Chapter 4
WE MAKE QUITE THE PAIR
Daphne
Oliver is a serious killjoy on a road trip.
Not that I can blame him.
I’d be pissed at me too.
Probably crossed a line with the whole I can survive the wilderness and foil all of your plans thing.
Even if it’s true—during daylight hours, anyway—I didn’t need to rub it in his face.
And honestly?
I’m sad.
Devastated, actually.
He’s running away. He’s leaving the country.
People who are going to work on Monday morning to continue the good work they’ve been doing don’t run away.
“Have you ever been on a road trip?” I ask him as he steers the Camry down the dirt road away from the cabin and the Mercedes SUV. When we got in the car, he studied the dash and all of the buttons and knobs so thoroughly, I wasn’t sure we’d be leaving today.
I’m still in my cocktail dress.
He’s changed out of the suit he wore last night and is now in a buttoned-up red flannel, boat pants, and Carhartt boots.
Yes, boat pants. The white linen pants that stop above a guy’s ankles. Super popular with the yacht crowd.
And yes, a red flannel.
In August.
Dude is a mess, and I say that as someone who’s regularly been a mess herself.
I desperately want my phone.
But on top of the S. S. Lumberjack getup ruined by the boat pants, he’s also wearing the scowliest scowl that has ever scowled this side of the Scowlissippi River.
I don’t think the scowling is because it’s too hot for a flannel shirt either. It’s already eighty outside, but the air conditioning is working well.
Too well.
I’m definitely turning the temperature up in here very soon.
He sips the coffee I made him from the ancient Miles2Go to-go mug that I found in one of the cabinets and cleaned for him.
The side of the cup is decorated with the original version of Cupholder, the hermit crab mascot for M2G who got a makeover at some point between my childhood and Margot starting to date Oliver, and there’s a dent in one side that makes me question how long it will keep his coffee warm.
But how serendipitous that I could give him that mug.
Remind him of all the good parts of Miles2Go.
“No talking on my road trips,” he says.
“Talking is half the fun of road trips.”
He grunts.
“Are you going to have a no-food-in-the-car rule too?”
“Yes. Be quiet. I’m driving.”
I humor him and zip my trap for a while.
Contrary to what I’m sure he believes, I’m not intentionally trying to bait him, even if his cheek twitches every time I shift in my seat, making my dress squeak against the rough cloth.
And even if I’m shifting a lot.
I don’t sit still well. And that’s a personality feature, not a bug, now that I’ve found what I’m supposed to do in life and the people who accept me for who I am.
The people who are going to be rightfully pissed if I don’t figure out a way to give them a call and let them know I’m okay and slightly delayed in getting home.
I’m trying to sit as still as I can. I can’t talk him into going back home and continuing to run Miles2Go if I’ve over-annoyed him, and I haven’t yet figured out how to reverse psychology the situation.
I make it all of seven minutes. “Margot said you had electric car charging stations installed at hundreds of M2G locations around the country. So what’s with the full-gas car?”
He doesn’t answer.
It’s like sitting with every other businessman I’ve ever had to be around in my entire life.
Appreciate that Oliver made it possible for the nonprofit I work for to exist and gave jobs to a dozen amazing people who are doing so much good work for the world? Not to mention the other charities and nonprofits that he funded with Miles2Go revenue?
Yes.
Want to be around him?
No.
I’ve played out this conversation in my head a thousand times since I snuck out of the shack last night after I was sure he was asleep and broke into both the Mercedes and the Camry to look for clues about what he was up to, and it always ends the same.
I could say, So, Oliver, I work for Beeslieve now—yes, yes, it’s a pun on the word “believe” with “bees” in it—and we’re doing great work with the state department of transportation to get wildflowers planted for bees and to make better crossing routes for suburban wildlife with strategically placed natural-style fencing, and you’ve been funding us, so if you could return to work on Monday morning and keep doing what you’re doing so that we can keep doing what we’re doing, that would be great.
And he’d say Shove it up your ass, Daphne, you’re a disaster, you’ve always been a disaster, you will always be a disaster, you couldn’t even have a five-minute conversation with me without ruining my life, and even if I go back to work on Monday, I’d make sure that we shift money away from your company and onto someone else’s to make you pay for the heartburn you’ve given me.
Yep, I know what you’re thinking.
But Daphne, he told you to name your price for your silence. Tell him the price for your silence is lifetime funding for Beeslieve.
Here’s the thing about the uber-rich of the world: They don’t get uber-rich by not stepping on the little guy, and they don’t stay uber-rich by keeping their promises to the little guy.
That’s me now.
I’m the little guy.
If I tell Oliver what I want is for him to fund operations for Beeslieve for the next ten years so that we can continue doing the work of saving animal habitats instead of shifting to channel three-quarters of our efforts into fundraising to spend a quarter of the time making a difference, he’ll promise me he’ll do it, and the minute he drops me off and disappears to wherever he’s going, he’ll turn into a cartoon villain, rub his hands together, laugh while lightning flashes, and then withdraw support to show me who’s in charge.
Who has the power.
Who has the control.
Not because I’m continuing to annoy him now, but because I annoyed him in the first place by simply wanting five minutes of his time at the exact wrong moment in his life.
And make no mistake—yes, Oliver implemented all kinds of great initiatives and policies when he was in charge of Miles2Go. But every last change, every last donation, every last operation, gave Miles2Go great publicity in a time when the company was in crisis because of what his father did as CEO.
If there was real altruism in any of his actions, that goodwill was a side effect, not the underlying intention.
I grew up in his world. I know too many people in that world to believe anything differently.
I study his profile. “Must be nice having your old man out of the slammer.”
His entire face pinches.
Not merely his lips or his eyes, but his lips and his eyes and his nose and his chin and his forehead and his cheeks and his ears.
Huh.
Wonder if that’s about anyone referencing his old man being in the slammer, or if he’s not happy that his father’s out.
Oh, shit.
Are they forcing Oliver out? Are they firing him?
Is that why he’s here? Is he running away because he’s having his teenage rebellion fifteen years late after being given a toy that they’re now telling him he can’t have anymore?
My stomach drops.
Was he never going to continue being CEO once his dad was released?
I need more information. “Your mom seemed happy last night.”
Another grunt.
“Margot always gushed about how much she loved your parents and how lucky she was to be getting good in-laws.”
This time, the grunt upgrades to a grimace.
Also, I’m lying. Margot would always roll her eyes a little and say Oliver’s parents were a little annoying.
The whole reason his dad ended up in prison, after all, was because he used company funds to buy a ridiculous number of bottles of rare wines for his personal collection and bought into a fake business for locating more rare wines in an attempt to impress my father and his ridiculous cellar.
It turned out the vintage wines Oliver’s father bought—and the company he bought into—were phonies.
He used Miles2Go funds to buy the world’s largest collection of nothing.
When he already had a nice wine cellar.
Just not as nice as my father’s.
The desire to keep up with the Joneses—poorly, I might add—was Oliver’s father’s downfall.
Speaking of lying and cheating—“I told a friend I’d meet them for brunch today. If I don’t check in, they’ll worry.”
“What friend?”
Like hell I’m telling him anything about Bea or her family. I don’t think he’d hurt them, but he hates me enough that he’d hate them too, and Bea deserves zero hate, ever. She’s the best of the best. “My friend Denali from work.”
Distrustful hazel eyes slide my way. “Where do you work?”
“Local Cod Pieces. It’s a fish restaurant. A chain.”
“I know what Cod Pieces is.”
“So you know how awesome their hush puppies are.”
The way his eye twitches tells me he hasn’t ever set foot inside a Cod Pieces, or if he has, he wasn’t impressed.
Very on-brand for Oliver.
That is to say, boring.
With a side of poor taste.
Cod Pieces is the best.
Ever.
“Where do you actually work?” he asks.
“To the best of my knowledge, my own parents don’t know that information. Why do you think I’d give it to you?”
“Because I’m not letting you out of this car until I trust that you’re not going to tell everyone you saw me. And if you lie to me about where you work, you’ll lie to me about what you’re telling people.”
“My own parents don’t know where I work. I never talk to them. Ever. For any reason. I can keep a secret.”
“You’d tell Margot you saw me.”
Oliver holds the power to shut down Beeslieve.
Of course I’ll tell Margot and ask for her help.
It’s been a source of pride for me that I’ve refused anything other than letting her take me out to dinner and occasionally stock my fridge with good cheese since I was disinherited, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
And I don’t mean asking Margot to find Aurora Gardens money to fund Beeslieve.
She’d do it.
But I don’t want it.
Not when it’s money tied to my parents. All I want is for her to talk to Oliver about it.