Chapter 43 Andrea #2
I was my own person, and he knew it.
So why had he decided to do this?
He pulled back slightly and rested his hands on his knees, looking at me. “Andy, slow down, please. I can see you’re upset, but—”
“Don’t.” I held up a hand. “Don’t minimize this so you can feel okay about it.”
“I’m not. I’m trying to understand what you’re accusing me of.”
Did he think using that special ultra-calm tone was going to fix this, like I was some sort of highly-strung filly?
“You bought my painting.”
“No, I didn’t.”
I laughed. “So Sebastian’s wrong, is he?”
“Sebastian?” he said. “Babe, I haven’t—”
“Roth Holdings Limited,” I said. “That’s your company, isn’t it?” Did he think I was too stupid to realize? I’d even looked it up on Companies House to check.
“I didn’t buy your painting, babe,” he said, slowly. “I swear to you. If Roth Holdings was involved, then I don’t know anything about it.”
“Right.” I leaned back against the arm of the sofa. “You’re so rich, seventeen K on an invoice doesn’t even register.”
“Andrea—”
“We’re using full names like weapons now, are we?”
“But you just—” He stopped.
No way he didn’t know. He’d even asked me in the supermarket when I was finding out about the sale. Like asking a child what they wanted for Christmas when you’d already bought their present.
Heat surged in my cheeks.
Fuck this. I’d made a mistake. I’d got too close, started relying on someone for the first time since Dad … and he was already overstepping.
How could he not have known what this would mean to me?
“Andy. It’s possible something went through that I didn’t know about. It happens. I’m not always across every little—”
“Sure. Like you weren’t across the redundancies, either?”
As soon as I’d said it, I knew that was what had been hiding underneath all along. It had been gnawing at me since France, when I’d fallen breathlessly into his arms in the cottage.
So keen to turn away my gaze, to ignore what he was doing to my friends.
“A man like Liam couldn’t get to where he is today without leaving some damage behind him.”
And that damage was my friends.
What else had he done that I didn’t know about?
From the kitchen, Mr. Darcy mewed.
“What does that have to do with what we’re discussing, Andrea?”
There it was. All formal. The return of the cyborg.
“It has everything to do with what we’re discussing.”
“How so?”
“You, Liam. It’s what you do, isn’t it?”
He looked at me, face blank. Then his tone lowered.
“What do I do, Andrea?”
“You decide. For everyone. Whether they want you to, or not.”
You take away the choice. You carry the load. You don’t let me be the strong one.
And that means I’m vulnerable.
“That’s bullshit, Andy.”
“Is it? Because from where I’m sitting, that’s what it looks like.”
“Andrea, you actually don’t know what—”
“Novexia,” I said. “You decided it was fine just to pull it apart. Because it let you do what you decided was the right thing. That people far away are more important than the ones right in front of you. You decided the collateral damage was acceptable.”
“That’s not—”
“Yes, it is. All you, your decision. Who gets to keep paying their mortgage and who doesn’t. Who’s useful and who’s not. Who gets cushioned with an NDA and who gets kicked to the curb like a—like an old kebab.”
“Like a … kebab?”
“Whatever. You move people around like chess pieces. You use your money to buy compliance. Silence. Whatever it is you need.”
Hugo, Sebastian, the Novexia board of directors. Even Karl at the clothing store. Everyone could be bought—influenced—by his money.
And I’ve taken his money too. I’m no better.
I felt a lump in my throat.
“What do you tell yourself to sleep at night? That it was ‘expedient’?” I bracketed the word in air quotes. “That you were just ‘optimizing’?”
“Andrea, that’s not fair.”
“It’s not fair to the people whose lives you’re blowing apart.”
Kelly facing debt collectors, moving back with her dangerous ex because she had nowhere else to stay. Monish unable to look Priya in the eye because he had to pull their kids out of school.
No, they weren’t bleeding on a battlefield.
But didn’t their pain count for something, too? Why couldn’t he hold both of those pieces of the picture in his hands at the same time? Why did it have to be one or the other?
“Novexia wouldn’t survive if I didn’t.”
“It was doing just fine before you came along.”
He looked down, fists clenched on his knees.
“Andrea. Stop. You’re not making any sense.”
“I think I’m making perfect sense.” I glared at him.
“This is my job,” he said. “I make decisions. Sometimes there isn’t a clean option. Sometimes you choose the least bad one.”
“Right,” I said. “Well, whatever helps you live with yourself.” And I thought I was falling in love with this man.
“You’re acting like I’ve done something to you, Andrea.” His eyes were cold. “I haven’t.”
“You have, though. And it’s exactly the same. You decided for me that I needed saving. That it would be better if I didn’t have to wonder whether I could cut it as an artist, to sit with the risk that my painting might not sell. So you decided you’d remove that.”
“As I said before—”
“No, Liam.” I felt my eyes start to well up. “You took the only thing that mattered to me. I didn’t need you to make it safe. I needed the answer.”
The sound of keys in the lock cut through the room.
The door opened. Eliza’s voice drifted in from the hallway.
“Hey! I’m home—oh. Sorry. Am I interrupting?”
“No,” I said. “Liam was just leaving.”