CHAPTER 17
Owen
What the hell is this?” I demanded as I went right back to his office. I dropped the letter on his desk and pointed to it. “What the hell does this mean?”
Loud laughter from the kitchen only worsened my mood. I didn’t like being laughed at.
“I told you that he wouldn’t wait!” Elena called from the kitchen, making Vincent chuckle. “That means I win!
“Yes, you do,” he replied loudly. “Pick your reward, sweet love of mine, and I’ll pay up later.”
“You bet on this?” I snapped. That fact only made the whole situation worse, like I was their personal source of entertainment.
“To be fair, I thought you’d at least wait a week,” Vincent commented. “Perhaps, I underestimated your impatience a little.”
His amusement pissed me off.
“Do you find this funny? Am I fucking funny to you?”
“Sit down, Owen.” He gestured to the chair.
I hesitated for a moment before doing as he asked.
I wanted to just stand there and yell, but I knew nothing would come of it.
That wasn’t how Vincent had conversations.
Hell, that wasn’t how I usually had conversations.
I seemed to be losing all the control I prided myself on.
“No one is laughing at you, my friend. I promise.”
“Why are you firing me?” I asked once more.
“I’m not,” he said. “I’m freeing you.”
Freeing me.
I stared at him, certain I’d somehow misheard the words.
He was freeing me from what exactly? My job?
My title? My position here? The Society had been the center of my life for years.
I had shaped my entire life around being part of the Society, which made Vincent's casual claim to be freeing me from it insulting.
Was this truly about freeing me? Or was this about protecting himself? Protecting the Society? Did he think I’d become a liability because of Liam? Did he no longer trust me?
Heat climbed slowly up my neck as my jaw tightened.
My thoughts twisted, each possibility somehow worse than the last. I wasn’t prone to spiraling, but clearly, I wasn’t thinking straight either.
It didn’t help that Vincent had this tendency to speak in riddles when he thought he was being profound.
Normally, I didn’t mind it. Right now, however, I was dangerously close to reaching across the desk and strangling him for it.
“I don’t want to be freed,” I snapped.
“Liam Baker.” They were the only two words he said—the only two he needed to say—to deflate my anger. Every argument on the tip of my tongue died almost instantly.
He wasn’t trying to take anything away from me. He was trying to remove obstacles for me. And honestly, that didn’t help the situation any.
“Damn it, Vinnie,” I muttered as I sagged back in my chair. “It’s nothing that you need to be worried about. I won’t be a liability to you or the Society.”
“Owen,” Vincent said with a chuckle, “this isn’t about you being a liability. There is no one I trust more within the Society than you.”
“Then what is it about?” I asked. “I assure you, I can still do my job.”
I wanted to tell him Liam was nothing more than an inconvenience I could outgrow, but the truth was, I didn’t think I would.
There was a good chance Liam would forever be this thing that plagued me.
However, I could learn to live with that.
I could learn to function without him. One challenging day didn’t mean my discipline was compromised.
“I’m not worried about your capacity within the Society, Owen. I’m worried about you.”
“Why the fuck are you worried about me? I’m fine.”
“You’re usually a better liar than that,” he mused with a small smirk.
I opened my mouth, prepared to argue, but Vincent sighed before I could.
His amusement faded as his head tilted slightly.
That gaze of his softened as he considered me.
“I worry about your happiness. I worry about all of my employees’ happiness, but we’re talking about you.
I worry about your happiness. You’ve given so much of yourself for so long. To your work. To the Society. To me.
“You have built an entire life around taking care of everyone else. You anticipate needs before they’re spoken, and you make everyone you encounter feel seen.
You have dedicated your life to the happiness of others.
But while living to please others is a noble cause, at some point, it’s important that you learn to live for yourself as well. ”
He fell silent as he got to his feet. My gaze followed him across the room to an old filing cabinet. The drawers weren’t locked, making it easy for him to pull open the second drawer.
“Did you know,” Vincent began, “that when I do orientations for Architects, I do an analysis similar to the ones I do for our clients?”
“I did not,” I replied. It didn’t surprise me in the least. He was nothing if not thorough.
“And do you know why I hired you?”
“For my ability to watch and adjust, all while simultaneously keeping the illusion of freedom over control.” I knew that one well.
“True,” he said. He removed a single file, flipped it open, and neatly folded it. When he was done, he held it out to me, and I accepted, curious. “Read what I put about your future retirement projection. Out loud, if you don’t mind, please.”
It was a strange request, but I did as he asked. I scanned the page until I found the section on retirement projection.
“Owen won’t retire because of burnout or dissatisfaction. He’ll retire because of attachment.” My gaze flicked up at him, but he merely nodded, indicating I should continue. “Correction: Owen will retire when someone makes him want more than the life he’s carefully constructed for himself.”
I faltered because there was no way in hell he could know this shit. I knew he was good at reading people, but this… well, this felt damn near prophetic.
“Keep reading,” he ordered as he tapped the top of the file.
“Additional note: there will be denial, pushback, and even anger.” That was it. That was all he wrote—though it was far more than I wanted to read. I handed it back to him. “Is this the part where you tell me you’re a goddamn wizard?”
“No, no. Although, that sounds far more exciting than the truth.” He chuckled. He closed the file and set it on his desk. “When you spend every breath trying to survive, you learn how to read people very well.”
I knew vague things about Vincent’s life—not enough to truly understand what he’d been through—but I knew his life hadn’t been easy.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’ve lived my life, and I’m happy with what I’ve become,” Vincent told me.
“And it’s time for you to do the same. I know you.
I know how you work. I know how you prepare and engage your clients.
I know how you conduct yourself. And I’d be a fool not to see how you changed all of that for Liam. ”
Arguing with him and denying it seemed futile, considering what he’d just had me read aloud. All we’d end up doing was dancing in circles until one of us tired out, and I knew it wouldn’t be him.
“I didn’t mean for it to happen,” I whispered.
“Of course you didn’t,” he replied. “The man who wants to be wanted crosses paths with the man who has never wanted. It was bound to happen.”
“When you put it that way,” I grumbled.
“You deserve happiness, my friend.”
“The problem is that I thought I was happy.”
“The best liars are the ones who can convince even themselves,” he commented.
Rounding the desk, he dropped back in his chair, leaning back comfortably while his gaze never left mine.
“And I don’t mean that as an insult. You’re practiced in creating illusions for others.
It’s no wonder you convinced yourself you were happy. ”
Silence settled between us. I didn’t rush to fill it with some deft argument, and instead, I worked to process everything he’d said. He wasn’t wrong. That was the problem.
My mind drifted back to the weeks leading up to Liam’s experience—the first time I’d followed him, the first note I’d written him, the first rose I’d left him. I thought about the growing intrigue that I had continuously dismissed and the curiosity I had justified as doing a damn good job.
I had done things that weren’t required of me just because I had to know more—needed to know more.
I called it being efficient when in reality, it was reckless curiosity.
None of those things had been required. I didn’t need to know his life to put together an unforgettable experience.
I didn’t need to continue giving him roses beyond the first one, and I certainly didn’t need to leave him expensive gifts.
I did all of those because I wanted to. For him, I wanted to.
I’d never considered myself a relationship person, but I’d also never met anyone who made me want one either.
Not until Liam. And perhaps that was the insanity of it all.
I didn’t know him. I knew the things I’d discerned through my research, but I didn’t know him.
Not in the way one spends countless hours listening and seeing another person.
But I wanted that. I wanted the stories of his life through his words. I wanted all the things that couldn’t be clinically observed and studied from the outside.
I wanted to be more than just a memory to him.
“Am I crazy?” I asked aloud. “Or maybe just pathetic…”
“For wanting someone?” Vincent replied for clarification, and I nodded. “Connection is the foundation of the human experience, Owen, but you know that. You are allowed connection outside of the illusions you create, no matter what it costs you.”
No matter what it cost me. It was a little more complicated than that, considering I’d be uprooting the entire foundation of my life for someone I wasn’t sure even wanted me back.
“Is he worth it?” His voice cut through the thoughts in my head, as if he was reading my mind. “Is he worth what it will cost you?”