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I couldn’t even bring myself to text him. His potential response churned my stomach, and I couldn’t handle the idea of seeing it right away. E-mail would have to do.
I wrote out something short and sweet, a quick message to let him know that he should find someone to take Lucas for the weekend so he wouldn’t need to worry about coming and going from his apartment. I wrote out the times, the schedules, their names, and the locations. I wanted to change every single one to my name, to my address. But I didn’t.
I stared at it for far too long before hitting send.
Chapter 18
Adrian
Ichecked my watch as I shoved my laptop into my bag. I had about two hours until I was expected at my date, and I couldn’t have dreaded it more.
Grace had already picked up Lucas from school and brought him back to her home in Queens. Her daughter had a son who was roughly his age and although they hadn’t seen each other in a few months, he was more than happy to spend a weekend having sleepovers with him. But I still needed to get up to my floor and change, still needed to pull myself together.
I could handle it.
An unexpected, angry knock at my door had me spinning on the spot. I hadn’t pressed the buzzer. Whoever it was must have come from my wing, and considering a meeting had just let out…
For fucks sake.
“What do you want, Andrew?” I asked, pulling open the door and taking a step back to let him in.
“Do you realize the shit you’ve got us in?” he snapped. His glasses were too low on his nose, and he stared at me over them as they bounced with every word from his mouth. “You disappeared during one of the most important weekends of the year. You didn’t get anyone to cover for you. You barely gavenotice. We had to fuckingscramble.” The door slammed shut behind him.
I truly fucking hated Andrew.
“Something came up with my son last minute.” I shrugged. “You may be a board member, Andy, but you don’t have control over me. I saw the reports from the weekend. Everything went fine.”
“Because ofme,” he hissed. Spittle collected on the sides of his ginger mustache. “Because I took time away from my family to be at that event all shitting weekend.”
“You think I don’t do that every single time we have an important event? My son iseight, Andrew, yours is twenty-four.” I threw my laptop bag over my shoulder and huffed out an exhausted sigh. I could have walked around him if I wanted, could have walked away from the situation, but I just couldn’t be bothered. “If you have a problem with how I’m running things, take it to the board.”
“If it happens again, I will. You’re clearly far too focused on other things to lead this company properly.”
I blinked at him. “You realize you sound insane, right? I took a weekend off to be with my son. This ismycompany. I felt comfortable leaving it to Michael and you to handle, and it went fine. It’s not like I took some out-of-the-blue two-week vacation playing golf like half of the CEOs in this city.”
Andrew shook his head, his glasses bouncing again. “And you realize that I have the majority of shares in this company, right? Besides you. My vote will sway the board.”
“Fucking try, then,” I laughed. “Try.”
————
I was back to square one with Ava, and all I’d done was touch her cheek.
Every second that I spent getting ready, riding the elevator, getting in the back of the car, sitting in traffic, she swarmed my thoughts, claimed her territory in my head, and took up residence. The grave I’d dug for her was fully unearthed and packed back in, and she sat atop it in her dark blue satin pajama set, boring a hole through my fucking skull.
I couldn’tstopthinking of her. I thought of her playing with Lucas, thought of her at five in the morning in my lap on the boat, thought of her staring at that fucking shark’s tooth, thought of her almost crying on the porch, thought of her not telling me to stop that final night. I thought of the way she laughed when Lucas hounded her with questions, thought of the way her breath hitched when I touched her throat.
I thought of her, and her, and her.
The closer we got, the more I wished that I wasn’t meeting this Heather. I wanted it to be Ava, and I didn’t want to have to worry about doing this anymore—I wanted my weekend to be her, and only her.
But I would do it. I’d do it despite feeling like it was wrong. I’d meet Heather at least, and go from there, see how I felt when she introduced herself. This,noneof this, was ultimately for me, and I had to take that into consideration.
I stepped out of the car one block from the photography gallery. Sitting in a barely moving car for another ten minutes when I could walk it in two seemed absurd, and if I could just get the worst part of this out of the way, I’d be fine.
I’d befine.
Chapter 19
