Chapter 39 guānxì #2
She smiled and let go of my hand. “I believe in you. Now! Where is Juliette? I should probably raise myself from the dead and go find at least a little nibbly and then some bubbly before the party.” She wiggled her eyebrows and slowly got to her feet.
I went to fetch her walker from the kitchen and met her halfway, before she took it and quietly motioned for me to get going with Cyrus.
“I will,” I mouthed with hopefully convincing enthusiasm, and she gave me a silent thumbs-up and left down the hall.
My fake smile dropped as I turned back to him. He was arguing with someone on the phone, his hands waving frantically, though he never raised his voice. He was the thoughtful, analytical sort of arguer. I felt bad for whoever was on the other end of that call.
He stepped aside as a group of guests passed him up the stairs to the veranda, and I nodded at them with a hello.
As partygoers trickled in, most of them decided to stroll the grounds.
The gardens were busier than I ever remembered them.
There was laughter in the Rose Court and the race of feet in the Hedges.
There was a family—I think I recognized Nicole from the grocery—under the ancient oak in the Central Garden, posing for photos in front of the waterfall of honey-suckles that had finally bloomed.
I wished I could stop and soak it in, because this was how Lilymoor was supposed to be enjoyed, and Cyrus just . . . was oblivious to it all.
As if he could sense me staring, he glanced up at me over his shoulder, and with an annoyed frown, he put his hand up to block the receiver. “What?” he asked quietly.
The coldness of his voice felt like a knife in my stomach, though since I knew exactly how warm his voice could get, it didn’t feel as painful as it might have. “Your aunt told me to show you around the gardens.”
He looked like he was about to say something, and then told whoever was on the phone, “I’ll check with my assistant and call you back,” and deposited his phone into his suit pocket again. “You don’t have to. I’ve seen them before,” he said to me. “I’m sure you did a good job—what’s that noise?”
I blinked. “What noise?” And then I heard it, too.
The unmistakable sound of a goose snaking her way through the underbrush. Then silence.
“Oh,” I said, “you should probably—”
Damnit launched herself from the heart of a hydrangea bush. The next moments were a blur of curses (“Damn it, Damnit!”) and the pecking of shins.
I quickly cried, “Up the stairs!”
Flustered, he scrambled up beside me. In his rush, his glasses fell out of his breast pocket. I quickly grabbed them before Damnit could and scurried up to the top of the stairs again.
The goose hissed at the bottom, thwarted once more.
Cyrus scowled down at the animal. “She knows me! I don’t know why she does this.”
“Doesn’t matter,” I supplied.
As if in agreement, the goose honked again. A poor unsuspecting guest wandered into the Central Gardens from the Lily Walk, saw the goose, and turned right around again, but it was much too late. Damnit was off after him, too.
“At least she’s an equal opportunity hater,” I said.
The slightest hint of a laugh escaped him, and then as soon as he heard it he came back to himself. I returned his glasses to his breast pocket without even thinking. He glanced down at the too-familiar touch.
I quickly jumped away from him. “Sorry! Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” he mumbled, and tucked his glasses down a little farther into his pocket. A thoughtful look crossed his face. He said, “We can say you showed me the gardens and be done with this?”
This. As in me. As in the situation. I remembered him saying that if not for the garden, he wouldn’t have given me the time I deserved. It was glaringly obvious that he felt very little was worth it here.
I shifted on my feet awkwardly. “If you want. I don’t want to waste your time.”
“You did say it would be a waste,” he replied drolly.
I caught his gaze, searching it for any sign of my Rus. “Was I wrong, Rus?”
“Cyrus,” he corrected, smoothing down the front of his suit jacket, picking a piece of invisible lint off his sleeve. “We’re not that familiar.”
Embarrassment burned my cheeks. “Cyrus, sorry.”
His lips pressed into a thin line. Finally, he said, “And whether or not this night is going to be a waste of my time has yet to be decided, Miss Drear.”
“Sophie, please,” I said. “And the party’s starting soon.
Juliette ordered a great fondue and Wykofski’s mad talented on the banjo, you won’t wanna miss it.
” If he was in the Willow Grove, he would be surrounded by people and hopefully distracted from the gardens.
I checked my watch. Golden hour wasn’t for another thirty minutes, so he was at least safe until then. “I can walk you there if you want.”
“I know where the Willow Grove is. I don’t need a babysitter,” he said.
“Darn, and here I was going to lead you off the cliffs,” I said. He gave me another one of those unreadable looks, and I added, “I’m joking. Mostly.”
He softened a bit at the edges. Maybe it was my imagination, but his voice sounded a little gentler as he said, “Your new contract is on Eula’s desk. Before you decide to stay, I would suggest you read it.” Then he stepped past me into the house, and that was it.
No goodbye. No Nice to meet you.
He was just gone.
I closed my eyes and counted to ten, just to let him get far enough away that I could go up to Eula’s bedroom. The counting also helped ground me. The ache was sharp at one, but by ten it had turned bittersweet. Because the memories were still mine.
They’d always be mine.
So I went upstairs to Eula’s bedroom, glad for the quiet.
Rus was gone, and I glanced out the window to make sure he was making his way toward the party in the Willow Grove.
He must have decided to go out the front door to avoid Damnit altogether and walk around the side of the house and through the Lily Walk.
I couldn’t blame him. But while he didn’t run into Damnit, he did meet Wykofski, and it looked like they were making introductions.
It also looked like Cyrus wanted to eject himself into the sun.
Eula’s bedroom was bright with late-afternoon light, and I checked on her pothos and snake plants and ivy before I headed over to her desk. My heart thundered in my throat.
I opened my folder and looked at the contract, expecting to see something hideous, but it was a good one with more pay and health benefits—even dental.
It was only until January, but there was a stipulation that suggested that it could be extended if my employer needed me.
The wording gave me pause, and I closed the folder again.
My last contract stated Eula by name. It was sobering that this one didn’t.
Beside my new contract was another folder, and at first I thought that maybe that was another one for me to sign, but when I opened it I realized it wasn’t for me at all.
The paper was old and yellowed. It only took scanning it to realize what it was—Eula’s will.
The one she’d talked about last night. Underneath it was a newer will, fresh off the printer.
I’m not a good man, Rus had warned.
There was a willow cutting, its leaves dark bluish green, and a note attached to the top of it, written in an elegant scrawling hand—
I know you had a great vision of the two of us carrying this place, but this is better.
In it, he’d written himself completely out of the inheritance and named Oliver the sole beneficiary.
The willow meant sadness in the language of flowers, as if this was something he wanted but didn’t think he deserved to have.
Ache squeezed my heart. Eula had a good plan, but everyone just kept getting in their own way.
Oliver and his grudges, Rus and his guilt, Eula and her grief—
Rus didn’t want this. He couldn’t want this, not really.
But it wasn’t my decision, and there were some things that I couldn’t make grow even if I wanted.
Closing the folder again, I turned and left down the stairs, the contract unsigned.