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Not if that other girl had listened to the rules,I think, but I don’t say it out loud. “Exactly. Now go get your favorite takeout and get some rest today. Try to shed all this negativity if you can.”
“Roxanne…” Patricia hesitates. “Do you think I could have another chance with the agency? I think I’ve learned enough from my mistakes that I could be a really good escort for you.”
Ugh, this again.The poor girl has been obsessed with working at the agency more, but she’s too much of a risk, even if she never made another mistake. Her reputation as a snitch would make it so no one would ever hire her, and she’d just be a drain on my payroll.
I shake my head and tucking a small lock of loose hair behind her ear, I say, “Focus on your studies and going to class. Once you graduate things will be easier.”
“It’d be much easiernowif I could make some extra money escorting,” she insists.
“In a few years, we’ll talk again,” I say, more firmly this time.
She looks defeated, but eventually stands and bids me goodbye, her face sullen. It’s incredible that this one girl has managed to create so much grief, but here we are. I hope the little problematic bomb that is Patricia will be out of my life sooner rather than later, but I also want her to be at peace with herself too.
It’s almost time for me to leave the office when my iPhone rings. It’s a nice change from the office phone that has been screaming at me all day, but when I see my sister's name on the screen, I have a moment of nervousness. I’ve been stressed about the news story about Karl and my agency affecting Lili and her bookstore, but nonetheless, I have to answer.
“Roxie,” Lili blurts out as soon as the call connects. “Can you come to the bookstore? It’s an emergency.”
My skin prickles. “An emergency? What do you mean?”
“Just come on!” Lili insists. “I’ll explain when you get here.”
“Lili––” Before I can say anything the line goes dead. Angrily I toss my phone down on my desk and rub my temples, trying to dispel some of the tension that has been building all day.
I have no choice but to go, but it’d have been nice to know what kind of shit show I was walking into. With my nerves raw and my mind exhausted, I grab my bag and leave, telling Poppy to lock up on her way out.
I get to the bookshop in record time. From outside, nothing looks amiss. No reporters or journalists, no caution tape or fire trucks… nothing. It looks quiet, and that almost makes me more uneasy. Whatever is waiting for me inside is a complete mystery.
As I grab the handle of the door, it pushes open from inside, and Lili slides outs of the doorway, only opening it enough to fit her body out of the gap before shutting it again. I back up a few steps, crossing my arms when I notice the sheepish look on her face.
“What exactly is going on, Lili? What emergency?”
“You’ll thank me later.” She presses the keys to the store into my hands. “Just lock up when you’re done, okay?”
Completely bewildered, I enter the dark bookshop. Instead of a fire, flood, or some other sort of disaster, there’s a man waiting for me, tall and with his hands clasped behind his back. When he turns to me, my heartbeat kicks up into a gallop, and it feels like the floor has dropped out from underneath me.
“Andries,” I breathe, my mouth suddenly dry. “Wh—what are you doing here?”
“I needed to talk to you in private,” he explains, pacing slowly in my direction. “Somewhere neutral, so I asked your sister what she thought, and she suggested using the bookshop.”
His expression is guarded, as if he expects me to just walk out the door without saying a single word. Maybe if I was tougher, I would, but there isn’t an ounce of anger in him that I can detect, and that’s a complete departure from our last face-to-face meeting.
“Okay,” I acquiesce. “What did you want to talk about?”
The breath he lets out is enormous, his shoulders sinking with the size of it. “Ah, fuck, Roxie. Everything. Nothing. I don’t even know.” He clenches and unclenches his fists at his sides, like he doesn’t know what to do with his hands.
Is Andries… Nervous?
After a minute, he seems to find his words, telling me, “I do want to thank you for everything that you’ve done with Patricia, encouraging her to make her own choice and backing her up. I know Karl was a friend of yours, or something along those lines.” He looks uncomfortable at that thought but pushes through. “It couldn’t have been easy to make the right choice, is all I’m saying.”
“I’d have never left her to fight that fight alone, especially since I was the one that offered the job that made her vulnerable in the first place. I do have to admit I didn’t think it’d blow up like this. But Karl burned his bridges with me way before this.”
He frowns at my answer and I know in that moment, I might have said too much. “What do you mean?”
I cringe, not wanting to get into it, not when I have Andries right here in front of me and there are so many other things I want to talk to him about, and so many better ways we could spend this time together. “He just wasn’t who I thought he was, that’s all.”
“Roxanne….”
“Fine,” I blow a piece of hair out of my face, collecting my thoughts. “I cut him off when I started to think that something might happen between you and me, and he didn’t take it well. After he figured out that complaining and trying to bribe me wasn’t going to work, he went quiet. I should’ve expected something then, but at that point I still thought we could come out friends in the end, which was stupid of me. Long story short, he tried to buy this place,” I motion around us at the bookshop. “He was offering way over what it was worth to the previous owner, but thank God I managed to get it back, and Karl then threatened me that Karma would get me.” I conveniently leave the part where Karl was held hostage by a hitman until he accepted my terms.
