Chapter Twenty CASEY
Chapter Twenty
CASEY
“I saw him with Vivienne last night.”
I don’t look at Sienna because I’m worried what my face might reveal. She and I are standing together on the bow for sunset cocktails. I’m wearing a pale-pink dress that almost blends in with the sky over the horizon. My hair is combed back and neatly twisted at the base of my neck. I picked up even more color when I was out snorkeling today, so I didn’t need to apply any foundation before I left my suite, just some blush, bronze eye shadow, a few swipes of mascara, and my favorite berry-colored lipstick. It’s odd how good I look on the outside when inside, I feel worse now than ever. I think if Sienna hadn’t insisted I come out here with her, I would have stayed back in my suite.
The numbness from earlier is starting to wear off, especially now with Sienna’s new comment. I managed to somehow put Phillip and Vivienne out of my mind most of the day while I was out on the excursion. I wish so badly I could keep it that way. Unfortunately, I can’t help but ask her for details, even though I know they’ll hurt to hear. “Did you? Where?”
“They were alone together in the library. She was all over him!” she says with disgust. “I mean ... they weren’t kissing or anything, but it looked like they might have been headed in that direction if I hadn’t stumbled upon them, you know? I really think he thought he was going to get away with it! Having you and her. You’d be really proud of me. I did this whole Oh-have-you-seen-Casey spiel just to get under his skin.”
My eyes widen, and I finally turn to her. “Sienna, you didn’t .”
She grins, as beautiful as ever in her pale-green dress that almost perfectly matches her eyes. “ Absolutely , I did! You thought I was just going to let him get away with that? Stringing you along while he plays two women?”
It hurts to hear her perspective on things. Is that really what he’s been doing? It didn’t feel that way. He and Vivienne aren’t together—at least that’s what he told me, and despite all the mounting evidence to the contrary, I’m not ready to throw him under the bus. I hate how that looks. It’s a weak stance to want to support him right now. If I were a third party looking in, like Sienna, I’d be shouting at myself to see reason too. He’s a rich powerful man. OF COURSE he was playing you, girl!
“I can’t believe you said that. I’m sure he looked appalled. And Vivienne, god, what did she think?”
“Who cares about Vivienne!”
I bristle at her steely tone. “She’s not the bad guy in all of this.”
She shrugs and gives a little apathetic eye roll. “Fine. Whatever. She’s not the bad guy, but I also don’t want to be in her corner. I care about your feelings, and whether you are willing to admit it or not, you clearly have been involved intimately with Phillip the entire time we’ve been on this cruise. How many times have you slept together?”
I swallow and shrug, looking down. “It doesn’t matter.”
“So more than once.”
“It really doesn’t matter.”
“Oh my god, more than twice, then. Casey, I’m sorry.”
It’s those words “I’m sorry” said in that sympathetic, caring tone that finally chisel away the last of my resolve. When I look back up at her with a tight smile, tears rim my bottom lashes. “It’s fine, Sienna. Really. You’re making it into a bigger deal than it is. Now tell me, what happened after you said that comment to them, which, by the way, I don’t condone. I’m sure it made the situation worse than it has to be.”
She frowns, clearly irritated that I’m not as worked up about Phillip as she is. “I’m sorry if I put my foot in my mouth. I just ... It’s not right, Casey.”
I nudge her shoulder with mine and offer her a timid smile. “It’s all right. You were just trying to be a good friend. You are one, you know? I can’t believe I’ve only known you a week and already you’re going to bat for me against Phillip Woodmont, of all people.”
“You’re the one who started a fling with him! I still can’t believe it. Did he tell you he was single?”
It’s hard for me to swallow past the emotions tightening my throat.
“Yes.”
“Damn. Well, I’m not saying I know what was going on between them, only that it didn’t look good. They were alone in the library. I mean, she came all the way here to see him. Do you think he invited her?”
“No. Tyson mentioned it to me this morning. Apparently, it was a big surprise.”
Sienna hums like she doesn’t like the sound of that. Then her eyes widen upon seeing something behind me. “Oh god, incoming.”
I recognize Phillip’s presence even before I turn around. The shift in the air, the subtle notes of his cologne, the tingles that race down my spine.
I’m shaking by the time he finally speaks. “Casey, can I have a moment?”
“Don’t bother,” Sienna says for me as she steps toward him. “I told her I saw you with Vivienne last night. You must know Casey could do much better than the likes of you. You should see how many men flirt with her on a daily basis. Anyone would be lucky to have her!”
I squeeze my eyes closed and shake my head in warning. “Sienna—”
“ What ? It’s the truth. You’re a total catch, and he should bloody well know it.”
“I appreciate the intel.” There’s humor in Phillip’s voice when he speaks. Thank god for that. I think Sienna has slightly forgotten her manners. Phillip is the man in charge on this ship. It’s plausible for him to have the two of us removed from Aurelia for causing trouble.
Phillip’s hand gently touches my bare shoulder. “Casey?”
I open my eyes to see Sienna looking at me, a silent question in her gaze. Do you want me to stay?
I shake my head, and she sighs, likely disappointed that I’m not about to turn around and let Phillip have it. She’d love a good righteous showdown, but I don’t have the energy. I’m just trying to keep it together as best as possible.
When Sienna slinks away, I turn to face Phillip.
Oof.
There it is.
The punch to the gut I was expecting. Looking at him, it’s like I’ve been plugged back into the mainframe. All the feelings that have been peculiarly absent all day come rushing in all at once so forcefully that I’m surprised I remain standing.
The golden hour looks so good on him.
If Phillip ever gets married, he should arrange the ceremony for this exact time so that his lucky bride can stand across from him and get the pleasure of looking at him just like this, bathed in all the sunset hues.
He’s wearing a navy blue suit paired with a light-blue shirt, hydrangea blue to be exact. It takes some courage to raise my gaze up his neck and jaw, over those carved cheekbones, to finally meet his eyes.
Oh, Phillip. What have you done? Making me fall like this ...
“Hi,” I say gently.
He tips his head and studies me, almost like it hurts to look at me. “Did Sienna tell you I ordered you a milkshake last night? Before you left ...”
I chuckle and shake my head. “No, she didn’t. She did mention the other stuff, though ... the conversation in the library.” Suddenly, the question occurs to me, and I ask, “Is Vivienne here?”
I want to steel myself if she’s about to waltz over here and perform some public claiming of her man. I can just picture it now—her pressed against him, her hand sliding around his shoulder, squeezing with possession as she aims a sugary smile my way.
Panic sets in just as Phillip replies, “No. Vivienne and her friend are staying in a hotel, I think. I’m not sure, exactly.”
“Oh.”
“Are you surprised?”
“Yes. I guess so. I thought ...” I shake my head, letting my sentence dwindle. I don’t want to make assumptions about his relationship, given how little I know about it, so I keep it simple. “I thought she was here visiting. I assumed she’d be by your side tonight.”
He nods. “Yes, I think she assumed that as well.” My brows shoot up, and he continues, “She came here with the goal of repairing our relationship.”
“Is that what you want?” I ask hurriedly, needing to know.
Break my heart quickly, Phillip. Don’t stretch this out into some painful confession about how you really love her, and you didn’t mean for things to get so out of hand with us. Vivienne is your real future, the woman of your dreams.
God, I could throw up.
“No.”
I blink and inhale slowly, savoring that word before I respond with a cool tone. “It must have been difficult, then, having that conversation. I’ll be honest, Sienna did mention that you two looked close last night in the library, that maybe—”
“Nothing happened between Vivienne and me. She was honest with me. She took my hand in a particularly vulnerable moment, and Sienna saw that. We didn’t kiss. Or do anything for that matter.”
I believe him because Phillip has never given me a reason not to trust him. He’s been honest to a fault, in fact.
“I’m sorry things didn’t work out for you.”
And wildly enough, I mean those words.
I hold no assumptions about what Phillip and I are to one another, but I do get the sense that he and Vivienne were a serious thing for quite some time. If she came all the way here to share her feelings with him, well ... I wonder if things would be different if I weren’t standing in the way. I can’t help but ask.
“It’s not ... to say ... you aren’t letting me stand in the way of you two, are you? Because you and I—” I shake my head, feeling my throat start to tighten with emotion. I have to force out my next words, as painful as they are. “Obviously this isn’t a serious thing.”
His brow furrows, and I rush on, scared that this conviction will burn away before I’ve finished saying what I need to say. “You’re not beholden to me. It would be perfectly fine for you to go back with Vivienne. God, Tyson told me you had a ring picked out and everything! You were really serious about her, Phillip.”
“I was,” he confirms with a hard set to his jaw.
“And now?” I ask, holding my breath.
“Things have changed.”
“Because of me?” I ask shakily.
Is it presumptuous to ask that? Oh well.
“In part, yes. I won’t deny that.”
Oh god. I’ve really messed up here. “You didn’t cheat on her. Right? You told me you two were broken up. That’s what I saw online as well. So you could come clean to her, admit you had a fling—meaningless and all that—and I’m sure she’d—”
“You’re not listening.” I jolt at his tone. “You changed things, Casey.”
I gulp. “I’m sorry.”
He laughs. Laughs ! “You’re apologizing?”
“Yes?” I say with a wince.
He sighs and turns so he can lean down and prop his elbows on the railing. He tugs his hands through his hair and then asks, point blank, “Where did you see this going?”
What a complicated question. Does he want to know where I saw us going at the start or where I hoped it could go if things were different ... less complicated.
He doesn’t know the half of it. I’ve still not been honest with him about my tenuous position with Bon Voyage , the absolute mess of my life.
“Nowhere, right? That’s what we agreed.”
We said it over and over again. We kept tight parameters on this relationship, and while, yes, the lines kept getting pushed little by little to accommodate our growing feelings, we cannot let this get so carried away that we’ve lost sight of how little this makes sense.
Phillip and me? Actually together? In what world?
“Right,” he says stiffly.
“Is that ... I thought we were on the same page, Phillip.”
“We are.”
He won’t look at me, and it leads me to believe that perhaps, maybe , Phillip is feeling an ounce of what I’m feeling, this unexpected wild yearning, but I can’t let him make this mistake. I won’t be the one to lead him astray from a perfectly prearranged future. “If you walked away from Vivienne for me, please don’t. Fix it. She’s the woman for you. The woman you deserve to be with.”
I don’t know this, of course, since I’ve never met her, but I have my suspicions. The night I was rewriting my article about Phillip, I looked at photos of Phillip and Vivienne together online. Not the healthiest pastime by any means, but I was curious, and the internet proved fruitful.
It was relatively easy to find tidbits of information about Vivienne. She has a high-up job at Yves Saint Laurent. Her parents own a real estate empire. She went to the best schools and has all the right connections, and she’s even received a humanitarian award from the National Charity League for her work with their organization. So she gives back! She’s literally a saint! I mean, I cannot stack up against her in this life, or any life, for that matter. It’s laughable.
“She would take you back ... I’m sure.”
“You’re not understanding, Casey.” He turns his head, staring at me, showing me if only I’d stop being so dumb. “She’s not who I want.”
I take a step back.
“No.”
I say it firmly. Absolutely not.
He’s not going to do this. Not going to admit he has feelings for me!
He is not going to make this harder by feeding me hope where there is none.
“You’re wrong about your feelings for me. It’s the sunset and the booze and this dress.” I sweep my hand down my figure. “I don’t normally wear pretty pink dresses while sipping mai tais on a fancy cruise ship! I’m the girl living out of dingy hotels, remember? The one with no home ? I wear T-shirts and sweatpants on the daily . Sometimes I don’t shower for three days, and I don’t even feel bad about it! I am not someone you should like, Phillip Woodmont! Go to Vivienne. Marry Vivienne. Produce fancy, well-educated offspring. Forget. About. Me.”
After this, I turn on my heel and hurriedly walk away before I can see his reaction to my words. I’m really good at this, I’ve found—leaving when the going gets tough is just so satisfying. Whoever said you have to stay and duke it out during moments of crisis was dead wrong. You can actually do whatever you want, and right now it feels so good to scurry back down to my suite—my one sanctuary on this godforsaken boat. I slam the door behind me; then I lock it for good measure, as if Phillip’s going to be running after me. Laughable. After that diatribe, the man is probably thanking his lucky stars that things didn’t go any further with us.
I look down at my half-empty mai tai and consider pouring it down the drain. Instead, I toss it back, swallowing all that sweet liquor down in one go. After, I stomp straight to my laptop and fling it open.
I’m ripping off Band-Aids left and right, might as well do one more ...
I’m the villain in the movie who’s finally completely unhinged. The Joker in that little nurse’s outfit, about to light this place up.
There are emails waiting for me. Of course there are. I haven’t so much as touched this computer since yesterday morning.
I open the latest one from Gwen’s assistant. Sent only an hour ago. Never mind that it’s a Saturday night. These people think work should take precedence, always.
Hi Casey!
Hope you’re living it up in the Bahamas! Soo jealous. Any update on those assignments Gwen forwarded to you on Friday? We were hoping to have Mark’s Lancaster story by this afternoon and I don’t see it in my email? Can you send it again in case it bounced back for some reason? I’ve CC’d Gwen here for your convenience.
Without a moment’s hesitation, I reply with one word.
No.
A moment later, my phone rings. It startles me. My phone hasn’t rung once since I’ve been on board Aurelia , both because the cell service is pretty spotty and because who needs to call me? Steve the tax man? He already got the house; he doesn’t need anything else from me at this point.
The phone number belongs to none other than my boss, Gwen Levis.
I answer it with a cool and cheery, “Hello, Gwen!”
“Casey, hey,” she says, sounding cheerful herself. “Sorry to call you on a Saturday evening. Not usually our style here, but we’re in a pinch. Our intern quit earlier, actually. So unprofessional . Don’t get me started. Anyway, we really need those assignments completed. Especially Mark’s.”
I lean back in my chair, reveling in the calm that’s suddenly washed over me. For so long, I’ve cared so much about this job. In the past, I would have been stammering over every word if Gwen Levis deigned to call me. I don’t think we’ve ever, even once , spoken on the phone before now. I’m not going to lie; it feels really good to have her coming to me for something. I think I’ll revel in it for a moment.
“Oh no , sorry to hear you all are struggling.”
Read, No, I’m not .
“Right. I saw your email. Maybe you accidentally sent it?”
“No.” I chuckle. “I meant that email.”
She doesn’t say anything for a moment. Then asks, “What did you mean by ‘no’? You haven’t had time to get around to reviewing things? That’s fine, but we need Mark’s story to run by Tuesday, so how about you tackle it first thing—”
“No.”
I’m really enjoying using that word as a whole sentence.
Gwen clears her throat. “Casey. If this is about those emails you sent yesterday, I said I’d think about giving you a raise, okay?” Her voice is high and tight now, like she’s this close to losing it. “I can probably talk them into a two percent bump, maybe three percent, so let’s just move forward and—”
Two percent? Two fucking percent ?
Holy shit. She really doesn’t get it. She never will.
I chuckle because this is actually pretty funny. “Sorry, you don’t understand, Gwen. The answer is no; I won’t be doing those assignments.”
“Excuse me?”
She cannot comprehend this change in me. She only knows me as dutiful, quiet Casey. Give Casey any assignment, and she’ll do it. The grunt work? The boring stuff we can’t even talk an intern into taking on? Casey will do it! Casey doesn’t care. She’s just glad to be here.
It’s pathetic, really, what I was willing to do just to say I worked at a publication like Bon Voyage . I can’t believe I never saw it before now. The injustice of it all.
“Gwen, I quit. Active immediately.”
“ What ? You can’t quit,” she shrieks so loudly that I have to hold the phone away from my ear. “Do you think this magazine is a joke ? People are dying to fill your shoes. Dying .”
“I thought you said the intern also quit today ...”
“ You little brat ,” she hisses through clenched teeth. “You listen here. You should be grateful for the job I gave you. You think you’re going to go out and make it big? Where ? I won’t let you go to one of our competitors.”
This is just a less cliché way of saying You’ll never work in this town again , and I’m slightly annoyed she didn’t just stick with the original.
She laughs shrilly. “After pulling this shit? You can kiss any sort of reference letter goodbye.”
“Noted.”
My calm response only rankles her more.
I know she wants to do more to me, but she really can’t. The thing is, Gwen barely knows me. Like right now, if I asked her my last name, she’d go, Uh, uh, uh—Hanes? So it’s not like she can dig deep into some arsenal of personal information to really take aim at me. I suppose she could poke fun at me for being the fact-check girl for as many years as I stuck it out, but like, okay, ha ha ha! I believed you when you hired me and told me I’d be able to work my way up in the company. What a dumbass, right?
She can’t punish me like she wants. This isn’t high school, and she’s not the principal. There’s no detention or suspension. There’s not even any company property she can seize in a final fit of rage. My laptop is my own. I guess I might have left some knickknacks in my cubicle in New York. Enjoy my mostly dried up highlighters and bent-up Post-it Notes, Gwen ...
“You want to quit? Fine. Good luck, Casey. You’ll need it .”
Then she hangs up, but not in that fun way where you can hear the receiver slam down on the other end of the line. How unsatisfying to have to just jab that little red X . Oh well.
There. I’ve done it.
I’ve left my dead-end job, freed myself from my heavy fact-checking shackles.
Only . . . now what?