Chapter 31
By the time Viv dropped me back at my apartment building at 7 p.m., I was so tired I could’ve dropped to the gum-covered sidewalk and slept a full twelve hours. The paperwork Lacey made us go through with the company lawyer had taken almost two hours, and I’d then had to send it on to my attorney and go through it all over again in case they found something I didn’t agree with.
Then the staging at the condo on Elm had turned out to be a disaster. I’d told the designer it needed to be monochrome and they’d taken the initiative to decorate it as a western saloon, complete with bull horns and cowhide rug.
After a heated debate, they’d agreed to fix it by the next day, but it had made me late for my first listing appointment, which careered into the second. Viv brought me a taco that I ate between the chaos.
Walking in my front door, I took a deep breath. Home. I had paperwork to do, but I could prop my laptop on the bath tray as I soaked.
My cell rang, and I clicked accept. “Hi.”
“Hi, can I speak to Mrs. Bigshot?”
“Speaking.” I slipped my heels off and padded through to the bathroom.
“Wanted to let you know I’ll be leaving to pick you up in five minutes,” he purred.
I sat on the edge of the bath. “Pick me up?”
I heard a shuffle of hangers on his end. “Yeah, the thing at my work, remember? You said you’d come with me.”
Damnit. The event a big client of his was throwing. He’d asked me a few days ago, and between the sex and becoming the boss, it had slipped my mind.
I poured a huge dollop of lavender bubble bath under the running water. “Listen, do you mind if I don’t go? I just got home, and I’m beat.”
A long pause. “But you promised.”
An image of Denzel that day on the balcony flashed in front of me. “Yeah, I know I did, but today has been hectic.”
“Yeah, my day’s been crazy as well, but if I’d promised to show up to something for you, I’d be there.”
His tone almost gave my ear frostbite through the phone. “Sorry, I didn’t realize it would be such a big deal.” I turned the water off. “I can throw something on?—”
He cut me off. “That’s what my ex used to say. I went to her dentist’s birthday party, and she couldn’t show up for my mom’s birthday dinner,” he scoffed down the phone.
It was on the tip of my tongue to say he sounded whinier than my ex. “I’m not her.”
“Course not. Look, I gotta go. Talk to you tomorrow.”
The bleep told me he’d hung up.
I turned the tap back on then stormed through to undress, throwing my clothes into the hamper like it was Jack’s face.
This was why I hated relationships. The guilt. Being responsible for someone else’s happiness and the cause of their sadness. Having someone need me when I wanted to stretch out and do what I needed to do. The way I’d spent my whole life—star-fishing in an empty bed.
That thirty-second conversation dulled the shine of the last twenty-four hours, and rather than lazing in the bath, sipping a vodka, and writing up contracts, I watched an episode of Jersey Shore on my iPad and checked my phone every few seconds, expecting Jack to text a GIF. Or a joke. Something.
I knew I owed him an apology for more than just skipping an event, but after that tone, he wouldn’t be getting one. He could text me first.
When he hadn’t texted by the time my fingers were pruning, I washed my hair with such ferocity that I pulled a clump out in my hand.
Fucking men. I scowled in the mirror, burning my scalp with the heat of the hairdryer. No wonder Viv had switched to women.
* * *
The frostiness I’d felt on the phone continued the next morning when we met up to discuss the deal sheets and strategize on the remaining units. Rather than meet at The Crystal, we met at that bakery halfway between our offices again. I’d left Viv back at the office to tackle the social-media marketing for The Crystal so I could try to catch up with everything else.
Jack was seated at the same table as before when I arrived, a half-finished coffee in front of him and a pinched look on his face. “Morning.”
I requested a coffee from the waitress and plopped into the seat. “Morning.” I felt exhausted after a restless night’s sleep, where I’d checked my phone every ten minutes despite it being on the loudest ring setting. “How did last night go?”
“Good,” he clipped, opening his laptop. “So we’ve got four other?—”
I placed my hand over his on the table. “I’m sorry about last night.” And taking David’s business from you. And also not telling you.
He looked down at it and back up at me. “Are you sorry?”
“You think I find it easy to apologize?” I squeezed his knuckles. “I’m saying it because I mean it, and I don’t want tension between us. Unless it’s the good kind.”
Jack put his other hand over mine. “Me either. Last night was a compete washout. I kept wanting to call you, but my pride wouldn’t let me.”
“And I kept waiting for that call,” I admitted.
“We’re both stubborn idiots. It’s not gonna be the last time we argue,” he told me. “That’s what happens when you’re dating.”
“So we’re dating?” A shiver ran up my spine.
He raised an eyebrow. “Unless you plan on seeing other people?”
I shook my head. “God, no. You are more than enough.” I’d never wanted to be a serial dater for the mere fact it took me long enough to find someone I could stand to be around longer than one dinner. What about when he finds out you landed David and didn’t tell him? Shut up, brain, and let me be happy for a second.
“Well, now that we’ve decided we’re not going to have mind-blowing sex with other people, let’s get back to work.” He swiveled the laptop around to show me his spreadsheet.
“Yeah, I have to meet my sister for lunch in an hour, so I need this wrapped up,” I told him, opening my laptop to the floor plan of the remaining units. After paying the bill last week, I’d promised Hailey to make our lunch a weekly thing, come hell or high water. She was all the family I had in this world.
Note to self: Call Mr. Anderson for brunch this Sunday.
For the next hour, we strategized and cross-checked the remaining units. With three weeks to go, we were left with just eight. A lot less than what we’d expected at this stage.
He’s going to have the commission from The Crystal to help his family out, I told myself to stifle the guilt as Jack looked at me over his screen. He doesn’t need the future business.
We were wrapping up to leave when David called my cell for an update. The restaurant where I always met Hailey was on the other side of town, and right now my ass should have been in a cab on the way there.
I put the call on speaker and let him know Jack was with me, thinking it would speed up things. Instead, the conversation dragged on for another fifteen minutes as I hopped from foot to foot. Jack tried to cut the conversation short several times, knowing I needed to go, but David Steel had decided today he wanted to go into the minutiae. I texted Hailey that I would be late but to please wait for me as David quizzed us on the finishes for the Goldsmith contract.
My foot was halfway in a cab when he rang off, and I didn’t even stop to kiss Jack on the cheek. Hailey was going to kick my ass.
* * *
The booth stood empty and, for a fleeting second, I let myself pretend Hailey had gotten locked in the bathroom stall. Until I noticed no jacket or bag had been left behind. There wasn’t even an open menu on the table.
She was gone.
“Can I help you?” The hostess hovered by my side.
I pointed at the table. “Sorry, I’m supposed to meet my sister here. She’s tall, black hair?”
Please let her still be here.
“Oh yeah, I put her here. But I haven’t seen her leave. Maybe she’s in the bathroom?”
In answer to my prayers, Hailey appeared from the bathroom at the opposite end of the restaurant and walked straight out the front door.
“Hailey,” I called, attracting the attention of other diners.
When she didn’t turn around, I ran after her, feeling the old pink carpet crunch under my heels. Why did my life feel like an endless chase? I’d need to trade my Kat Maconie pumps for sneakers.
Lucky for me, Hailey didn’t walk like a New Yorker. She ambled along and stepped out the way of people who wouldn’t think twice about knocking her over. It made catching up to her a piece of cake. “Hailey, will you wait?” I grabbed her shoulder.
She stopped and threw my hand off. “What?”
My shoulders curled over my chest. “I’m so sorry,” I told her. Today was becoming my apology tour.
Hailey’s lips pressed into a white slash. “I sat there for almost an hour, Scarlett. The waitress thought I’d been stood up on a blind date.”
“Look, I got?—”
Her eyes narrowed to slits. She looked like Mom that day on the curb. “Sidetracked? Caught up? That’s the thing, Scarlett. You never plan on being late or unreachable or a damn ghost. But you are. And everyone is supposed to sit around and wait because of your big fancy job. My time is just as valuable as yours. I cancelled a doctor’s appointment I waited three weeks for.”
I tried again. “Look, I don’t know what else?—”
She pulled her handbag tighter to her chest. “Maybe Denzel had a point.”
Those words were a red rag to a bull. “What the fuck does that mean?”
Hailey’s knuckles turned white around the cord handle. “It means he always complained about you not showing up or forgetting to call him back for days. Because of your job. That job is not the be-all and end-all, Scarlett.”
Of all people, my sister was supposed to understand. I’d been alone once she went to Arizona State to earn a degree in social work. Then I’d made my way to Rutgers to major in business, made possible with the help of financial aid because I didn’t have proud parents that had saved since I was a baby. Four years of cramming every nugget of information into my brain and working three jobs to come home to a cramped dorm with a roommate who snored so loud, it almost made the walls shake. I’d vowed then that I would never have a roommate again.
All of that so I could get this job and create the life five-year-old me never got to experience. Money didn’t buy happiness, but it could buy a home that could never be taken away.
Here comes the tension migraine. “That’s not fair. You know my job is?—”
She pinched the bridge of her nose, just like I always did. “More important than anyone else’s? Yeah, I know. We all know. My kids don’t even call you Auntie Scarlett anymore because they never see you, because of your job.”
“You know why I’m doing this.” Blood pounded in my ears.
Her face flushed. “Because of Mom? Face it, Scarlett, you’re not any different. She put herself first and got rid of anything that stopped her from doing what she wanted to.”
My heart cracked like an Easter egg on a concrete step. “Bullshit.”
Hailey would never cause a scene in public. She avoided any confrontation in general because I’d fight her battle if anyone messed with her. But this was a side of her I’d never seen before.
She released the hand gripping her bag and stabbed a finger into my chest. “No, it’s fucking not. You don’t come visit, you don’t call. Viv told me you made partner. Not you. And like an idiot, I’m here to congratulate you, and you’re too busy swanning around to show up on time.”
My eyes watered. “What else do you want me to say? I don’t have a husband or kids or even a fuckin’ cat. This job is all I have.”
She removed a white envelope from her bag and slapped it against my chest. “You’re right, it is. Congratulations.”