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“Would you care for anything else while you wait?” the waiter asked.
“Looks like my friend isn’t coming and I’m going to need something to soak up this wine,” I said.
Sympathy poured over the waiter’s face as he nodded.
“Sweet or savory?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Then why don’t we do both? I’ll have the chef whip you up something original. Our chef enjoys it when he gets to experiment.”
“Sure. Why not?” I asked.
The waiter removed the plate, the glass, and the menus. And to add fuel to the fire, he removed Camilla’s place setting. My blood boiled with anger. She had no right. No right whatsoever to put me in this position. But even as angry and betrayed as I was feeling, the overwhelming summary of my conflicting emotions was confusion.
I didn’t recognize the person Camilla had turned into, and I wondered where the hell my lifelong friend had vanished to.
Logan
“Here is what we’ve found so far. The company suing you is, in fact, about to file for bankruptcy. They’ve already begun the process. In their history, none of these requests for money or financial stipulations had been brought up against other people until after that bankruptcy paperwork was filed,” Ralph said.
“Wait a second. So you’re telling me that this company is just going around to people they paid money to and trying to figure out how to get it back?” Ava asked.
“Yes, by using loopholes in their contracts. At least that’s the assumption. We don’t have proof of the contracts yet. What we do have proof of, Miss Leary, is the fact that none of these financial concerns or the desire to acquire refunds from other institutions they utilized began until the preliminary filing of this paperwork,” Ralph said.
“That’s insane. Is that enough to hold up in court?” Ava asked.
“We’d have to prove the theory solid and without a shadow of a doubt,” I said.
Ava’s eyes flickered over to mine before she went right back to speaking with Ralph. I couldn’t blame her, not after the weekend we had experienced. But I couldn’t stop staring at her. The way she had stepped up after her boss had turned pale and essentially zoned out of the conversation made her even more mesmerizing. It was as if she was taking this more seriously than her own manager, or whoever the hell Mr. Craven was. We hadn’t spoken to one another since Saturday morning, and she hadn’t taken any of my calls over the course of Sunday afternoon.
I was dying to know how she was doing. I wanted to speak with her, to sit her down and have a real conversation with her. I wanted to know if she was thinking about me the way I’d been thinking about her. I wanted to know if I was anywhere near as irresistible to her as she was to me, if she dreamed about me the way I dreamed of her. I wanted to know if she had woken up Sunday morning wanting to be in my arms. I sure as hell had wanted her there.
“So, where do we go from here? What’s the next step?” Ava asked.
“Right now we wanted to let you both know that this is the only plausible theory worth pursuing. None of the other theories checked out, though another could potentially be argued in court,” Ralph said.
“Well, if this is the only one we can prove, then we should go that route. I know my boss won’t want to attack them with anything that might not be true,” Ava said.
“We’re keeping this as clear-cut as possible because we do know that they have a possible chance of winning in court. This contract was the reason there was a stricter rewrite in the first place. I spearheaded that project, and what I should have done was retroactively update the rest of the contracts, and I didn’t. Since I feel somewhat responsible for the position we’re in, I can assure you, Miss Leary, that you have my full attention and that of my colleagues.”
“It’s not your fault, Ralph. Don’t blame yourself, okay? By the sounds of it, we aren’t the only company wrapped up in something like this. Figure it out, find the proof, and we’ll go to court well-armed if they won’t settle,” Ava said.
She was incredible, amazing to a fault. Even in the throes of a serious conversation, she had found a way to comfort someone. I couldn’t stop looking into her eyes, into those ocean-blue eyes that sat against her tanned skin. I didn’t want things to be over between us, but I understood if they were. Once the meeting adjourned and everyone began packing up, my legs moved faster than my brain did.
“Ava, wait.”
She sighed as she turned around.
“Yes, Logan?” she asked.
“Can we talk?”
“I really have to get going. I’ve got a long day ahead of me.”
