33. Bruce
CHAPTER 33
brUCE
Someone knocks on my office door just as I finish my crypto meeting.
Could it be Lilly? The warm hope in my chest makes me feel like a schoolboy with his first crush. Except if it were her, I don’t think she would knock. She’d just barge in.
“Come in,” I say and close my laptop.
Even though I didn’t think it was Lilly, I feel a pang of disappointment when I see Mrs. Campbell.
“Hello, sir,” she says, seeming pretty distraught.
I get to my feet. “What’s wrong?”
She guiltily pulls out a piece of paper from her pocket. “I was about to do Lilly’s laundry,” she says. “And you know how I always check all pockets before sticking anything in the washer?”
Brows furrowing, I nod.
“When I saw it, I didn’t mean to pry,” she says. “But your name was mentioned with some cuss words, so I?—”
“How about you hand me that paper,” I demand.
She takes a step forward but doesn’t give up the note. “Maybe there’s an explanation for this,” she says. “Lilly is such a nice girl, and the two of you?—”
My adrenaline spikes. “Give it to me. Now.”
Eyes widening, Mrs. Campbell thrusts the paper into my hands and rushes out of the room.
I read the note, increasingly stupefied. It seems that Lilly believes me to be the worst person in the world—up there with the likes of Charles Manson, Caligula, and Pee-wee Herman.
But why? Surely, it’s not based on my bedroom performance.
Then I see the reason toward the end of the letter and open my laptop to verify.
Fuck. It’s true. My bank foreclosed on her parents’ house.
No wonder she was so hostile toward me in the beginning. And so anti-business.
But how does that mesh with what we’ve been doing?
Blood leaves my face.
Is it possible she decided on the most twisted form of revenge—to get me to care for her, then read me this horrible soliloquy?
I reread the note again, anger displacing some of the shock and hurt. Then, like a masochist, I read it one more time. And once more.
After I read it for the hundredth time, I shove the paper into my pocket and stride out of the room.
Lilly and I are going to have words.