Текст книги "The Singles"
Автор книги: Emily Snow
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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 45 страниц)
Chapter 22
“I’m still pissed at you,” I informed Linc as the technician ran a test on the watch they’d placed on my wrist. “I looked up to you like you were my brother, and you used me. You used Stella, too, but I doubt she realizes that.”
Pinching the bridge of his nose, he moved his head to either side. “Gemma, I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
The technician motioned for me to move around the hotel room, and I complied, keeping my scathing focus on Linc the entire time. “Let’s just get this over with. You already have enough, so what exactly do you need me to do?”
“Make sure she admits to the embezzlement.”
Releasing a frustrated cry, I spun around to face him. “Because I can just walk in and she’ll lay all her shit out on the table.”
“No.” Linc gave me a pleading look, and for a moment, I felt horrible for giving him such a hard time about this. He wanted Margaret put away just as much as I did, but did he have to completely hoodwink me to accomplish the task? “What you’re going to do is walk in there and tell her what you know. Tell her you’re prepared to offer your silence in exchange for—”
My breath caught, and I felt a scarlet flush dance across my skin. “So go in and be a gold-digging whore?”
“Gemma—”
“Don’t worry,” I cut him off sharply. “I’m all over it.”
*
“You’re working late,” I said with a tight smile as I sauntered into Margaret’s office a few hours later. I prayed that my movements were smooth—that the tremor I felt in my muscles wasn’t present in my voice. “Getting caught up for the holidays?”
She was on the phone, and she looked up from the paperwork on her desk. “Oliver, I’ll have to call you back.” Regarding me, Margaret stretched her mouth into a thin line. “Did you leave something in the office when I sent you home for the day?”
“I did.” Reaching inside my purse, the watch on my wrist clacked against my delicate bones when I withdrew the damning documents Linc had instructed me to give her. I shoved them across the desk until they wrinkled under her palm.
“What is this?”
“Just read it.”
Lifting the pages close to her face, she studied them carefully, her back gradually stiffening with silent rage. “What do you think you’re doing, Ms. Connelly?”
“I know what you’ve been doing with the charity and company funds,” I stated confidently as I took the seat across from her, sat back, and crossed my legs. “If you can afford to give Michael Scott millions, you can afford my price. Unless, of course, you want me to go public with this.”
She flashed clenched porcelain veneers at me. “You little—”
“I’d prefer not to be called names,” I told her sharply. I pulled another piece of paper—a much smaller note—from my bag and tossed it in her direction. It fluttered to rest by her keyboard. Unfolding it, she glared down at the sum and the banking information. “Five million is a drop in the bucket for you.”
“You came to my company to spy on and extort me?” Her voice was low and dangerous, and I bit the inside of my lip.
Uncover, expose, and get the hell out of here, I reminded myself, ignoring the desire to get up and leave right then and there.
“I came here because I loved fashion. And then I found out that you’ve turned an amazing brand into a pit of lies and corruption.” I pointed to the smaller paper. “Now I want you to pay me to keep those lies and corruption all to myself.”
Breathing heavily, she flicked her thumb over the edge of the post-it. I held my breath as she considered her options. Eventually, she waved her hand almost dismissively; reminding me of all the times she’d waved me out of her office. “Done.”
I swallowed the fear in my throat. “That simple?”
“Yes.” Her voice showed no sign of worry, and it pissed me off that she was this calm about what she and Michael Scott had done. “I have absolutely no patience when it comes to dealing with whores who march into my office with demands. If you had put half as much effort into your job, Ms. Connelly, you could have done great things with this company.”
“If you didn’t drive it into the ground before I got a chance.” At her icy stare, I leaned forward. “I want that money in my account tonight.”
“As I said before, done. Then you leave town, and you never mention my name again.”
“Deal.” I pulled my purse onto my shoulder. “I want to know one more thing before I go.”
Waiting for me to speak, she shifted her eyebrows. “What would that be?”
“When you and Michael Scott forged your late husband’s will—what made you think nobody would ever find out?”
Finally, an emotion other than anger crossed her features. She was afraid. Her nostrils flaring, she held my gaze—her blue eyes at war with my dark eyes. I knew that Linc was probably freaking out right now, but I didn’t care.
I’d done what he asked me to do, and now—now I was doing something for myself.
“Who the hell are you?” she demanded, shoving away from her desk. She stalked around to me, seething. “Just who the hell do you think you are?”
Although I stood to block her blows, her fingers dug into my shirt, jerking me to her. She grabbed my wrist, and slowly, realization dawned on her face. She closed her hand around the watch. “Who are you?”
“Get off!” I shoved her away, causing her to stumble into the desk, but not before she ripped the jewelry from my arm. She hurled it across the room, where it slammed into the wall and shattered into dozens of pieces.
“You were recording me,” she stated in a dull voice. “You’re not here for money at all.”
I shook my head, following her movements as she walked to the window. She was probably looking for the agents that were bound to show up at any minute now that she’d broken the wire.
“Gregory Emerson was my father,” I said.
“Gemma.” Both syllables dripped with scorn. “Gemma Emerson.”
“Yes. And I want to know why you changed my father’s will.”
When she finally spoke, her words chilled my blood. “Because he was a sorry son-of-a-bitch who deserved everything that happened to him.”
I took a step backward, my hands flying to my throat. “Margaret ... did you kill him?”
Suddenly, the call from Linc crept into my thoughts. "My father died of a heart attack, and he left everything to his wife," I’d told him. But now, with her silence and what she’d said just a moment ago, I was almost one hundred percent sure I’d found another terrifying layer to the truth I’d been so desperate to uncover.
“You killed him,” I said again—this time my words a statement, the harsh reality of it slamming into me one damning blow at a time. Her comment echoed through my mind.
Your father deserved everything that happened to him.
She dropped her blond head against the window. Although her back was turned to me, I knew that if I could see her face right now, the expression I’d witness wouldn’t be one of denial. It would be disgust. Her thin shoulders shaking inside her immaculate designer dress, she curled her fingers on the glass. In spite of the brutal pulses pounding my ears, I heard her quiet weeping, but still there was no doubt in my mind she had murdered my dad.
Taking a shaky step away from her, I wrapped my arms over my stomach. “You killed him, and then you took everything from me.”
“He had it coming,” she muttered. Every muscle, every vein, in my body felt like it was slowly shutting down. Was it possible Linc was getting any of this? Or had I lost him when Margaret had ripped the watch off my wrist?
“Do you know what kind of man your father was, Gemma?” she questioned.
From everything I’d heard from Margaret and had discovered on my own over the past couple months, I did. My father had been a womanizer. He’d cheated on my mother and Margaret and probably his first wife too. But God, he hadn’t deserved to go before his time.
I took another step back and then a couple more. I couldn’t stand close to her. I wouldn’t. Because the nearer I was to Margaret, the more likely I was to do something erratic before Linc burst through the French doors.
“How did you do it?” I rubbed my palm harshly over my chest, like the motion would somehow force the words to break through the painful lump that had formed in my windpipe. “How was it possible for you to get away with murder and still win everything?”
Margaret turned to me slowly, the corners of her cornflower blue eyes glistening with tears. “I. Didn’t. Win.” She stalked to her desk, bending over the massive structure of glass with her head down and her hair falling over her flushed face. “You think because you lost, I won? How incredibly selfish of you, child.”
Ignoring her jab, I clutched the white sculpture in the center of the office, holding on to it for support. All I had to do was keep her talking until Linc arrived. Screw with her head while every little word she said killed a piece of me.
“Why did you kill him?” I glanced at the remnants of the watch and tremulous cry of frustration ripped from the back of my throat. “There’s nothing stopping you from telling me the truth now, so you might as well get it out.”
Casting her own gaze down at the broken wire, a smile trembled her thin lips. “Then why does it matter if you can’t prove a damn thing I say at this point?”
She was right, it didn’t matter if I could prove whether or not she played a role in my dad’s death, but I wanted to sleep at night. I wanted to sleep knowing that every piece of this awful, heart-ripping puzzle had been shoved into place.
I dug my fingers into a jagged edge of the abstract sculpture and held my head high. “I’ve proven enough,” I sneered. “And if that sends your ass away for ten, fifteen years, that’s good enough for me. I can prove what you did to me. I can prove—”
Quicker than I could blink, my stepmother jerked open the top drawer of her desk, reaching inside. A flinch jerked through my body when the barrel of a pistol stared back at me. The triumphant twist of her mouth sent my pulse racing at an excruciating speed.
She had a gun.
She had a gun, and she was pointing it right at me like she didn’t care that the FBI would burst in at any moment to take her down for everything she and Michael Scott had done over the last several years. I wanted to believe she wouldn’t use it—God, I wanted to believe that—but she was a captive animal right now, and that made her a terrifyingly dangerous force.
Placing her other hand on the pistol, she started around her desk, each tap of her heels on the onyx floor challenging the deafening thunder of my heartbeat. “You broke into my business—” she began, sounding like she was trying to give herself permission to shoot me.
“It’s my company, Margaret,” I blurted out stupidly, letting go of the sculpture. Out the corner of my eye, I looked at the door, willing it to open. Linc had to know I was in trouble, right? He had to be on his way.
She inched closer until she was leaning against the front of her desk, her head cocked to one side. “You broke into my business, and you threatened me. You threatened my employees. You blackmailed me.”
I looked back at the door again, but Margaret’s soft warning eradicated any notion I had of making a run for it. “I promise I’ll shoot you, Gemma.” She jabbed the gun to the chair a couple feet from where she stood, indicating she wanted me to use it. When I didn’t rush to do her bidding, she seethed. “Sit down.”
Dizzy, I complied, and the moment my butt touched the seat, she grabbed her bag from the middle of the desk and headed toward the door. As she moved, I felt the harsh glare of the gun positioned on my back. I clutched the armrests with clammy hands.
If she ran, how far would she get before they found her? Would she win again?
Hell, would I even live to find out?
“Are you going to shoot me?” I breathed. At the sound of her throat hitching, I worked up the nerve to turn slightly and look at her. She stood just a few inches from the door with tears streaming down her cheeks. “Or are you going to figure out a way to give me a heart attack too?”
“I don’t want to hurt you.” She sniffed loudly and slumped her shoulders. “I didn’t want to hurt him, but he couldn’t—” She lowered one of her hands from the gun. “Your father was a horrible man. He couldn’t keep it in his pants to save his life and that’s what killed him. Not me.”
“That’s not true.” At her silence, I marched on tentatively. “How’d you do it?”
“Your father loved his coke just as much as he loved his whores. I just helped him along.”
It hurt. I wasn’t even going to deny that processing those words through my brain hurt so much I nearly crumpled in my seat, but I stiffened my posture and completely let go of those childish fantasies that my dad had been a hero.
He’d been human, just the same as Margaret and myself.
“And you laced it with something and watched him die?” I guessed. She didn’t respond, and the silence was a greater weapon than her words—her silence broke me down another notch. “And then you confided in Michael Scott because he was your lover. He turned on you.” I took another nervous glance at the door behind her. “He turned on you, and you’ve been paying him off all these years.”
Where are you, Linc? Where the fuck are you?
“You don’t know a thing,” my stepmother sneered, but she palmed her eyes with her empty hand. “I’ve never let that man touch me. I can’t even stand him for what he did to me.”
Keep her talking, I told myself. Keep her talking and get all the answers. “What do you mean?”
She squeezed her eyes together to subdue her tears. “I’m not some whore like his—”
“Like his ex-wife?” I asked, offering Pen’s theory of Finley Scott being my sister. When Margaret’s eyes remained shut, I eased out of my seat, inching quietly in her direction.
“Like his daughter.” Her lashes parting, she looked at me hard. “Like that cunt Finley. That whore whose been living in my house, making claims to my son.”
I froze as she lifted the pistol to me again. “What?” I gasped, struggling to wrap my head around her words. “But you tried to force her on Oliver.”
“I like my freedom more than I despise that woman.” Studying my expression, Margaret raked her hand over her face, and I could see she was breaking. Why else would she still be here with me instead of running? Unless of course, she had no plans to run at all.
Another jolt of panic pierced my chest.
“Finley Scott screwed my husband. She was screwing my son, and she fucked my husband, and then I had to support her and your dad’s bastard for the last fourteen years. All because she and her father had the power to bring my world crashing down.”
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
A wave of nausea swept through me, and my legs threatened to give out—not from the fact a gun was pointed directly at my chest, but at what Margaret had just told me. Finley Scott wasn’t my sister. She’d been involved with my father when she was a teenager.
And she’d given birth to his child.
An image of a lanky teenage boy with dark blue eyes shoved into my thoughts, and I shook my head wildly. “Mason Scott?” I wheezed, and an equally harsh noise erupted from Margaret’s throat.
“Her father promised to help me clean up the mess, and in the end, he cleaned me out.” At last, she pulled the door open. “You want your money? Start with her.” As she exited the office, her parting words sent a chill down my spine. “If you follow me, I’ll shoot you.”
Frozen in place, I heard the sound of the elevator opening and footsteps rushing closer to the office. I was about to let her go—there was nothing I could do with a damn gun pointed on me—and hope like hell Linc was about to take her down. Then, I heard a familiar voice that tightened a vise around my heart.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Oliver shouted, and the clacking of Margaret’s pumps heading toward him hammered in my ears.
“Get out the way, Oliver.”
My legs shakily moved me toward the door, and when I tripped into the hallway, the wide blue eyes I’d fallen for shifted over her shoulder to take me in. He jerked his head back toward the office all the while creeping closer to his mother.
“Mom ... put down the gun, okay?”
She darted her gaze between us and realized she was caged in. “Move out the way, Oliver.” When she gave him a pleading look, he responded with a stony expression.
“Give me the gun.”
In the distance I could hear the elevator opening yet again and footsteps—multiple footsteps. My body sagged in relief against the doorway, and I watched Oliver’s face relax too.
Linc was here, and it was all over now.
No matter what my stepmother would be found guilty of, I had all my answers. Everything I’d come to Los Angeles for.
Spinning toward me, Margaret’s blue eyes stabbed into me as she angled her body and lifted her hands. Everything that happened next felt like slow motion.
The gun pointed at my head.
Oliver yelled out something, but his voice was inaudible over the deafening rush of adrenaline pumping through me.
And then, the shot echoed everywhere.
Chapter 23
Uncover. Expose. And get the hell out of there.
I’d successfully accomplished two of the objectives Pen and I had come up with, but I found it impossible to do the third. And even though I’d convinced myself I’d be able to sleep at night once I discovered everything there was to know, for the first couple nights after what Pen had referred to as the “Showdown at the House of Emerson & Taylor,” rest wasn’t an option.
There was still too much negativity haunting my thoughts.
“Are you going to stay here?” Linc asked me three days later, gesturing around the small apartment that had been my base the past couple months. “Or do you plan on moving to your old ... house?”
He was referring to my father’s house. The house he’d shared with both my mother and Margaret. Although I’d known it belonged to me for a while now, the idea of moving in still felt foreign to me.
Running my tongue over my dry lips, I moved my head in a motion that was neither a shake nor a nod. To be honest, I hadn’t even considered taking possession of that house yet—I was too busy reeling over my stepmother’s confessions and my near death experience that had immediately followed.
I shuddered to think where I might be right now if Linc hadn’t shown up, lodging a bullet in Margaret’s shoulder.
“Maybe one day.” I combed my fingers through my unbrushed hair and brought my knees to my chest, scuffing my festive socks along the warm leather of the chair beneath me. “Will it take a long time for Margaret to heal?”
“Not nearly as long as you’d think.”
The vindictive part of me wished that weren’t true, but I shoved it back down. “And Oliver?” I lifted my face so I could stare into Linc’s green eyes. I’d asked this question more than once over the last couple days, and like before, the man I’d once looked up to as a brother gave me the same answer.
“Your stepbrother—” he began, but I shook my head.
“Oliver.” Saying his name constricted my ribs. I hadn’t heard from him since the night he came to Emerson & Taylor. Pen assured me he was giving me space, but I was doubtful.
I was sending his mother to prison.
And yet I still wanted him so much it hurt.
“Oliver will be fine.” Linc rubbed his scruffy chin thoughtfully. “He was grazed, but he’s fine. Remember, I told you he gave us his statement yesterday.”
I remembered. And I remembered him telling me how Oliver—beautiful Oliver with his smooth words and demanding hands—had helped me implicate Margaret for everything she’d admitted inside her office.
“He had his ‘Pen’ set up a camera in her office a couple weeks ago,” Linc had informed me, unable to hold back the expression of relief. “We’ve got everything she said to you on tape, Gemma.”
“Easton,” I’d said simply, picturing the boyishly handsome charm of the IT guy who’d hacked into Margaret’s email time and time again. “So, she’ll go away for a long time, huh?”
“And Michael, too. Finley is cooperating in hopes that she can strike up a deal.”
Now, as Linc and I sat across from each other in silence, my thoughts wandered to the woman—no, the teenager—my father once had an affair with. A brutal pain clenched my stomach when I thought of the boy she and her father had passed off as her brother for nearly fourteen years.
Although Mason barely knew me, I couldn’t stand the idea of that kid being left alone in the world. I wouldn’t have wished that on anyone.
He was my brother, and that made him my responsibility.
“What will happen to Mason?” I heard myself say aloud. “Does he have anyone to live with?”
Linc leaned back on my couch and rubbed his hand diagonally over his exhausted face. “Finley Scott’s mother flew in from New York.”
The quietness resumed between us, but every few seconds, our eyes touched. I tried not to think of how Linc had betrayed me, starting this entire mess to benefit his own career. I tried to remind myself that, in the end, his call had helped me find answers—even if those shreds of reality were enough to break the composure of even the most solid person.
“I have to leave soon,” he finally said, and I nodded briskly, watching him as he stood and walked toward me.
“I’m sure you have a lot of work to do since you just cracked a huge case.” When his face fell remorsefully, I shook my head to put a stop to his apology. There was only so many times I could listen to Linc tell me he was sorry without having a full-blown meltdown. “I’ll eventually figure out how to deal with what you did. I just need time.”
And I needed time to deal with the crushing fact I might not see Oliver again. The pessimistic side of me had already prepared myself for the inevitable—if he hadn’t contacted me so far, why would he change his mind?
Ducking his head, Linc did the walk of shame to my front door. “Take all the time you need. Tell Pen to give me a call when she gets up,” he said, his voice fraught with emotion.
Burying my face in my hands, I didn’t dare look at him as he silently let himself out.
*
The next evening, Pen and I were in the middle of dinner—and drinking the whiskey concoctions she swore would knock me right out the second my head hit my pillow—when the doorbell rang.
Taking note of my slumped shoulders, she hopped from the table and held her finger up. “If this is another reporter, I’m going to shank them,” she warned under her breath.
The media frenzy over Margaret Manning-Emerson getting arrested had been insane, and of course, I was in the middle of it all. So far I’d managed to avoid the cameras, but I knew they’d be in my face eventually.
I tossed back the rest of the hot toddy Pen had made for me, cringing when the whiskey burned my throat. “You didn’t get lost on the way to the door, did you?” I yelled.
A moment later, I heard her soft exhale. “You should so come look at this.”
Alarmed, I pushed away from the table and padded around the corner, stopping short when I noticed the deliveryman pushing a cart full of blue and ivory flowers into my foyer.
My throat constricted.
“Gemma Emerson?” He turned to Pen, who immediately jabbed her finger at me, widening her eyes in excitement.
With every shuffle of my feet on the laminate floor, my heart beat a little faster, a little harder. “Yes?” I breathed.
“Can I get your signature on this?” He handed me a thick tablet, which I accepted. As I moved my shaky finger along the digital line—signing Gemma Emerson, not Lizzie Connelly this time—Pen started to unload the vases onto our coffee table. Dazed, I offered the tablet back to the delivery guy who gave me a smile before leaving.
Sliding onto the couch, I stared at the five vases lined up neatly in front of me.
“Mr. Sex-In-A-Business-Suit?” my best friend wondered aloud.
I shrugged, but who else would send me flowers like these?
I plucked the card from the arrangement closest to me, opening the envelope to find one word followed by his signature.
What.
One-by-one, I unsealed the rest of the cards, leaving them in a pile on the table.
Fix.
I.
Break.
I.
My pulse raced beneath my skin when I pieced the puzzle together. “I fix what I break,” I whispered out loud, causing Pen’s dark eyebrow to jerk up. “He ... it’s what he said to me the first day he met Lizzie. When he made me drop my phone, he told me he fixed what he broke,” I blurted, glancing between the flowers and Pen.
My best friend’s expression softened. “Oh, wow. Gemma, this is good.” She nodded slowly. “This is romantic.”
Arranging the cards into an ordered stack, I held them close to my chest, not wanting to let go. “I should call him,” I said at last. I should have called him when I started worrying about his lack of contact, but fear was a crazy bitch.
“Yes, you should,” she agreed. When I didn’t make an effort to move, she reached into her pocket and handed me her own phone. “Here, I’ll make it easy for you. Call him or I’ll be forced to do it for you.”
I got off the couch, a small smile playing at my lips as I walked in the direction of the hallway. “I’ll use mine this time, but thanks.” Peeking over my shoulder to examine the meaningful look she cast my way, I added, “I promise I’m going to call. I just don’t want whatever software you have on your phone recording my conversation.”
“I’m really not that bad!” she yelled behind me.
Shutting the door to my bedroom, I grabbed my iPhone off the charger. I hovered my fingers over the screen, but when I saw I already had a new text from Oliver, I eased down on my bed, releasing a heavy breath.
The Heritage ballroom. 10 PM tonight?
Dragging my gaze to the top of the screen, I saw it was already close to nine-thirty. I knew I looked like hell. The past few days had taken a toll not only on my mental state but also my appearance.
But I had to see him.
Rushing into my closet, I messaged him back, electricity rushing through my fingertips with each stroke.
I’ll be there.
*
Thanks to a helpful distraction on Pen’s part, I managed to avoid the few reporters who’d been camped out in my apartment lobby hoping to get a statement from me.
Fifteen minutes after ten, I rolled into the Heritage parking lot and left my Mini Cooper beside Oliver’s Viper at the ballroom entrance. Dropping my keys in my purse, I smoothed my palms over the plain wrap dress I’d thrown on in a hurry before heading into the glassed-in venue.
The site of Margaret’s Halloween charity event was completely silent, but I quickly figured out where to find him. The door leading to the balcony was wide open, and my heart skipped a beat because I knew that just up those stairs—in the area where we’d once danced—stood Oliver. Waiting for me. Waves of fear crashed heavily through me, but I made it to the top of the staircase, squeezing the doorknob with all my might.
What if he asked me here only to confirm what I’d pessimistically convinced myself of?
But what if I didn’t go in at all? Could I really live with not knowing?
I turned the knob and stepped quietly inside.
Just like the first night I came up here, he was leaned against the balcony, staring down into the quietness. He was dressed simply, in jeans, his Redwing boots, and a black tee that hugged his biceps. I decided then and there that even if this were the last time we spoke, I’d remember the way he looked. The way he smelled.
The way he made me feel.
Settling my brown eyes on the bandage wrapped around his upper arm, I pressed my hand to my chest. “I’m sorry you got hurt,” I whispered.
He whirled around to look at me, his face an avalanche of emotion that turned the slight pull in my ribcage into a harsh tug. Why did he have to look at me like that?
“Me?” He asked incredulously, his blue eyes narrowed. “Gemma, I’m fine.”
“You shouldn’t have come,” I said, but he strode over to me, framing my face with his large hands, bringing our mouths closer. “You should have—”
“Stayed away?” he countered, his warm breath spreading over my skin. When I nodded, he let out a choked noise. “Hell no, Gemma. I should’ve been there earlier.”
His harshly spoken whisper made me dizzy all over. Parting my lips to speak, he slanted his mouth over mine. His movements were cautious, drawing me into him with a gentleness that made me feel like I was breaking.
In a way though, I was.
I was breaking for him.
Drawing away, he rested his forehead to mine, locks of his light brown hair blending with my own. “I would’ve came to you, but I wasn’t sure—” He squeezed his eyes together, fighting for control. “I wanted to give you the choice to see me. I didn’t want to force you.”
For the first time in days, my world was turned upside down for all the right reasons. His mouth covered mine again—this time more demanding—and I was barely aware we were moving until I felt the soft cushion of the balcony’s loveseat against my back.
I broke this kiss, leaning away from him to catch my breath. “Linc told me you gave them your statement,” I said tentatively, and he nodded. “And that you had Easton set up cameras in Margaret’s office. You’re the reason why her confession about my dad was recorded.”
Pulling my hands in his, he kept his face an emotionless mask. “I was pissed at you for lying to me, Gemma,” he started, sending a delicious tingle down my spine at the way he said my name. I wasn’t sure I’d ever get used to him calling me that. “But I needed to know if you were right. After the night I confronted you, I had Easton go in and set everything up.”
“Thank you.” I realized I was crying again, my tears spilling onto the back of both our hands. “Thank you for what you did for me.”
Our eyes drinking each other in, we allowed the silence to float between us for a long time before his forehead creased into a frown. “I know about Finley and Greg.”
Dipping my head in shame, I looked down at my lap. He untangled our fingers and forced my stare back up. “And I’ve spoken to Mason” he said.
At the mention of my brother’s name, I slumped forward, hugging my arms around myself. “He hates me, doesn’t he? I broke up his family and he hates me.” I’d felt that loathing before—for Margaret—and it sickened me to know that the boy I’d only met a couple times might feel the same way about me.
But then Oliver pulled me close to him, turning my face into the soft fabric of his shirt. “He’s confused and he’s angry, but he doesn’t hate you. He wants to meet you.” My lips parted in a silent “Oh,” and he added, “His grandmother has him for now, but who knows how long that’s going to last. Apparently, she cut out after Finley gave birth to him and she might go again.”
