Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Archer
I have met and surpassed my quota for mistakes this month, so hiring Willa cannot be anything but a success. This is what I tell myself after the first hour of her first day.
This must work. It will. I will adjust and it will be just?—
“Hey, boss?”
I cringe at the term, which Willa has been using exclusively from the moment she waltzed into my apartment this morning. I technically am her boss and the boss to—by last count—a few thousand employees. But no one calls me boss. It makes me feel like we’re two twentysomethings running a sandwich shop in a beach town on summer break.
Not that I have any idea what that would be like. But Willa calling me boss in that cheeky tone gives me some faint idea.
I walk across the apartment to my office and hover in the doorway. “Archer is fine,” I tell her, not for the first time.
Her smile tells me she knows it’s fine and is choosing to call me boss because she knows I’d prefer that she not .
Willa is sitting in my chair with her feet up on my desk. Technically, I suppose it’s Galentine’s chair and Galentine’s desk. But seeing Willa there stirs up a sense of possessiveness. But oddly, in a way that makes me like thinking of those things as mine and seeing her using my things. In the same way I liked seeing her in my jacket yesterday at the grocery store. I was sad when she brought it back but telling her to keep it might have seemed weird.
“For the exterminator, do you want services set up on a schedule?” she asks.
“As opposed to having him come whenever he wants to?”
She laughs, but I wasn’t joking. I don’t know how exterminators work. Do they usually set up an annual or semi-annual schedule? I have no idea how often buildings need to be sprayed to keep out pests.
Willa misses the seriousness of my question at first. Then, she seems to realize I’m legitimately asking and quickly straightens out her expression. “As opposed to us having to call him whenever the building is overrun with possums. Or roaches.”
She makes a face, one that seems to indicate that she finds roaches worse than opossums. I would disagree. Not that I want either in the building or anywhere near it.
“What do you think?” I ask.
“I vote schedule,” she says. “Most people schedule quarterly services.”
“Schedule it is.”
“I’ll set it up.” Willa scribbles a note on her pink clipboard. Seeing my hard stare, she waves a hand. “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure there are digital records. This just makes it easier for my brain. Using pen and paper helps me process. I’m tactile. I need to touch things.”
Her cheeks burn a sudden, bright pink. I hadn’t read anything into her words. But now I am.
Especially as the pink spreads over her cheeks and down her neck. I find my gaze tracking the rise of color, wondering how far the blush extends on her skin.
“Like, not all things. I don’t go around touching everything or everyone. I didn’t mean anything weird or …”
She trails off here, and I find myself mesmerized and suspect I’m also a little red-faced.
Willa at no point indicated that she wanted to touch me . Yet that’s where my mind went. Where my mind still is. Those slender, delicate fingers on my jaw or curving around the back of my neck and dragging up into my hair.
When was the last time I had thoughts like this?
I don’t know the answer, and it disturbs me that it’s this woman, Willa, I’m having them about. Though I meant what I said about her precision and attention to detail, outside of her impossibly perfect cookies, Willa is chaos personified.
Blond hair falling down around her shoulders in messy waves. Words falling freely from her mouth, seemingly without care. Sometimes, Willa herself is falling down, as she did during the opossum incident and again yesterday when she brought up my groceries and went sprawling on the way in.
This morning, she asked to go out on the balcony before getting to work, and I swear, if I hadn’t stepped outside and cleared my throat, she looked ready to hop up and climb along the railing like it was her own personal tightrope.
Almost half the time I’ve seen her, she’s been wearing pajamas. Often, there is some evidence of baking on her person, whether food coloring staining her fingertips or powdered sugar on her jaw. And she always smells of sweet almond and vanilla.
To which I’m quickly becoming addicted. Willa consistently disarms me, seemingly without intent.
I’m not sure what my face is communicating right now, but it must be something because Willa’s blue eyes go wide and she practically shouts, “I’ll keep my hands to myself!”
Then she lifts the silly pink clipboard so it’s blocking her face. And I’m glad because it hides my smile. It’s gone when she peeks at me again.
“Am I fired?” she whispers.
“Why would I fire you?” She opens her mouth but before she can speak, I add, “I mean, there are several options. For trespassing in my apartment that one time or for allowing an opossum into the building?”
Willa narrows her eyes, their focus falling to my mouth, where I am again smiling. This time, I don’t tuck it away. Her mouth quirks too, though she’s still glaring as her eyes meet mine.
“The possum incident was not my fault, and I got it back out of the building, thank you very much. And I wasn’t trespassing. Intentionally,” she adds quickly. “For what I hope will be the last time, I did not break into your apartment.”
I’ve thought about my first meeting with Willa more times than I’d care to admit, mostly because it still doesn’t add up. She isn’t a liar. Almost everything she’s feeling shows clearly on her face.
But if she wasn’t lying, what’s the explanation for how she came to be in my closet? The thought is a splinter, lodged and irksome. For now, I ignore it.
“The possum getting into the building was as much your fault as mine.” Willa removes her feet from the desk, planting them on the floor like she’s preparing for a fight.
“You knocked the bag out of my hands, which propped open the door when you tackled me.”
“But you incited the possum to choose violence.”
“ O possum. And I did nothing of the sort. Regardless of aforementioned circumstances, no. You’re not fired.”
Because, despite being a complete distraction in ways I didn’t expect, Willa has accomplished in an hour the things that I could not do in a few days. Honestly, it’s frustrating. How can she be so effective where I failed?
I have an MBA from Northwestern. And for as many terrible things as he’s done over the years, personally and professionally, my dad gave me a working education in what it takes to run powerful, multinational enterprises.
But I couldn’t get an exterminator to return a phone call.
I pull out my mints and pop one into my mouth. I have to ration them now, as I’ve run through so many this week. I’m waiting for a new shipment to arrive. Hopefully tomorrow.
“What flavor are those?” Willa asks. “I didn’t recognize the brand.”
“Barkley’s Ginger Mints.” I hesitate, then step closer and hold out the tin. “Would you like to try one?”
“Absolutely.” Willa drops her clipboard and snatches the mints from my hand, popping one in her mouth before handing the tin back.
Her eyes are wide and curious, but almost immediately, her expression turns sour, and she spits the mint into her hand. “Ew! Archer, these taste like spicy dirt! How can you eat these?”
While I do like the taste, she isn’t wrong in her description. “I suppose I happen to like spicy dirt.”
Leaning around the side of the desk, Willa drops her mint in the trash and shudders. “Oh, before I forget, can we talk about groceries? I’d like to help set up delivery for you. Can I see your phone?” She holds out her hand.
“I—yes.”
Why does it feel like such a big ask? Why does putting my unlocked phone into Willa’s hand feel like such a vulnerable act?
Maybe because the second I step back, her grin turns wicked. She immediately takes a selfie. “Adding this to my contact info. Now … which store would you like to use? There’s Spring Foods, which is where we were yesterday, Whole Foods, and Hannafords. I’m going to assume Walmart is out. What’s that face? Do you love Walmart? This will disrupt everything I know about the world if you’re a Walmart shopper.”
“Spring Foods is fine.” I pause. “Who was that man there … Trey?”
I don’t mean to ask the question, but I find that the moment it’s out of my mouth, I’m dying to know. An ex, obviously. From the pinched but resigned look on Willa’s face, one that indicates their obviously awkward history. But not heartbreak. Which adds the tiniest bit of lightness to my mood.
Willa sets down my phone with a sigh and leans back in the chair. “He was my college boyfriend.”
“And when was college for you?”
“I graduated four years ago.” She pauses. “We broke up right after.”
Four years ago . Which would make Willa around twenty-six? Twenty-seven? I’m surprised. I thought she was much younger. She’s so … youthful. Being around her makes me feel ancient, but I like knowing there’s only seven or eight years between us.
Not that it matters. It shouldn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.
I shift. “And he lives here in Serendipity Springs.”
“He just moved back. From Paris.” There’s a tension in her voice, matched by tightness in her shoulders. As I watch, she twists her fingers, then seems to realize she’s doing it and stops. “He proposed to me right after graduation.”
This surprises me. Not the idea of someone proposing to Willa—that idea makes me want to smash something. I’m surprised their relationship progressed all the way to a proposal, only to fall apart somehow.
How did he let this woman get away?
I wait, sensing Willa wants to say more. Or maybe it’s just that I’m hoping she wants to say more.
“Now, what about this office?” Willa asks.
“What about it?”
“It’s a mess.” She sets down the clipboard, measuring the closest stack of folders with her hands, as though they hold their own system of measurement. Maybe in Willa’s world, they do. “And from what I’ve picked up, I suspect you are a man who abhors mess.”
“ Abhor? ”
“It means to hate . As in, I abhor your ginger mints.”
“You and your vocabulary.”
She beams at me, her smile so genuine and disarming that it makes me take a small step backward. “You inspire me to use my big words. Am I wrong?”
“About vocabulary?”
“About abhorring mess and disorganization. I’m assuming this is how Galentine left things? She never let me in here, but this looks very much like her handiwork.”
“I already did a first round of cleaning,” I tell her. “This is what’s left.”
“Then, thank you. Would you like me to organize all this? Do you have a particular system? A way you like things?”
“I just want to be able to find what I’m looking for without having to dig my way through mountains of papers that may or may not be of any significance.”
“And I just want a pony for Christmas. But this—I think I can do.”
“You want a pony for Christmas?”
Willa laughs. “No. It’s an expression.” She tilts her head. “Maybe it’s just one my family uses?”
“I’ve never heard it. But then, my family wasn’t really the type to have phrases.”
I immediately regret bringing up my family. Especially when Willa sets her elbows on one of the stacks of folders and drops her chin in her hands. She looks far too inquisitive. And far too … something else. The word that comes to mind is tempting .
“What is your family like? Are they still in New York?” She must see the way my whole body tightens at the mention of my family because she grimaces. “I’m sorry. Rude. Not everyone wants to talk about their family. And I’m supposed to be working, not talking your ear off and asking intrusive personal questions.”
She may be apologizing, but she still looks eager for an answer.
It’s only fair, considering the way I was just prying into her personal life. I slide my clenched hands into my pockets, then lean against the doorway, feigning a casualness I certainly don’t feel when talking about my family.
“I guess you didn’t google me?”
There’s the head tilt again. “Should I have?”
“I’m glad you didn’t.”
I pause, measuring the best way to start the conversation. I don’t usually have this conversation. Have I ever had this conversation? Anyone I’ve ever dated already knew me and knew my father. Maybe that’s one reason none of my relationships ever worked.
That, and my inability to form a connection that wasn’t surface deep.
“Archer,” Willa says, her voice as soft as her blue eyes. “You don’t have to talk to me about this. I shouldn’t have pried.”
“It’s okay,” I tell her, and it is.
Though I don’t speak of my childhood or my upbringing often, I’ve had to give answers for the occasional interview I couldn’t avoid. I have pat answers prepared.
“I never knew my mother. She left right after I was born and died not long after. My father raised me. Or rather, my father hired a series of nannies to raise me. He was busy building his empire and finding new women to marry.” I manage to keep the bitterness from my voice. Barely. “So, no, my family was never close.”
Willa looks as though she’s tempted to say she’s sorry. I’m glad she doesn’t.
“You used past tense,” she says quietly. “Does that mean you’re closer now?”
“My father is going to jail.” The words come easier now that I’ve started. Or maybe it’s simply easy talking to Willa.
Her face goes slack. She tries to corral it into a more casual expression but then gives up and stares with wide eyes. “Jail? Did he murder someone?”
She whispers this last part, and I cough to hide my laugh. There’s nothing funny about murder. But if she knew my father, a mousy little coward of a man, she might understand why it’s funny. It’s like asking if a tiny dog scared away a pit bull.
“He’s been charged with a whole slew of white-collar crimes. Interesting that your mind went straight to murder.”
Willa bites her lip to hide the smallest of smiles. “Too many true crime documentaries, I guess. Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize on my behalf. He should go to jail. He’s guilty.”
I don’t mention that if it weren’t for the fact that we split off our businesses years before, I would have been implicated in my father’s crimes. Or that he actively tried to implicate me.
More like … he tried to make me take the fall.
I wasn’t shocked when I heard about his arrest, but I also didn’t know about his actions. If I had, I wouldn’t have stood by silently, even if it put me in the awkward position of having to turn in my own father.
Which isn’t so different from the position I’m in now that he’s appealing. His lawyers keep calling, and I keep blocking them. Whatever they want from me, I don’t want to give them.
“How do you … I mean, how is—” Willa stops and drags a hand through her hair. One piece falls over her eye, and she blows it back before speaking again. “That’s a lot to process. Are you okay?”
This is a question I’m rarely asked. And when I am, my answer is quick. I’m fine. I always am. Even when I’m not.
But here, in an office so cluttered I normally can’t think much less speak, with a woman I don’t know quite well enough to trust, I find myself wanting to give an honest response. Wanting to mull over her question rather than let it slide by.
Am I okay?
The short answer is yes. My assets are protected. My business is mostly fine, other than the stain brought by association with my father. Though I’ve done everything possible to cooperate with the investigation, the press wants more of a story. It creates a strain with investors, the board, and has even degraded trust with lower-level employees. There’s doubt in the looks I receive now.
Now, the best thing is for me to be away from the city. Hence my relocation to Serendipity Springs, taking on this venture as a distraction. A challenge. Which … I am admittedly not good at. The residents hate me, and though I shouldn’t care, I do. Reminding myself the changes are part of a long-term goal isn’t much of a comfort. I’m also not sure how I’ll actually make any changes when I couldn’t get an exterminator to return my phone calls.
Willa is on track to accomplish that, and more.
Maybe Galentine’s stories about the building weren’t so far off, and The Serendipity has deemed me unworthy, foiling my communication.
In any case, yes. I am still okay. Just okay.
“Yes,” I say finally. “My father and I divided our businesses years ago, so there was less direct impact on me. I’m okay.”
Willa purses her lips, and a crease appears between her brows. “You didn’t answer my question.”
I shrug. “I did answer. I’m okay.”
“No, Archer,” she says. “You answered as though I asked if your business is okay. Or your money. What I asked is, how are you ? You, the man whose father is in jail. Are you okay, as a person?”
Willa is right. I didn’t even realize that my answers were exactly as she just pointed out—related to business and logistics, not myself.
But this question—the one she asked, the one I completely missed—is not one I feel like I can answer.
In fact, even trying to think about it, my hands begin sweating in my pockets, and the back of my neck starts to itch. I rub a finger along the edge of my mint tin.
Are you okay?
The kind of simple question Bellamy doesn’t even ask. Or, maybe he does, but in other ways. Because he knows I wouldn’t answer directly, just as I find myself edging out the door.
“I’m fine personally as well,” I say, the bitter tang of a lie making it hard to swallow.
I think she reads the lie in my face because her gaze drops. “Okay,” she says. “Well, I’m glad.”
“I’ve got to make some calls,” I tell her, though what I really need is some space. From her. “Are you all set?”
Willa lifts her clipboard and salutes me with it. “I’m good here, boss. I’ll have you up and running in no time. Possums: gone. Plumbing: plumbed. Office: organized. Trust me.”
I do. But I’m not sure why that fact makes me feel both exhilarated and deeply unsettled.