Chapter 22
Twenty-Two
NARDI
Spending this much money feels icky. I don’t think I was meant to be rich.
I park outside my apartment and reach into the backseat for the fancy shopping bags that weigh less than an eight-pound bag of rice. You’d think something with this price tag would have a bit more weight.
I wince as I haul the bags out of the car with me.
Cullen is far too perceptive. I can’t believe he sniffed out my plan so quickly.
His last text was cheeky too.
Add another zero.
That jerk.
I’d planned to return the bags, but now my pride is bruised. I’ll have to keep them and live with the fact that I spent eight months’ rent on purses.
As I near Cullen Tech, I slow down in front of the ‘WE ARE MOVING’ sticker. Despite the warning, the Cullen Tech sign is still glowing. The light pierces the darkness, strong and determined.
I smile and start to walk past when I hear a pathetic groan coming from the shadows. Stepping closer, I notice a large heap on the front step of Cullen’s company. The heap moves and unfurls, revealing a pale face with blonde hair frizzing all over.
“Who’s there?” A familiar pair of blue eyes shoot up. “I’ve got mace…”
Stunned, I bend down to inspect the woman. “Jenna?”
She squints and her head lolls back and forth as she tries to place me.
“Ah-ha!” Jenna snickers. “It’s Ronan’s woman. Ronan’s pretty, pretty Nardi. Nardi Hardi Har Har.”
She’s babbling nonsense.
I debate leaving her here, but my conscience won’t let me. She’s totally out of it and, though this neighborhood isn’t the worst, it isn’t the best either. Especially for extremely drunk women.
I crouch and the shopping bags make a crumpling sound as they sink into the ground. Panicked, I jerk my arm up. In the light of the sign, I notice some dirt on the bottom of the shopping bags and urgently brush it away. I plan to keep these shopping bags forever, just like the purses they carry.
Bang, bang, bang!
The sound makes me jump and I look down to find Jenna smacking the front door.
“Ronan!” she sobs. “Ronan, I’m here! Open the door.”
I roll my eyes. “Cullen isn’t here, Jenna. Get up. I’ll order a ride for you.”
“Ronan!” Jenna cries louder. “I’m sorry!”
A couple that lives on the second floor passes by, sending Jenna strange looks.
Jenna plops into a heap, her head tipped back as she wails to the sky. “Roooonaaaan!”
A window on the second floor flies up and a disgruntled neighbor yells, “Shut up!”
A baby wails from another apartment.
“Jenna, enough crying,” I hiss, wishing I could tape her mouth closed.
“I shouldn’t have done it.” Jenna rocks back and forth. “I’m sorry.”
I inhale deeply. “Jenna, I have the app open. Tell me your home address so I can order the ride.”
She ignores me and keeps crying.
“Jenna!”
Suddenly, Jenna flops against the front door so hard it shudders. She curls her knees up to her chest and pats the door lovingly.
“Don’t worry, Ronan. I’ll be there for you. I’ll take care of you.”
Watching her comfort an imaginary Cullen gets on my nerves. “Call him ‘Cullen’,” I mumble. “Not even I call him by his first name.”
Jenna snuggles up to the door, totally oblivious to my warning.
At a loss, I dial Sara’s number. Since Jenna was an employee of Cullen Tech, I’m sure they have her address somewhere in the database.
The line connects.
“Hey, Sara. By chance, do you know where Jenna lives?”
“Jenna? Why?”
“Because she’s currently curled up in a fetal position in front of Cullen Tech.”
There’s a beat of silence and then Sara sighs, “I’ll be right there.”
“It’s okay,” I offer. “Just tell me where she lives and I’ll…” I feel a prick of responsibility at the thought of putting a very drunk Jenna in a stranger’s car. “I’ll take her home.”
Sara insists on coming anyway, so I decide to wait with Jenna until Cullen’s assistant arrives.
In record time, Sara hops out of a small, blue car and hurries over to me. I wave in welcome and Sara gives me a tight nod. However, I notice her expression darken when she looks at Jenna.
“Do you need help getting her to the car?” I ask.
At first, Sara seems like she’ll reject me, but she ends up taking my offer. I stow away the shopping bags in my car so I don’t have to worry about them. After, I work with Sara to get the slumbering Jenna into a sitting position.
Unfortunately, getting her to stand is another matter altogether.
“Why is she so heavy?” I rasp, breaking a sweat as the slim woman flops back to the ground.
Sara rolls her eyes and says irritably, “Maybe we should leave her out here. It would serve her right.”
The words seem out of place coming from Cullen’s docile, good-natured assistant.
“My stomach hurts.” Jenna blinks up sluggishly. When she sees Sara, she scrambles to sit upright and grabs the other woman’s hand. “Sara, where’s Ronan? Please tell him I need to see him. I need to apologize again. I need to make things right.”
Sara tugs her hand away. “It’s too late for that.”
Bursting with curiosity, I step in front of Sara. “What’s going on? I heard Jenna quit, but it feels like there’s more to the story.”
Sara looks aside, chewing on the inside of her cheek.
“Sara, I can tell that you want to say something. Just let it out.”
She scowls down at Jenna. “I don’t know how much Cullen’s told you, so I can’t go into details. Basically, a foreign tech company stole our source code and tried to sue us for theft. At first, we assumed they reverse-engineered the code from the competition.”
“The competition that was bait to find my brother?” I clarify.
“Yeah.” Sara huffs out a breath. “But something didn’t sit right with me. It didn’t make sense that the tiny preview from the competition would be enough for another company to build the same mainframe, line by line. So I did some digging and realized our code was plagiarized right around the time Jenna joined our team.”
The dots connect in my head before she even finishes her statement.
I gasp. “Jenna was working for the evil company that stole from you?”
“Where am I?” Jenna groans, holding her stomach.
“You’re in front of Cullen Tech.” Sara looks at her with pure disdain. “If you’re good enough to walk on your own, then get up. You’ve bothered Nardi enough for today.”
Jenna staggers forward, but I grab her arm before she can walk away. Fury burns through my veins. “Why?” Her head swings over to me and I bark at her, “Why did you do it? Cullen’s sacrificing his life for the PLP. What did he ever do to deserve your betrayal?”
Tears fill Jenna’s eyes and her nostrils flare. “I’m sorry.” She trembles. “I needed the money. It was the only way to help my mom. And Ronan is so brilliant. I was sure he wouldn’t be down for long.” Tears roll down her cheeks. “I didn’t know he was dying. I didn’t think I was trading someone else’s life for my mother’s.” She hangs her head, sobbing hard. “I can’t live with myself for what I did..”
Sara scoffs. “You’ll have to find a way to live with yourself. Live with that guilt forever. That’s the least you can do.”
“Why did Cullen keep this under wraps?” I ask Sara. “This has to be illegal. She stole Cullen Tech’s property. She should be in prison.”
“I agree, but Cullen didn’t want to prosecute. Not when he heard about her mom.” She gives me a pointed look. “He’s changed a lot since he met you, Nardi. But in this case, I wish he hadn’t changed that much.”
A retching sound drags our attention back to Jenna. She’s bent over the walkway, emptying the contents of her stomach.
Staring at her, I can’t help but feel a wave of admiration for Cullen. To have his life’s work stolen only to turn around and offer grace to the perpetrator says a whole lot about the man that he is.
And, in that moment, I feel a sense of pride that Ronan Cullen is the man I fell in love with.
I retrieve my shopping bags and head upstairs. The moment I step inside, I feel someone glaring daggers into me.
It’s mom.
“You storm out last night, no call, no update. I have no idea if you’re dead or alive. And you come back twenty-four hours later with shopping bags? Do you think I can be bribed?”
I offer the bags to her. “They’re a peace offering. I didn’t come home to fight.”
My mother puts the bags on the couch, not even sparing them a second glance. “Have you finally come to your senses?”
“I came to pack my bags. I need some essentials if I’m moving in with Cullen.”
Mom’s eyes widen. “Are you really going to do this, Nardi?”
“Yes, mom.” I walk over to the kitchen to wash my hands.
Mom’s footsteps chase me down. “We discussed this last night. The closer you stick with that man, the more it’ll damage you later.” She glances around and then hisses as if revealing a big secret. “He’s going to die. He’s choosing to die.”
Wearily, I remind her, “You won’t be around forever either, mom. Eventually, you’ll have to return to Belize and Josiah and I won’t see you anymore. Does that mean I shouldn’t spend time with you before you go?”
“That is not nearly the same thing and you know it.”
I pour out a glass of water and take a sip. “Mom. I know you’re just trying to protect me. I know your advice is coming from a good place and you’re probably right about everything. If I listen to you, I’ll probably be safe and protected from all the pain I’m about to face.” I set the cup down firmly. “But I want to do this. Even if it makes me pathetic, even if it hurts more later, this is what I’ve decided to do.”
Her eyes turn red with unshed tears. “I’m just afraid you’ll regret it.”
I take her hand and squeeze. “I’ve thought deeply about it, mom. This path leads to the least amount of regret.”
A door opens in the hallway.
It’s followed by the quiet patter of footsteps.
Josiah approaches the kitchen, his gaze fixed on me. “You’re back.”
“Yeah, I’m back. How are you?” I glance between him and mom.
Josiah shrugs.
Guess they haven’t made up then.
Mom quickly wipes away her tears and turns away to head back to the living room. She picks up the shopping bags and her eyes fix on the brand name. “Oh my goodness. Is this real?”
“It is.” I smile at her and then head to my room to start packing.
Josiah’s footsteps thud behind me. My little brother slips into my room and shuts the door softly.
I glance at him as I pull out my suitcase.
“Did Cullen tell you?” Josiah asks softly. “That he’s leaving soon?”
The shirt I was reaching for slips out of my hand. Nervously, I continue packing. “I’m sorry about your AI video. No matter how angry mom was, deleting it wasn’t cool. You worked hard on it.”
He shrugs. “It’s fine. I took it out of the trash.”
“Really? You got it back?”
He nods.
“Then… why are you still acting weird around mom?”
“Because…” He glances away.
“Because what?”
“It feels awkward having her here,” he admits, his head hanging.
“Why is it awkward? She’s our mom.”
“We kind of have our own thing.” He gestures between us. “But now that mom’s around, she’s telling us what to do, nagging about the way we do things, and acting like we weren’t living properly before.”
“I don’t think she means to do that.”
“You always take up for her.”
“I’m not trying to take up for her.” I fold a skirt and put it in the bag. “If you think about it, mom probably has a hard time adjusting to us too.”
Josiah lifts his head, listening carefully.
“I bet she sees that we have a schedule and she isn’t sure how to fit into our lives. At least she’s trying to be a part of it, even if it feels like she’s just making a mess and disrupting everything.”
Josiah rubs his head the way Cullen would rub his beanie.
In the silence, I start clearing out my underwear drawer. My old, period panties are at the top since I wear them often. But I make sure none of those make it into my travel bag.
“Nardi?”
“Hm.”
“You’re not going to leave with Cullen, are you? You’re not going to leave no matter how much you miss him, right?”
Something in Josiah’s tone makes me pause.
I stare at my little brother. “Why are you asking that?”
He shakes his head and opens my door. “No reason.”
“Josiah.”
But my little brother slips out of my room and I hear his door slam shut soon after.
Unnerved by the abrupt ending of our conversation, I decide to finish packing later and text Cullen.
ME: Something came up at home so I won’t be coming over tonight. Keep our bed warm for me.
A mischievous grin creeps over my face when I press send. I wish I could see Cullen’s reaction when he reads that. Not that I expect him to answer right away. From what I saw of him today, he’s always working.
There was a couch in his computer room and I saw a blanket there along with a mini fridge. The man is a raging workaholic and he seems intent on working all the way to the end.
How many days does he have left?
I open the calendar on my cell phone.
Three weeks from now is…
I tag the date.
My heart pinches at the thought of what happens after that date.
Just then, my phone buzzes.
CULLEN: Is everything okay?
ME: Nothing major. Things are still weird between mom and Josiah, so I’ll spend one more night with them before I officially move in with you.
CULLEN: I don’t remember asking you to move in.
ME: Cullen, can I move in?
CULLEN: No.
ME: See? I knew you’d say that. This is why I planned to break in.
CULLEN: You know you’re admitting to a crime, don’t you?
ME: If being with you is a crime, babe, I don’t want to be right.
CULLEN: Nardi, you need to get over me.
ME: I will get over you. And under you. And above you. And against the wall with you if you really want to spice it up.
Cullen doesn’t respond.
I smile and curl my finger tenderly against the cell phone. He must be blushing right now as his imagination runs wild.
Good.
I plan to bring adventure to his nights as well as his days. If only he’d stop being stubborn about pushing me away.
ME: What are you doing tomorrow?”
CULLEN: Not you. If that’s what you’re thinking.
I burst out laughing, imagining his stern face.
ME: I want to borrow your kitchen.
CULLEN: So now you’re asking permission?
ME: I’d like to take my social media more seriously and film a cooking video. But our kitchen isn’t exactly the aesthetic that goes viral.
CULLEN: Since you plan to break in anyway, just make yourself at home.
I smile.
CULLEN: I’m going to bed now.
ME: Dream of me.
CULLEN: I’m taking sleeping pills. I won’t be dreaming of anything tonight.
ME: Do you want me to come over? I can tire you out so you don’t even need the pills.
CULLEN: Goodnight, Nardi.
I smile and whisper to the phone, “Goodnight, Cullen.”