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Only silence filled the space between us.
Ten seconds later, Evan’s voice asked. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m waiting.”
“Pizza takes a few minutes to cook.”
I opened my eyes but focused on my lap to avoid the pain of looking at him. “I get it that I was a little too strong, a lot too strong, with your Dad. I’m waiting for the speech.”
“Speech?”
I looked up. “The it’s-been-nice-knowing you-but-I-have-family-responsibilities speech.”
He broke out in a laugh. “Is that what you think? After that you’re giving up without a fight?”
I lowered my eyes to the table. It hurt too much to say this while looking at him. “I heard what your father said. I heard it all, the whole exchange from when you walked in. I know what he thinks of me and what you have to do to keep your job.”
“And you think I want to send you on your way?”
Tears threatened again. “It’s the logical move.”
He shook his head and unscrewed one of the wine spritzer bottles. “I should have figured a girl from your side of the river would get it all wrong.” He slid the bottle over to me.
“Hey. That’s not fair,” I complained. “And I said water, I don't think I’m up for drinking anything right now.”
He unscrewed the cap of the other bottle and lifted it. “We're here to celebrate. They don’t have champagne here, so this was as close as I could get. It has bubbles.”
“Celebrate? Are you nuts? I just fucked up your life.”
He lifted his bottle in front of me and wiggled it urging me to replicate the move. “To Allie, the one girl strong enough to speak truth to power.”
A bit of heat rose in my cheeks from the compliment. I clinked my bottle of faux champagne with his and took an ultra small sip before putting it down. We had to get back to reality. “And now I've complicated everything for you. Your father always hated me but now he’s mad at you too.”
“That’s not important. You had the balls to stand up to him and call him on his bullshit. Nobody ever has, not even me.”
“That's the problem with you rich people. Everybody either is afraid of you or sucking up to you and nobody ever tells you the truth. But, that doesn't give him the right to be an out-and-out asshole.”
He pulled another swig from the bottle. “Did you really look up twenty years of press coverage?” He asked, extracting a pen from his pocket.
“No. But I did look up two years worth to get an idea of what you were up against with that project he gave you. I didn't find any complementary articles, but I assumed there had to be at least one per decade.”
He pulled something else from his jacket pocket—a checkbook.
I pointed my bottle at him. “What are you doing?”
He scribbled quickly, then ripped it off and handed it to me. It was made out to our fund and it had six zeros—a second million for our fund.
I wanted to complain that I hadn’t earned it because I hadn’t, but this was too precious for the children to risk that. “Why?”
He pocketed the checkbook. “Simple. Because you’re smart and blunt and gorgeous and oh so frank.” He glanced behind me. “You don’t want to be waving that around in a place like this.”
Getting the hint, I folded it up and tucked it inside my bra.
“Do that again,” he teased.
“Perv. It’s nothing you haven’t seen a million times at all those strip clubs you frequent.”
“You have a very distorted view of my life, gorgeous.”
