Chapter 59
THIS IS GOING TO GET AWKWARD
Oliver
It’s killing me that I can’t do this for Daphne.
I’ve known her most of my life on a surface level.
This week, I feel like I’ve finally seen her for who she is.
She’s a fighter. No, a warrior. A warrior intent on saving the world and supporting the people she loves with that enormous heart of hers.
Impulsive, but not reckless.
At least, I hadn’t considered her reckless until right now.
And that’s on me.
I wanted her, and she dove right in without hesitation.
Until this exact moment.
“Don’t say anything,” she says before she hits Margot’s number.
I nod against her shoulder.
Three rings in, I hear a familiar voice. A familiar, worried voice. “Daph? Where are you?”
“Hey,” Daph says, her voice light and carefree in a way that belies the tension of her body against me. “I’ve been out camping. Got into an area with signal and saw I missed your calls. What’s up? Everything okay?”
There’s a small pause, and then—“You’re camping?”
“Yep. In a tent as we speak.” The wind buffets the tent with soft raindrops, backing up her story.
“With your work friends?”
Daphne’s body tenses even more. “You know I don’t go alone. Hey, did you hear Bea and Simon are official? I’m gonna have to start knocking before I walk into my own apartment.”
“Daphne.”
I want to grab the phone, tell Margot she’s with me, and that if anyone has a problem with it, to blame me.
But I also know Daph wants to handle this herself.
For now.
“Yeah?” Daph says.
“Are you okay?”
Daphne’s chest wavers like she’s having a hard time keeping her breathing steady. “Yeah, why? What’s going on? Did something happen?”
Margot’s sigh stretches across the country. “Mom thought she saw you at William Cumberland’s welcome-home party last week.”
Shit.
Now I’m tensing even more too.
“Ew, fancy people parties,” Daphne says.
This woman.
Even when my jaw’s getting tight and I’m feeling that pull back into my old life—hearing Margot’s voice and my father’s name aren’t good for me—Daph can still make me smile.
“And my assistant called to tell me there’s a woman matching your description who’s been spotted all over the Midwest with a guy who looks like Oliver,” Margot says.
“Wow, that’s weird.”
“Daph?”
“I’m camping. Want a picture of my tent?”
“Are you okay?”
Daphne’s chest wobbles again, and she holds the phone away from her ear for a second while she sucks in a loud breath.
“If you’re not okay, if you need me, you know I’ll be there as fast as humanly possible,” Margot continues. “Just say the word. You know the word.”
“I know the word,” Daph says quietly. “And I’m okay. I’m camping.”
There’s a long stretch of silence on Margot’s end.
“Margot?” Daphne whispers.
“Yes?”
“You’re the best sister I could’ve ever asked for.”
“Daph—”
“No, I need to tell you. You are. You stuck up for me when we were little, when our parents were total dicks because I wasn’t what they wanted, and you supported me in my dreams when they didn’t, and you could write me off like they did, but you haven’t.
You never make me feel like I’m a fuckup, even when I am, and I love you and I always want to be your sister. I just—I needed you to know.”
“Where are you?” Margot says.
“I’m where I want to be,” Daphne whispers.
“Are you?”
“If you’d told me four years ago that I’d like camping this much, I would’ve laughed my ass off, but I am. I’m where I want to be. Even if—even if maybe you don’t like me camping.”
“Daph, you know there’s literally nothing—nothing—you could do to make me not love you back?”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing.”
“I’m having a really good time camping,” she whispers.
“Camping,” Margot repeats.
“Camping,” Daphne agrees.
They are definitely not talking about camping.
“Okay then,” Margot replies. “Call me if camping goes sideways and you need anything. I’ll…take care of…those bad weather reports.”
“Bad weather—oh. Oh. Yes. The bad weather reports. Thank you.”
I bury my face in her back as Margot huffs out a frustrated breath.
“Because I can control that,” Margot mutters. “Right. But Daph, more important—don’t let your stupid pride get in the way. This isn’t like not having money. Camping is…bigger.”
Daphne laughs softly.
Margot snorts, which you wouldn’t believe Margot Merriweather-Brown would be capable of unless you’d ever seen her with her sister.
“Call me,” Margot says.
“No news is good news,” Daphne replies.
“I can’t wait to hear about this camping trip.”
“It’s been…unexpected.”
“If your camping companions need anything, I’m happy to throw up a few distractions. Like changing that weather report.”
I’m assuming she’s trying to say she’ll take care of the news article with my face attached, which is, in fact, something she can likely do.
“Um, thank you?” Daphne says.
“Provided camping is being good for you,” Margot adds. “If it’s not, I will murder camping without a moment’s hesitation.”
That was definitely aimed at me.
Daph wiggles her butt back into my crotch like she knows it too. “Margot?”
“Yes?”
“This isn’t how I expected you to respond to me…camping. Because I’m kind of…doing something very different than I thought I would…when I decided to go camping. And I don’t want to have regrets about camping. Camping is…good.”
I bury my face in Daphne’s shoulder while Margot sighs again. “When you’re home, there are a lot of things I need to tell you that I should’ve told you a long time ago.”
“About…camping?”
“No. I mean, yes, but no. About you. And me. And our family. And projects I’m working on that aren’t exactly what they look like.
Everything’s almost in place, and I—I can’t say any more right now.
Know that I love you and I want you to be happy, and if anyone ever makes me have to pick sides, I’m picking yours over anyone else’s. Over anyone else’s. No matter what.”
“Don’t make me cry,” Daphne whispers.
“You’d look good as a flaming redhead. And get some long-sleeved shirts.”
“Love you, Margot.”
“Love you too. Go have fun…camping. We’ll talk more soon. Call me if you need me. Day or night. For anything. I know how…camping…can get.”
“Erm, yes. Understood.”
They disconnect, and Daphne lets out the longest, loudest, most shuddery breath I’ve ever heard or felt.
Relatable.
I’ve been holding my own breath.
“We are camping,” I murmur into her shoulder.
“Oh my god, Oliver, she knows everything,” she says on a laugh.
A mildly panicked laugh, but a laugh.
“I wasn’t sure she was picking up on everything,” she says, “but now—if she’s not, she’s not as smart as I’ve always thought she was.”
I shift under the light sleeping bag and tug her until she’s on her back so I can see her face. After brushing away the tears that have managed to leak out of her eyeballs, I watch her until I know I have her full attention.
“Your sister is a cutthroat badass, and I could never do what she’s doing.”
“Forgiving us for this?” she whispers.
I start to smile.
Could I do what I think Margot’s doing after hearing that whole conversation?
Absolutely not. The past few years proved to me that I don’t have it in me.
But I respect the hell out of anyone else who can pull it off.
“She’s playing the long game,” I tell Daphne.
Her brow wrinkles. “The long game?”
“She has always—always—loved you more than anything.”
Daph’s eyes get shinier.
“Bet you a brass polar bear that she’s planning a hostile takeover to push your parents out of the company for what they did to you.”
She gasps. “No.”
I laugh.
Cackle a little, to be honest. “She has the intelligence, the experience, and the resources to do anything she wants. Anything. Step into a CEO role at a competing hotel company. Start her own business. Head up a venture capital fund. You don’t think it’s weird that she stayed with your parents after what they did to you? ”
Daph sniffles. “It’s what she was trained to do.”
“She was trained to win at all costs in business. But that’s more than who she is, and that’s something your father has never understood. That part of her that loves you unconditionally makes all the difference.”
“She kept saying she was going to take you back.”
I try to stop smiling, and I can’t. “You heard her. Everything’s almost in place. There are things she’s been keeping from you. Your sister’s about to rock Manhattan. She doesn’t want me, Daph. She wants your father to think she’s still playing by his rules for what he wants.”
“Oh my god,” she breathes.
I arch my brows and wait.
And after a long minute of watching her brain work, I get the satisfaction of hearing her deep belly laugh. “Oh my god.”
I settle my head on the terrible camping pillow and watch her laugh herself out.
Eventually, she rolls to face me and presses a fast, hard kiss to my mouth. “Can we stay here for another day or two? And can I send you to the store for hair dye and a couple new shirts?”
“Yes.” It doesn’t matter if I figure out where I want to call home before the board meeting in a week. It’ll be easier if I use my real identification after I’ve told my family—through Archie—to fuck all the way off.
Daphne’s smile goes watery again. “I thought she’d be mad. I thought she’d finally—that she’d finally pick their side.”
“If she did—which she won’t—she wouldn’t deserve you.”
“Doesn’t mean it wouldn’t hurt.”
I tug her tighter into a hug.
She hugs me back until hugging turns to stroking and stroking turns to kissing and kissing turns to making love while the rain falls on the tent above us.
This is peace.
This is happiness.
This is love.
And I’m going to find a way to keep it all.
I might not be cutthroat, but this—this I’ll fight for.