Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
GRAY
I see the light blink on my phone but ignore it because I have clients sitting at my desk.
“I think this all makes sense,” the woman says. “But I’ll run it past my client and be in touch.”
“Sounds good,” I reply as I stand and walk her and her partner to the door. “I look forward to hearing what your client has to say. Have a good day.”
When I get back to my desk, my mobile is ringing.
“Gray,” I say.
“It’s me,” Stella says in my ear. “It didn’t go well today. I’m headed to your place if that’s okay.”
“Of course, it is,” I say softly. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
“I’m okay.” I hear her swallow. “It’s going to be okay. I’ll find another job.”
“Wait. They fired you?”
“Oh, yeah. Big time. I’ll tell you all about it later when you get home.”
“I’m on my way.”
“You don’t have to leave early for this, Gray.”
“Yes. I do. I’m on my way.”
I hang up and grab my things, then lock up my office and walk out to talk to Mrs. Hadfield.
“You’re leaving already? But it’s only noon.”
“I had an emergency come up,” I reply brusquely. “Please reschedule my afternoon. I can work from home if anything urgent comes in via email.”
“I’ll take care of it,” she says, immediately picking up the phone. “I hope your mother’s okay?”
I stop and smile at the older woman. “She’s fine. Thank you.”
I can walk to and from work because my condo is only a few blocks from my office, but today, I regret that I didn’t drive. I hate that it takes me twenty minutes to get home.
When I finally walk into the condo, I can tell that Stella’s already here.
Her shoes are by the door, and a box of her office things is on the floor by the couch.
I hurry through to the bedroom but don’t find her.
Instead, I can hear the shower running in the bathroom. So, I return to the kitchen, fill the kettle with water, and put it on the stove to boil.
Ten minutes later, when I walk into the bedroom with a steaming cup of tea, Stella is just climbing onto the bed, dressed in my old gray sweatpants and a college sweatshirt.
Comfort clothes.
She has her face scrubbed free of makeup and her hair up in a messy bun on the top of her head.
“Hi,” she says softly as she sits cross-legged on the bed.
“Hey.” I offer her the tea. She takes it, but she doesn’t sip it. She just stares down into it. “Wanna tell me what happened?”
“Oh, there’s a video of it,” she says and sips the tea. “It was live-streamed. It got so nasty, they stopped filming toward the end because it was just humiliating for all parties involved.”
I kick out of my shoes and sit across from her on the bed. “I take it she still didn’t like it.”
“Not only that, but she tore the new wallpaper right off the wall, smashed a Tiffany vase on the floor, and managed to blatantly accuse me of having sex in her bedroom.”
“What? Why in the hell would she think that?”
“She said it smelled like sex. Her words.” She sips again. “So then my boss called and demanded that I come to her office. As soon as I got there, she fired me.”
“Why?”
“Because I fucked up a billionaire client’s project.”
“That was a gorgeous design, Stella.”
“Yeah, well, as Camille put it, it doesn’t matter. The customer matters. And Florence is influential enough to get me fired—after she verbally abused me for the whole world to see. Wanna hear the part that pisses me off the most?”
“What’s that?”
“I drained my personal savings for this project.” Her eyes fill with tears, and I feel my blood boil but stay quiet and let her continue. “For the redesign. I did it all on my own fucking dime. More than a hundred thousand dollars. Gone.”
“For fuck’s sake, Stella.”
“So, there go any plans to buy a house or travel the world or have a nest egg anytime soon. I don’t live off my family, Gray. I mean, sure, I live in a house with very few expenses because my family is generous, but I earned everything I have.”
“I believe that,” I assure her and reach for her hand. “Stella, I think you need to sue all of them.”
She frowns. “No.”
“Hear me out. You need to sue Florence for the money you invested in her house and for defamation of character, given that it was all caught on film. And you need to sue Camille for wrongful termination.”
She shakes her head stubbornly. “I don’t want to think about any of that, Gray. I just want to sleep. I haven’t slept in two days, and my body is just done. I need to shut it down.”
“Okay, you’re right. There’s no need to go through this now. Finish your tea.”
“It’s actually really good,” she says and swallows the last of it. “What’s in it?”
“Magic.” I grin as she lies back and narrows her eyes at me. “It has lavender and ginger and lemon, and I added honey. My mom taught me. It always helps me when life seems to go sideways.”
“That’s a good way to put it,” she says with a sigh. “Sideways. Everything about this is sideways.”
Her eyes drift closed, and her lips part in sleep.
I lean over and kiss her forehead. “Just sleep, babe.”
“We’re starting our own firm,” Danny says with a decisive nod. “Immediately.”
“Right,” Stella says and picks at the lasagna on her plate. “Because we have the money for that.”
“We do,” Danny insists. “Or we can come up with it. We both have a plethora of clients who will follow us, and we’re fabulous. It can’t fail.”
Brandon and I share an amused look. I invited the couple over to have dinner with us to talk about the upcoming wedding and cheer Stella up.
After the ordeal, she slept for about twenty-four hours straight. I started to get worried, but then she woke up, got dressed, and started cleaning my condo from top to bottom.
“I already gave notice,” Danny says. “And I only did that much to be professional because trust me when I say that when I got back to the office and heard what went down, I had to hold myself back from walking into Camille’s office and telling her to go fuck herself.”
“Yeah, that probably would have been a bad idea,” Stella agrees.
“They fired Liz before the end of the day,” Danny adds.
“I know.” Stella frowns, clearly feeling guilty. “She called me.”
“We’ll hire her back on at our firm,” Danny says with confidence. “Honey, we can be up and running in just a couple of weeks.”
“I love your enthusiasm,” Brandon says, cutting in. “But we’re a little busy right now. We’re getting married in ten days.”
“All of the details for the wedding are handled,” Danny says. “And, I admit, we might have to postpone the honeymoon for a month or so while we get our feet under us, but that’s a small sacrifice for the bigger good. Right, B?”
Brandon shifts in his seat, and I can tell that it’s really not perfectly okay with him, but he simply shrugs.
“Sure. I guess.”
“See? It’s decided,” Danny says. “We’ll get a fabulous little office in Bellevue.”
“ Bellevue ,” Stella says, her voice rising with surprise. “That’s damn expensive, Danny.”
“But we want the best clients, and Bellevue is where it’s at. Trust me.”
“I guess we can shop around,” Stella says, not completely agreeing with him. “And you’re right. We can do this.”
“Duh.” Danny grins. “We’ve totally got this, babe. Okay, now let’s talk about our fabulous wedding. Stella, you’d better eat everything on that plate. You’ve lost weight in two days, and if you lose any more, you won’t fit into the fabulous dress that I picked out for you.”
“It’ll fit,” she promises. “Don’t worry about that. Has everyone RSVP’d by now?”
“Of course, not,” Brandon replies. “But they’ll show up anyway.”
“It’s going to be the best day,” Danny promises.
“I don’t know why you needed me to come to your office,” Stella says as she steps inside and closes the door behind her. “Although, it’s probably a good thing to get me out in the fresh air. I realized this morning that I haven’t been out of your condo since I arrived there Monday afternoon.”
“And given that it’s Friday morning, that’s quite a long time to hermit inside,” I agree. “Did you walk over?”
“Yeah, it didn’t take long, and the rain felt good. I can feel winter in the air, though. You know, when there’s just that little twinge of cold hanging around?”
“I know what you mean,” I confirm. I’m excited to show her what I’ve done. “Have a seat.”
“Okay.” She sits across from me. “What’s up?”
I take two sets of papers out of my desk and lay them in front of her, side by side.
“What’s this?” she asks with a frown.
“That’s the paperwork to get the lawsuits started. All you have to do is sign.”
“What lawsuits?”
I narrow my eyes. “The ones against Florence Paddington and Emerald City Interiors, of course.”
Stella bites her lip and then sighs. “Gray, I told you I didn’t want to do this.”
“I know, but that was right after everything happened. And you were exhausted. I took it off your plate, Stella, so there’s nothing for you to do except sign the papers.”
“And appear in court against Florence Paddington.”
“We don’t know that it’ll end up in court. It could be that she’ll choose to settle before that.”
Stella slowly shakes her head.
“I can’t risk going to court, Gray. My family is too high profile. I can’t make a scene and have it come back on the people I love. Hell, Uncle Will was the original recommendation. If the press linked that, it could blow up on him.”
“Stella, you’re entitled to compensation for this. What they did was wrong. ”
“I’m moving forward,” she says. “I don’t need the money. I’ll figure it out. I plan to email Camille and ask about severance.”
“I already spoke to Camille,” I reply, feeling frustration bubble through me. “She’s not going to do that.”
Stella’s eyes narrow on me. “ You spoke with Camille.”
I nod once. “I did.”
“Behind my back.”
“Jesus, Stella, you’ve been holed up in my house, cleaning in a frenzied storm for days.”
“I’m fine. I’m moving on. Working with Danny to start a new business.”
“And in addition to that, you’ll sue these bastards and recoup the money and then some.”
Anger flashes through those gorgeous eyes. “What is this, Gray? Are you trying to capitalize on what happened to me?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“You’re the attorney. You get a cut if I’m awarded a bunch of money.”
I clench my jaw. “I can’t believe you’d even think that I want to get a payday out of your hurt.”
“I can’t think of any other reason you’d do this. Because I certainly didn’t ask you to.”
“Are you kidding me? I’m helping you.”
“No.” She shakes her head and pushes the papers away from her. “You’re not, Gray. And if you think that this is something I’d want, you don’t know me at all.”
“You’re being ridiculous. Be reasonable, Stella.”
“Reasonable?” She blinks at me and then stands. “You know what? I think I’ll go be unreasonable alone. I’m done.”
“Wait. Don’t walk out on me.”
“I’ll walk wherever the fuck I want to,” she says and turns to me in a fury. “I’m an independent person, Grayson. I don’t need a man to swoop in and save me. You’re not my father or my brother. You don’t get to control everything that happens, least of all to me. This is my life, and my decision to make. And I take offense to you thinking that you can do anything on my behalf without talking it over with me first. Especially given that I would have said ‘absolutely not’ had you brought it up again.”
“Stella. This is insane.”
“Then I’m insane. And that’s fine, Gray. You know, things between us happened really fast. And I guess I can see why you’d think you could step in on my behalf. But you’re wrong. You aren’t welcome to do that.”
“Then I apologize.”
“And you think I’m wrong.”
“I do, yes.”
She nods and turns to walk to the door. “And that’s where we’re at an impasse. As I said, things happened fast. I thought we knew each other well, but I think I was wrong.”
“Are you walking out of this office? Or out of my life?”
She reaches for the doorknob and turns to look at me, anger warring with sadness in her eyes.
“Both.”
The rest of the day moves in a blur. I have appointments and take calls, but I couldn’t tell you what any of those things entailed.
When I get home, I walk back to the closet and find that all of Stella’s things are gone.
She left.
I don’t get it. I don’t understand what I did that was so wrong.
With a sigh, I sit on the edge of the bed and dial her number, but after just two rings, it goes to voicemail.
“Hey, it’s me. Let’s talk this out. Call me, please.”
Instead of putting the phone down, I redial her number. This time, it goes directly to voicemail.
“Okay, she doesn’t want to talk to me.”
“Gray?” Willie’s voice carries through the apartment. “You here?”
“Yeah, I’ll be right out.”
I change out of my suit and into jeans and a T-shirt, then walk out and find Willie eating a banana, his books already spread out on my table.
“It’s tutor night,” he reminds me with a smile. “Right?”
“Right.” I walk into the kitchen. “Want a Coke?”
“Heck, yeah, bro.”
I grin at his response. Everyone is bro as far as Willie’s concerned.
Stella told him she’d toss his phone in the toilet if he called her bro one more time.
Thinking of Stella makes me frown as I walk over to the kid and set two colas on the table.
“What’s wrong?” Willie asks.
“What? Oh, nothing. Sorry, I was just thinking.”
“Something’s going on with your girl,” Willie says as if he knows everything there is to know about relationships.
“How do you know?”
“Because you look sad, man. What did you do?”
“Why do you think I did something?”
“Because guys are dumb, and they’re usually the ones who fuck it up.”
“I’m pretty sure your grandmother wouldn’t be pleased to hear you talk like that.”
“She’d threaten to wash my mouth out with soap.”
“Has she ever made good on the threat?”
“Nah. She’s a softie. So, what did you do?”
“I’m not going to talk about it. Let’s do math.”
“Yuck,” Willie mutters but opens his book. “It must be really bad if you’d rather do math.”
“What chapter are you on?”
“Okay, okay. I get it. No more girl talk.” He looks down at his book. “Is she coming back?”
“I don’t know.”
“Damn. Okay, I’m on chapter twelve.”