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“What matters is what happened afterward.”
Her face crumpled for a split second and then cleared.
“Holland . . .” It felt like my heart might split in my chest at the sadness written in her eyes.
She shook her head and pulled her hand away. “No, sorry.” She took a long sip of her drink and then sat back in her chair, putting distance between us, or maybe just getting distance from the topic. “The point is, I get it. It’s a hard thing to get your head around, no matter how much time you have to think on it.”
I nodded, wanting to do so much more. I hated the hurt I saw on her face, the question that lived in those eyes. How had anyone ever let her go?
“I’m just saying . . . to find out so late . . . that would be hard.” She cocked her head to the side. “When they told you, how did they explain waiting so long?”
For a split second I couldn’t speak as the truth welled up in my throat, choking me. I swallowed hard and chased the bile with a sip of whiskey. “They didn’t tell me. Ever. The lawyer did when he went through the paperwork.”
She sat up straight, looking like a lightning bolt had gone through her. “Oh God.”
I could feel the darkness threatening at the edges of my mind and I shook my head, trying to clear theanger away, but it didn’t help. My hand gripped my glass hard. “They lied to me my whole life. They let me believe in something that wasn’t even true—never told me where I came from, who I really belonged to . . .” I squeezed my eyes shut, remembering how much it had hurt when I’d first learned about it, how hard it had been to process this new reality. My entire life had been a fucking lie. A fucking pile of lies.
“Oliver, no.” Holland’s hand was on mine again, her voice pleading as she leaned in, pulling me back from the edge of the darkness. “I don’t know why they didn’t tell you . . . but I do know something else, something really important.” She squeezed my fingers and waited until I met her eye. “Oliver . . . they wanted you. They loved you. Chose you.” It was a whisper, and her voice broke as the words slipped from her perfect lips.
I looked up to find tears welling in her eyes, and the darkness inside me cleared, forgotten, as I took in her pain and wondered how to make it disappear.
“No one ever chose me.” Her eyes shut and the tears squeezed past her lashes, rolling in lines down the pale skin.
Oh God.Seeing Holland upset had hit me hard, but seeing her cry? It almost broke me. I stood up and moved to her side, gathering her into my chest and burying my head in her hair, not caring where we were or who might be nearby. “I do,” I whispered into her hair. “I choose you.”
I wanted to take Holland home with me that night, but she refused. She insisted that she was fine, but that she needed time to think. I let her go,hoping against hope that she’d come back to me, that I hadn’t lost my chance to make those incredible eyes shine again.
The next morning, I headed into my office. I flashed my badge at the security guards, who both seemed to struggle not to look surprised at my appearance for the second day in a row.
“Mr. Cody,” they said as I walked to the elevators.
When the doors slid open at reception, I walked directly to the tall desk where the young receptionist appeared to be frozen, her eyes wide.
“Good morning,” I said.
“Mr. Cody,” she said, her voice soft. She didn’t try to hand me messages or tell me anything else, so I smiled at her and turned to walk to my office.
Pamela lifted her head of long brown hair and watched me approach. I saw something like relief cross her face, and imagined she must have been wondering if I’d be back today. I stopped in front of her desk, finding it hard not to grin at her. “Good morning, Pamela.”
“Mr. Cody,” she said, a faint twinkle in her eye. “It’s nice to have you back.”
I nodded. It was nice to be back, actually. Something had clicked back into place inside me, and the world seemed less drab, less drained of life.
“I’ll get you some coffee if you’d like, and then when you’re ready, we can review your day and go over a few of your more urgent messages.” Pamela was standing now, and she pulled open the door to my office, looking a bit uncertain. “I mean, if you’re really back. Like, back to work.”I got the sense she’d been waiting all day yesterday for me to bolt again, but now she was willing to risk believing I might stay.
“I am. Thanks,” I said, walking into the wide space overlooking Santa Monica. It was like seeing it all again for the first time. The day before, after the excitement of the MLB meeting, I hadn’t really taken it all in. My desk, my low leather couch, even my cup full of pens—it was all exactly as I’d left it months ago. It was strange to see this space without seeing Adam here. We’d spent so much time in this office, strategizing, planning. I bit back an ache of sadness and took off my coat, slinging it over one of the chairs facing the desk. “Whenever you’re ready,” I told Pamela.
“I’ll give you fifteen minutes to get settled,” she said, and then turned and left the room, closing the door behind her. I had no doubt there was a buzz just beyond that door. I knew the secretaries were probably talking in hushed voices and that Rob had been alerted to my presence for the second day in a row. Rob should have come bursting through the door, but he didn’t. I returned to the many emails that had been sitting way too long in my inbox.
Pamela returned with the promised coffee and settled herself across from me, where she began reviewing everything I’d missed in a competent, straightforward manner, as if I’d just been on vacation, not away having a nervous breakdown.
Most of the morning passed that way, with my secretary’s clear voice explaining in plain terms not just the correspondence I’d missed, but describing some of the political issues that had floated around the executive floor in my absence as well. When she wounddown, I leaned forward and thanked her. “I appreciate you staying in my absence,” I told her. “I won’t be taking off any more time. And you can expect a raise.”
She ducked her head when I said this, surprise coloring her cheeks before she hid her face from my view. I had the sense she didn’t want me to see her reaction to this news. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“I need you to arrange something else as well,” I told her. Then I described the transfer that would need to be orchestrated through human resources, the move of one Holland O’Dell from sales to analytics. “I’ll give you the details of what I have in mind.”
“I’m not sure they’ll believe I have the authority to request that,” Pamela said. She was grinning, though, as if hearing about Holland’s promotion affected her personally.
