Chapter 51
Mallory
Thursday Morning
Seven Days After the Outing
The Day AIM Actually Goes Public
Grayson steps into Mallory’s office, and reflexively her arms entwine around him. Her chest aches with guilt and her head
with relief and other parts with desire.
“A week of silent treatment and now this?” Grayson pulls back from her to close the door. “I realize we have much to discuss,
but first things first. These glass walls of your office have blinds, correct?”
The life in his limbs, the animation in his eyes, the puckering of his lips are all in such contrast to the Grayson she left
behind that when he touches her again, she recoils.
“All right, then,” he says with a resigned sigh. “No sex in the office rule stands.”
Her head’s thumping and she curses the fact that hangovers can apparently cross universes.
“Mallory?” Grayson says with concern, with none of the arrogance or harshness of his words on the day of the outing. He shakes his head. “Still? Not ready to have a mature conversation about this?”
Right leg bent at an unnatural angle, body still, eyes open, opaque and not moving.
“Mallory?” he says.
Crunch of glass, smell of wine, pooling of blood.
Her heart thrums as she tries to reconcile the images of the only two dead bodies she’s ever seen. They’re connected across
universes. Because of her. She has to do what she can to make things right.
She slowly circles to the chair behind her desk, taking comfort in the familiar view of the river outside her window. “We
need to talk about Ethan.”
Grayson remains standing. “Patrick sent a sympathy gift—premade dinners, I believe. He says there’s always too many floral
arrangements.”
He’s uncertain, evaluating, the way he would when she’d bring him the financial statements and an unorthodox idea he always
said yes to. She’d forgotten that. He never said no. Until the day of the outing. Maybe that’s why it infuriated her so much.
Hurt her so much.
She knits her fingers together in her lap. “Do you really need me to say it?”
“I’ll say it.” Grayson carefully removes his suit jacket and folds it in two. “He really was a prick, wasn’t he?” Grayson
lifts his palm, his muscles bulging beneath his button-down. “Not supposed to speak ill of the dead, I know, but the lying
bastard led us here.”
“Don’t you mean the two of you lying bastards?”
“I mistook you for more evolved than a woman scorned, Mallory.” He takes a seat in front of her, spreading to fill every inch
of the chair. “Is every woman simply Taylor Swift at heart?”
“Enough.” Anger jabs like a bee sting. “You’re resigning. I’d like to say ‘today,’ but I’m not a masochist. Not even to get back at you. Give it a month. Then you’re out of AIM.”
Her tone causes the flirtatious glint in his eye to fizzle out. “Or?”
“Or I tell the truth. You used Ethan Sonders to create and perpetrate a fraud on all of our investors, employees, and the
public for your own financial gain. It’ll tar my reputation, Ilena’s, Aubrey’s, maybe even end AIM. But I now know there are
worse things.”
“You don’t believe that. You’re bluffing.”
“I was the first time at the outing. But now . . .” She shrugs. “We’ll see.”
“Believe what you want, Mallory, but I had nothing to do with it, not until after it was done. Our valuation was going up
and up, and you and I were riding high in more ways than one. The duplicate accounts were a brilliant idea, which is how you
know I’d take ownership if it was actually mine. Little prick had the nerve to call me and solicit a thank-you. He followed
it with a demand for a payoff, laughing like we were in some boys’ club.”
“But I was there,” Mallory says. “I heard you both.”
“What you heard was me staving off a blackmail attempt, which apparently then became an unfortunate pattern. It’s astounding,
truly, that Mr. Sonders actually thought he could gain the upper hand. But no one fucks with me or this company. I haven’t
believed in a business more since my first—”
“That’s bullshit. Don’t rewrite history, Grayson. You never believed in AIM. You never even used it.”
“I don’t have to use diapers or chemotherapy to believe in them.
” He seems so genuine, like when they’d mapped out the plan for going public.
They were on his couch, the catered meal from the oyster bar around the corner untouched, including the two bottles of wine.
They’d gotten so immersed in what AIM could become.
His shoulders hunch, nearly imperceptibly.
“Be logical, Mallory. Let’s say I’d done what you were trying to force me to do at the outing, suddenly invested a substantial amount of money in AIM so you could use that as your reason for canceling the direct listing.
What then? The media wouldn’t have stopped digging until it found our every skeleton.
I had to preserve AIM, even if it made you hate me. You would have done the same thing.”
Her head swims, and all she can think is he’s right. That’s partly how he had been able to thaw the heart she’d spent a lifetime
hardening. He accepts her for who she is.
Her mother had said that love was being able to forgive when we get it wrong, and Mallory might have done just that. She’d
been falling in love with him, and maybe that would have meant she would have forgiven him for undermining her. For being
that selfish. She’d been that selfish with Ilena and Aubrey. He’s right that a version of her might have done the same thing.
But she wouldn’t. Not anymore.
“I probably would have,” Mallory admits. “Once. And that’s something I have to live with. But what I don’t have to live with
is you.” Mallory brushes past him and opens the door to her office. “Goodbye, Grayson.”
“You’ll miss me more than you realize.”
“Maybe. But it’s better not to have someone than to have a shitty version of them.”
She is a strong, independent woman who will squeal at mice because they’re terrifying and will ask for help changing a tire
because she pays a fortune for manicures, and she never needed a romantic relationship before and she doesn’t need one now.
But wanting is an entirely different thing. She wants love. Grayson has shown her that. He’s also shown her that she doesn’t
want it with him.
She stares into those eyes she still sees herself in, knowing she’ll work to change that. “And one last piece of advice. Carry a damn EpiPen.”
She doesn’t watch him go. She moves to her window and stands in the reflection of the sun off the glass, hoping for a brief
flash of déjà vu, so she can know if her alternate self is okay—and thank her. Harley too.
Footsteps softened by the expensive carpet resound, and her throat swells. She turns. Sees Ilena. And Aubrey. Mallory wants
to grab her and hug her and say she’s sorry, so very sorry.
“Mallory,” Ilena says pointedly, as if she knows Mallory is about to break. “It certainly is an emotional morning for all
of us.” She gestures to the clock on the wall. “The opening bell, it’s almost time. After everything, it’s almost time.”
Mallory and Ilena hold each other’s gaze as if they were holding hands.
“No!” Aubrey cries. “Not today.”
Mallory scans Ilena’s face, but the creases on her forehead make it clear that she’s not following either.
“This.” Aubrey jabs a finger at each of them. “You have entire conversations in a single look, and I get it, I know you’ve
been friends for a really long time, but you invited me to that table, and I sat there, shaking and doubting myself every
second I was with the two of you then and every second since, and Mallory fighting with Grayson and Jonah moving out and my
nerves over all of it may have sent us into our own worlds for the past week, but we’re not doing this today, on the day AIM
goes public, because this is ours. All of ours. And I want in. All the way.”
Ilena’s face crumples. “Oh, Aubrey, did we do that, did we make you feel that way?”
“No,” Aubrey says, “and yes. And ever since Ethan, things have been, well, we’ve all been distant? Strained? I can’t do it anymore.” Her lower lip trembles as she faces Mallory. “I know you never liked him.”
“Well, I—”
“And maybe you had a reason. Maybe I had a reason. I didn’t always like him either. But I did love him. I still do.”
Ilena places an arm around Aubrey’s shoulder. “And you should. You’re also right. We haven’t been there for you, not the way
you deserved. That ends now.”
Even though it was Mallory’s idea not to, in this moment, she wants to tell Aubrey everything. About AIM’s “error” and the
alternate reality and, especially, their role in Ethan’s death. Doing so feels both right and wrong. Sorting that out means
looking into the eyes of the woman who has been her barometer for more than half her life. But Ilena’s expression lives firmly
in the in-between. And so Mallory does the one thing she knows without question is right.
She takes Aubrey’s hand. “Ethan’s death is not your fault. If you’ve ever trusted me on anything, trust me on that.”
There’s so much more to say, so many secrets still tying them together and pulling them apart, but as the clock hits nine
thirty and cheers echo throughout AIM, they stand, ready to face everything together. Because secrets can destroy friendships.
Especially when they’re told.