AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She’d gone to Griffith’s office to bring up the contract again. She knew it was wrong, knew he’d told her to stay away. But a text Mr. Nettleton had sent yesterday had come through, demanding to know why she hadn’t sent him a daily report. It hadn’t been too hard to imagine the barrage of missed calls, texts and emails that would be waiting for her when she finally got back into an area of full service. It had galvanized her to action.
The last two days had been spent distracting herself with work, reviewing documents she had thankfully packed in her briefcase for the new clients she would take on after she completed the Lykaois contract. She had told herself she just needed to give Griffith time to adjust to her being at the chateau. That one day she would come down and he would at least be in the hall, the kitchen, somewhere other than hiding away.
This had marked the third morning she’d come down to an eerily empty house. Nettleton’s text, combined with her exasperation over Griffith’s immature behavior, had spurred her on as she’d climbed the stairs to the third floor. It had been long enough since their last encounter over the contract. Surely, he could take five minutes and listen to his options.
Except he hadn’t. And then he’d been cruel. Like a wounded animal lashing out. His pain touched her empathetic nature, tugged at the strands of her own grief of losing her mother.
But it had also done what he’d intended it to do. Hurt her until she had no choice but to turn away before she let him see just how deeply his words affected her. How his insinuation about her career path chipped away at her already eroding self-confidence. How his accusation that she would use her mother’s death to connect with him and entice him to sell struck at her heart.
As she walked down the path, she glanced to her left. A small tunnel of ivy beckoned to her, curving just a few feet ahead so she couldn’t see what lay at the end.
Needing something, anything, to distract her, she stepped inside. Coolness enveloped her as the thick netting of ivy shut out the sunlight. She followed the twists and turns of the tunnel, running her fingers over the thick, smooth leaves.
Slowly, she became aware of a dull roaring. Anticipation built as the sound grew louder and the ivy began to thin. She turned another corner, saw the sunlight up ahead and, beyond that, the beautiful blue of the sea.
She emerged onto a plateau thick with wild grasses and flowers. Wind rose up over the nearby cliffs, tumbled across the plain and stirred the stalks of grass into a frenzy.
Mindful of the cliff’s edge, she walked until she was twenty feet or so away from it. Being unfamiliar with the terrain, she had no desire to end this eventful journey with the ground suddenly giving way and falling into the ocean.
A glimmer of white caught her eye. Turning, her breath caught.
A couple kilometers down the coast, the ocean curved into a shallow bay. The plateau jutted out far enough that she could see a sandy beach backed by soaring white cliffs and topped with green grass. The cliffs nearest to her jutted out into the ocean and formed an arch. Beyond that, at the far end of the beach, a single pillar of white jutted up from the waves, the top narrowing into a point.
The setting from the painting. Even though the painting had been stunning, it didn’t hold a candle to the view in front of her.
It was odd to see the cluster of buildings beyond that. To know there were people so close and yet so far away.
Her lips curved up. Even if she lost her job, lost the respect of her family and friends back home, she would have moments like these to remember from her chaotic adventure. Moments that made her feel...content. Peaceful. Like herself.
She wrapped her arms around her waist. If the worst happened and she did lose her job, the hardest part would be telling her father. It had been her parents’ dream for her to go to college, to travel and see the world. Since Rosalind had entertained those dreams herself, it hadn’t bothered her much that her parents had been so adamant about certain things. Her ability to find the good had helped, too. Even when something hadn’t felt quite right, had felt more like a wish of her parents’ rather than her own, she hadn’t known what she wanted enough to take a different path.
But now, as she faced the truth that she wanted something far different than what her parents had envisioned for her, she was also confronting the very real possibility of letting her father down. Of seeing his face crumple as he realized his daughter wouldn’t be a powerful attorney at a distinguished law firm in London. That she might very well own a hole-in-the-wall office helping single parents and grandmothers instead of wealthy CEOs and political powerhouses. Barely scraping by but being fulfilled by the good she was doing.
She’d never disappointed her family before. Didn’t want to.
But she also didn’t want to keep living like this. Working hard, then harder, then harder still, all for something far in the future and missing the present.
She glanced back at the chateau, at the numerous gleaming windows and polished stone. The kind of place she would have described as a fairy-tale castle.
Right now, though, it seemed little better than a gilded prison.
A shudder passed through her. If Griffith Lykaois wanted to hide here from the media attention, that was his choice. He was punishing himself. For what, she had no idea. The news reports had all stated that Griffith had had a green light. That the driver, whose blood alcohol level had been triple the legal limit, had torn through the intersection and only applied the brakes a second before the crash.
His mother had passed from some sort of illness. Something also out of Griffith’s control. Yet based off the articles she’d read, his indulgent lifestyle had started a few months after his mother’s death.
She sighed. Slid off the flats she’d found in the trunk and savored the feel of cool earth and soft grass beneath her bare feet as she’d chosen to in the rose garden earlier. It grounded her, gave her a moment of much-needed pleasure as her mind tried to piece everything together.
None of it was her business. Just like going into his private domain had been none of her business, she realized that. Yes, she’d been angry. And growing bored. But there had been books scattered throughout the house. Other rooms she could have explored. Garden paths she hadn’t ventured down. A beautiful kitchen with plenty of food and ingredients. She had chosen work, as always, over taking time to relax, to do exactly what she had been saying she wanted to do and enjoy herself.
And then she had given her dratted boss even more power by letting his text get to her and spur her to action. Instead of waiting, of hanging out in the kitchen or one of the main rooms Griffith would have to pass through eventually, she’d violated his request and intruded on his privacy.
She sighed. Four days to go. If she left Griffith alone, gave him space the next few days, perhaps by the time the bridge was repaired they would both be in better places to at least have a conversation about the contract.
You’re in the wrong business...
Had he seen how much those words had twisted her up inside? How much they’d torn at her rapidly growing doubts?
No, she wasn’t good at working with clients like him. Big clients with big reputations and even bigger bank accounts, the kind who brought prestige to a firm like Nettleton & Thompson. She preferred working with the grandmother who wanted to divide up her assets fairly among her grandchildren. The parents who worried about providing for a son with health concerns once they passed. The husband confronted with his mortality too soon who wanted his wife and children to be financially stable.
