked. “This is your forty-five-minute warning.”
I looked up at her.
She was standing with her hip jutting out, wearing those cutoff high-waisted jean shorts, clicking that stupid pen in her hand, her off-the-shoulder T-shirt she’d cut into a crop top stained with coffee.
“That doesn’t give you a lot of time to change,” I said pointedly.
“What I’m wearing is fine.”
“I don’t want to be seen at Columbia University with you like that,” I barked. “They are a big client of Van de Bergs.”
“Well, I’m not going to be late. I don’t have time to go home.”
“Betty!” I called.
My assistant came in with a shopping bag.
“That should be your size.”
“What the frickety frick is this?” Daisy pulled the outfit out of the bag.
“Betty picked it out.”
“No, I didn’t. I bought you a real cute outfit, real trendy. And he made me change it to this.” Betty inspected Daisy critically. “Don’t worry. You’ve got the rack to pull anything off. Doesn’t she, Aaron?”