Chapter 7
Seven
Bristol
Sunday is a lazy day after my visit to the emergency room. I avoid the text from my father, and when I get to work; Mom is already at my desk.
“How was your weekend?” Mom asks, looking pointedly at me, like she knows more than she should.
“Fine, Em.” I never refer to her as Mom at work. I want to be seen as a professional, and calling one of my superiors “Mom” just seems weird.
“Was it?” There’s that look, the one that tells me she knows I’m lying or hiding something. She doesn’t wait for me to answer. “A little birdy told me you were in the emergency room this weekend.”
“Are you spying on me?” I can’t believe her! I drop my purse on the desk and stalk off for the breakroom, hoping that Emerson takes the hint and leaves me alone.
Unfortunately, she doesn’t seem to get the message.
“There’s no need,” Em says, and I know she’s trying to be protective as my mother, but it still irks me.
Why is she even here? Can’t she go back to New York and work the field office back at home?
“I’m not a little kid. I don’t need you and Dad constantly worrying about me.” I grab a cup of decaf and spike it with a third of flavored creamer to kill the taste.
It’s bad enough that they have been renting a home in the mountains. Dad calls it his vacation home. It’s more like a place for them to be near me.
Ever since I started at Great Falls, they seem to spend more time here than New York, but it’s also the off-season for hockey.
Em watches but doesn’t say anything.
“Who told you I was in the E.R.?” I glare up at Em. “Dad texted me yesterday. How did he know?”
Emerson keeps her mouth shut, but there’s a hint of a smile on her lips, like she has a secret of her own.
“Mom!” I stomp my foot, demanding to know how she found out. “Was it someone at the hospital?” I’m well aware of HIPPA and the fact that, legally, they’re not allowed to disclose personal information, but Dad is a huge donor, so maybe they look the other way when it comes to legality?
Well, screw them.
“Does it matter who told us?” Em walks me back to my desk, and I take a seat, grumbling the entire time.
I should start filing papers, but instead, I want to throw them at her head and make her clean all of it up.
Emerson shows me her phone, and the forwarded message from my dad.
“Are you fucking kidding me? Liam sent the text?” My jaw drops and the anger I felt earlier is nothing compared to the rage barreling through me right now. “I’m going to kill him!”
“Probably not the best words to say around a bunch of private investigators,” Mom quips.
I roll my eyes. “Well, forget you heard them.” I sip my coffee, but it doesn’t take away the anxiety and irritation creeping all over me.
How dare he!
When I explicitly told him not to contact my father, he went behind my back and did so anyway.
What a pompous jerk!
“Listen, I think it was nice that he took care of you. I didn’t realize you and Liam reconnected.”
I laugh darkly. “He’s an asshole. We didn’t reconnect. He just … it doesn’t matter.” I refuse to explain myself to Em.
She met Liam when we were kids, after the trouble that followed me in the first grade.
Emerson perches herself on the edge of my desk. “Listen, whatever is going on between you and Liam, that’s your business. But if something is happening to you, medically, that becomes my business.”
“Why?” I glare at her. “I’m an adult. I can make legal and medical decisions for myself.”
“Because your father and I care about you. Yes, you’re one hundred percent right, you are an adult, but you’re also on our medical insurance.
So, if you’re making a visit to the emergency room, unless you plan on footing the bill, we’re going to know about it, and we’re going to ask questions.
Besides, if something is wrong, your father and I want you to get the best care. ”
I snarl at her and push my coffee cup away, no longer interested in it. My stomach is churning and I can’t handle another sip of the sweetness this morning.
I get that she’s trying to be helpful, but I’ve always had weird symptoms since puberty. It’s just that they’ve gotten worse recently. The last thing I want is to be pulled out of school right before the semester starts and forced to have a mountain of tests run on me, to reveal nothing.
How do I even describe the crap that I feel without sounding like it’s in my head?
“Are we done, Emerson?”
She exhales a heavy sigh and smiles. “No, but I get the feeling you’re done talking to me about it.”
“I have work to do.”
I spend much of the morning filing, and the paperwork keeps mounting up, with lots of receipts for Blue Sky Resort.
There’s a ton of hotel receipts, which make little sense since the resort is only a few minutes from here.
“Ariella, why are we sending people to the Blue Sky Resort?” I ask over my shoulder as I file the receipts away for tax purposes.
She hurries from her desk, her olive eyes wide and her freckles becoming more pronounced as the color of her cheeks reddens.
The look on her face is fueled by concern.
Did I say something wrong?
“You weren’t supposed to see that—” she says and glares at me.
“It was mixed into the stack of papers that I have to file. Why are there dozens of rooms being reserved at the resort? Seems like a weird get-together to have you guys hosting an event.”
She gives me a look, but the silence that follows tells me I’m completely off base. “Oh,” my eyes light up like I get it, but quite honestly, I have no clue what’s going on around here.
Mom is out in the field, doing who knows what. She always keeps me in the dark about her job. Most of it a “need to know” basis, and as an intern, there’s a lot I apparently don’t need to know.
But Ariella has always been a bit more honest and upfront with me about the job.
“It’s a private client; they needed some assistance.” Ariella ushers me back to my desk, shutting the filing cabinet where I was shoving all the receipts for the hotel.
“Seems weird, but whatever. If it pays the bills—”
“It doesn’t,” Ariella says, and then shuts her mouth, perhaps slipping up.
I raise an inquisitive eyebrow at her, and she forces a smile. “It’s charity work. Now, go get back to your desk, I’ve got some more files for you to deal with.”
“Wonderful.”
During lunch, I sit quietly at the park in the shade and pull up Liam’s contact information. Not that he ever gave it to me, but I saved his phone number.
I keep writing him a text and then deleting the contents, unsure what to say.
Finally, I hit the button and call him.
Of course, he doesn’t pick up the phone. He probably thinks it’s a spam caller.
I shoot him a quick text.
Bristol: Answer your phone, loser.
Liam: Who is this?
Bristol: Your worst enemy. The only girl who can take you down a peg or two.
Liam: Bristol?
Bristol: I hate you.
I hit the call button again, and this time, he picks up.
“Back to your snarky self, I see,” Liam says instead of an old-fashioned hello.
“You called my dad!”
Silence ensues for a few seconds. “I may have reached out to him. I was worried about you.” There’s a softness in his tone, a warmth that shouldn’t make me relax, and I fight the urge to feel anything other than anger toward Liam Moretti.
I pinch the bridge of my nose and inhale sharply. “I remember distinctly telling you not to call him.”
“I guess I’m not a great listener. I’ll work on that for you,” he says, his tone a little too chipper this afternoon for me.
“Don’t bother. Just … don’t ever call him again.”
“I promise not to call him,” Liam says a little too quickly.
“Or text him!”
“That, I can’t promise.”
I bite my tongue and reach for my bottle of water, taking a sip. “Why the hell not? Why do you have to be so irritating, Liam?”
“I like it when you say my name, Firebreather.” His breath is throaty, sending my heart soaring and my pussy fluttering.
What the hell is he doing to me?
Irritated, I snarl at him. “Oh, fuck off.” I end the call, hoping I left him speechless. But it seems to me he left me that way, and I’m not even the tiniest bit happy about it.
He immediately calls me back, but I send it straight to voicemail.
I’m not talking to Liam.
Not now.
Not ever if it were up to me.
I head back to the office, and Jaxson hovers beside Ariella’s desk. I try not to stare. It took me a few weeks to realize they were even married; I guess I’m not the brightest crayon when it comes to relationships, at least other people’s.
I stalk over to my desk, sit, and begin fumbling through the pages of files that need to be sorted.
Jaxson wanders over to my desk. It’s rare that he asks me for anything. Usually, he gets what he needs from Ariella, and if she requires additional help, then I’m her assistant.
“Grab your stuff, I want you to tag along with me today.”
“What?” My eyes widen, but I grab my purse and hurry after Jaxson as he leads me out to his SUV. “Is this about Em?” I ask and glance at Jaxson as I climb into the front seat of his vehicle.
“No. Why?” He starts the engine of the vehicle and yanks on his seatbelt.
“No reason,” I say, hoping that he’s not lying to me. Mom had surprised me this morning, knowing about the emergency room visit, and Jaxson is the absolute best when it comes to digging into people’s personal lives. I try to relax, but I’m failing miserably at it. “Where are we going?” I ask.
“You ask a lot of questions.” He glances at me as sweat beads my forehead.
Jaxson cranks the air conditioning on full blast inside the car. “Ariella mentioned you were curious about some of our charity work.” He lets that word hang in the air for a moment longer than necessary. “You’re a little flushed, are you feeling all right?” he asks.
“Fine.” I shrug it off. The heat hates me, but it’s not anything Jaxson needs to concern himself with; it’s my problem.
“Okay, good. What I’m going to show you this afternoon, you have to use discretion.”
“I know, just like all the files. Don’t ever share anything I see outside of the office.”