by Alexa Davis
He gives me a kiss on the forehead and leaves me to tell Naomi we’re heading home. I feel sorry about carting Sammie and Max back and forth, but with as much as Nick works, they’re better off coming home, too.
I’ve gone the long, rational conversation route with Naomi before. The problem with that approach is that Naomi has a short attention span and has never, as long as I’ve known her, been rational. Therefore, I decide to try a different approach this time.
Walking around the corner where she’s still standing, I tell Naomi, “Pack your stuff. We’re leaving.” I don’t break pace.
It’s been two hours of listening to Naomi go off about how it’s not fair she should have to go, too, and that if I loved her, I wouldn’t make her return to that hellhole. Every time I try to get a word in, Naomi jumps in with another stupid reason why the north side of the beach house is rightfully hers and how I have no justification for making her abandon it.
By the time Trevor shows up to take us to the airport, nothing is packed, and I haven’t made any headway with Naomi at all. It’s not until I grab her by the wrist and physically wrench her from the house, foot by foot, that she finally relents.
Someday, I’m going to convince Naomi that not everything in the world was created especially for her enjoyment. Also, I might add something about how it’s legal in most states to shoot someone if you can make a decent case for trespassing.
For now, though, I’m just happy enough to get her in the car. Naturally, Trevor has to stand in front of the town car’s only back door to keep her from escaping.
Nick helps me collect Sammie and Max, and we get them out into the car. I’m hoping for a romantic goodbye, but Naomi pounding on the back window of the car goes a long way in killing the moment.
I give Nick a hug and a quick kiss, and I tell him, “I’ll give you a call when we land.”
“All right,” he says. “I’ll see if I can move some things around and come out there to see you soon.”
“Come on!” Naomi bellows from the backseat. “If we’re going, let’s go already!”
“I do not envy you on the plane ride back,” Nick laughs.
I agree with him before I even get in the car.
We get to the airport and board the plane, and I’ve never traveled so much for such unexpected reasons in my life.
“You know,” Naomi says about five minutes into the in-flight movie, “I thought maybe we should talk about something.”
“They’re not going to turn the plane around,” I groan. “What was that today?”
“I wanted to stay behind and look into your man because I know you’re never going to,” she answers.
“Like you ever stopped,” I tell her. “Found anything yet?”
“Not really,” she says, “just a lot of papers—business stuff. Keep those fingers crossed, though. I’ve got a feeling I’m going to uncover a mistress before this is all said and done.”
We’re on a plane, Ellie. Relax, take a deep breath and— “Whatever your problem is, you need to cut it out right now,” I snap, eliciting a few gasps from the passengers around us. I may have been too loud.
“I’m just trying to look out for you,” she says. “Think about it: even if he does turn out to be everything he seems to be, are you so sure you’re ready to settle down?”
“What do you mean, settle down?” I ask. “We’re just dating.”
“Yeah, you’re dating,” she scoffs. “I suppose you didn’t happen to notice that you’ve been effectively living with him for like two months, right?”
I open my mouth and fill my lungs in preparation for my retort, only she’s right. Even before I told him I was all-in, I traveled to Manhattan with Nick for no other reason than he asked me.
The idiot’s right: somehow, without noticing, I’ve landed myself two or three steps away from marriage, and I don’t even know anything about Nick’s life before he went off to college. I’ve justified it to myself by thinking of it as “staying” with Nick, not “living” with Nick, but they’re the same thing.
Eventually, though, I come up with a passable rejoinder. “You know,” I say, “if what you were saying were true, then why am I on this plane right now? Why am I headed back to Mulholland to run the store?”
“Because you’re freaked out,” Naomi answers like she’s been waiting for the question. “I think part of you realized what was going on and used what happened to Troy as an excuse to start running.”
“You’re gaslighting me,” I tell her. “You’ve gone back and forth about me and Nick so much you have no credibility left whatsoever.”
“I’m just looking out for you,” she says.
“No, no,” I say, shaking my head. “That’s one of those phrases that sounds nice but doesn’t mean anything. You’re doing what you always do. You’re looking out for you.”
“What you need is a fling with someone to take your mind off of Nick,” she says.
“Right,” I scoff. “Cheating on my CEO boyfriend sounds exactly like the right move to make.”
“See?” she asks, either missing or ignoring my sarcasm. “I knew you’d come around.”
“I’m not cheating on him,” I tell her.
“You know, it’s not cheating if one of you is out of town,” she says.
“You know you’re a moron?” I respond.
Naomi catches me with a quick elbow to the ribs.
“Hey!” I protest, only to be shushed by the woman sitting behind me. In a much quieter voice, I ask, “What was that for?”
“Nevermind,” she says. “You see that guy over there? The one reading the magazine but turning the pages the wrong way?” she asks.
“What about him?” I groan.
“He is so looking for it. Just sit back and watch,” she says. “I’m going to show you what you’re missing by not being single.”
While it can’t be airline policy to remove a passenger from the plane midflight, maybe they’d make an exception.
Naomi gets up from her seat and “accidentally” bumps into the man’s arm as she’s passing him. She leans forward and puts her hands together on her chest, saying, “Please forgive me.” Could she be any more obvious?
She keeps walking toward the lavatory and, sure enough, within a minute, the man she bumped into is on his way to join her.
This is my life.
By the time the plane lands, Naomi’s been back to the lavatory twice, both times with a man right after her. Every time she came back to her seat—face red and stinking like the cheap cologne of whomever—she’d go into why what she just did is what I should be doing.
I’ve never been someone’s excuse for a sexual binge on a plane before. It’s not as exciting as it sounds.
We deplane and find a driver holding a sign with our names on it. After collecting Max and Sammie, we’re on our way back to Mulholland.
After we drop the animals off at the apartment, I tell Naomi I’m going to go for a walk. Of course, she insists upon going with me.
We’re walking, and she’s still going on about how I’ve had all the fun I’m going to have with Nick and how it’s time to cut the cord. The longer we’re walking, the more ridiculous her arguments become.
If I engage her in further conversation, she’ll never stop, so no matter how stupid or offensive her words, I keep quiet. That silence ends, though, as we come within sight of the shop.
“Oh my god,” I mutter and take off running. I stop short before I reach the broken glass of what used to be the front windows of the store.
There’s glass on the sidewalk, even going out as far as the road. Inside the shop, it’s all rocks and beer bottles and glass from the windows. The glass is just everywhere.
“Naomi?” I ask.
“Don’t look at me,” she says. “I was perfectly fine kicking it in your boyfriend’s beach mansion. How would I have anything to do with this?”
I wasn’t looking to blame her; I was hoping she had an explanation. There w
as nothing in the store. Whoever did this, it had nothing to do with theft.
Whoever did this wanted to hurt me, and you know what? They succeeded.
Chapter Twelve
Down the Line
Nick
“The fact you won’t tell me how bad it is, tells me how bad it is,” I say through the phone to Malcolm. It’s three o’clock in the morning, and he knows better than to call if something’s not seriously wrong.
I look out the window of my penthouse overlooking Manhattan and rub my eyes. The sky tonight is all a sick orange light. That means clouds.
“I’m sorry, sir, I just need you to get in here,” he says. “I don’t know if this line is secure.”
Okay, so it’s bad, bad.
“I’ll be right in,” I say and hang up the phone. Anyone who says rich guys don’t work for a living should try it for a while. Success is what they call the target on your back.
Not that I’m complaining.
I get dressed and decide to forego the driver. A night like tonight, I need to feel like I’m doing something.
Boarding the private elevator, I slip down to my private garage in the sub-basement of the building.
“Good morning, Mr. Scipio,” Hank, one of my lot’s security guards—and a former Marine—says. “Will it be the Chiron today?” he asks, heading toward the rack of keys.
“No,” I answer. “I’m in the mood for something less opulent. I’ll take the One-77.”
Of the seventy-seven Aston Martin One-77s made, I used to own three of them. I found they did better as donations to charity auctions than they did gathering dust in my car cellar.
“Excellent, sir,” Hank says, grabbing the keys and tossing them to me.
I put a lot of trust in Hank and the two others, Ed and Val (a former Army Special Forces and a former Navy SEAL, respectively.) They guard sixty-four sets of keys; each one goes to a vehicle worth a lot to a lot of people.
I don’t worry too much about it, though. They each make half a mil a year, plus benefits. More than that, we’re all on friendly terms. Also, I make sure to keep them in the latest models of the car of their choosing as well.
Not mine, though. Setting boundaries is good.
I walk out into the vast expanse of my private garage and nod to each of the guards as I see them. What can I say? I protect the things I care about.
Some people collect wine.
It’s been awhile since I’ve been down here, so I save myself the search and hit the lock button on the key fob. The car horn beeps as the doors re-lock, and I follow the sound to the fourth row on the left, finding my One-77 where it always is.
I need to unclutter my head or wake up or something. It has been awhile since I’ve been down here, but this one’s special.
Getting in, I’m cradled in the near-form-fitted seat. I start the car, listen to the rumble a moment, and start on my way.
The problem with having an underground parking structure like this is it’s a long, winding drive up to street level. I don’t mind, though.
As necessary as it may be to get to work as soon as possible, I’ve been fighting battles on almost every front. So I’ll go in, and I’m sure I’ll even break the limit on the way, but I’m savoring every unavoidable delay.
Ellie’s in and out of touch since she left. Any other time, figuring out what’s going on there would be my number one priority. Right now, though, I’m fighting for my job, my position, my company. I’m fighting for everything that made me who I wanted to be.
I finally reach the guard post at the top, before the thick metal of the first garage door. There are seven, each opener functioning on a different frequency. Also, there’s a locking mechanism at the bottom, so when the doors are down, they’re also anchored to the foundation below.
It may seem excessive, but I’ve got a 1957 Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa in there for crying out loud.
Helen gets the doors open, and I cruise into the only half-asleep streets of New York at three in the morning. Once I’m on the road, though, it doesn’t take nearly long enough to get to the office.
I pull the Aston into my work garage—which comes complete with a thick, lowering door more reinforced than the one over the vault at Fort Knox. I made sure of it.
From there, it’s only a minute on the elevator from the parking lot to the top floor. Malcolm is waiting for me.
“Let’s talk in your office,” he says.
I look around me. There’s no one in sight. Even the custodians have gone home for the night.
“Yeah,” I answer and unlock the door.
We get inside, and I close and lock the door behind us. Then I turn on the light.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“It’s Marly,” he says. “She’s giving them everything. Everything you’ve told me, she’s going to spill everything.”
“Let’s think about this rationally,” I say, though I’m not sure I’m capable of the feat, myself. “It’s not like I’ve broken any laws or even any ethical codes,” I tell Malcolm, even though I know it doesn’t matter in the slightest. “How bad is it going to be?”
“Bad,” he says. “Maybe it wouldn’t be an issue if things were going well here, but nobody knew why you wanted to move the company. I think when they find out—”
“I don’t think that would have gone over so well if I’d been upfront about it from the beginning,” I interrupt. “I already know the why. I’m asking how bad it’s going to be.”
“It doesn’t have to be, though,” Malcolm says. “There’s a way to avoid all of this and get the company back under your undisputed—”
“You know,” I interrupt, “when I was a kid, my dad wasn’t around all that much.”
Malcolm blinks.
“See, dad was a military man,” I continue. “He never quite made master sergeant, but he was with the Air Force until I was almost eighteen-years-old. He was a decent enough guy, I guess. There was just too much on his plate for him to spare much time.”
“Okay,” Malcolm says slowly, furrowing his brow. “Wait, there’s no Air Force base anywhere near Mulholland.”
“There isn’t anymore,” I tell him and go back to my story. “When dad had time to tell me something, I listened,” I go on. “One of the things he said a lot when I was growing up was ‘when someone’s telling you something that sounds too good to be true, give that person a solid kidney punch. They’re trying to sell you something.’”
It’s an interesting experience, watching Malcolm’s face. For a second, he smiles and nods his head. Now he understands why I was telling the story. The self-congratulation never lasts long, though.
Malcolm’s eyes are a bit wider than usual, and I can tell from the smacking sounds that his mouth has gone dry. I’m about to ask him if he needs some water when he pulls through whatever he’s feeling and says, “It’s not that bad.” He tells me, “You’re not going to like it, but just hear her out.”
“I was wondering when the puppet master was going to come from behind the curtain,” I mutter.
“Sir,” he says, “she’s down on the first floor. She can’t hear or see us, and if you don’t want to meet with her or even see her, you don’t have to, but—”
“No, that sounds good,” I interrupt. “No need for an alternate option. I’m sold.”
“… but,” Malcolm continues, looking quite small in the center of the office, “I think you should at least hear her out. She doesn’t have to be our enemy, but if you don’t at least talk to her, it’s happening tonight—this morning—whatever.”
“You’re doing a good job of working yourself out of your shiny new position,” I inform Malcolm. “If you’re just going to be her messenger, why not just replace you with her? She’s done the job already. If it weren’t for Marly starting the leak in the first place, I probably wouldn’t even remember your name. That seems like an experience I’d like to recreate,” I tell Malcolm.
“Just listen to her,” Malcolm says.
“If you don’t like what she has to say, you can fire me afterward.”
“Why don’t I save some time and—”
“Just listen to her!” Malcolm shouts.
It’s silent as he stands there. His eyebrows are up a little, and he’s not quite able to keep his mouth all the way closed.
“Any points you would have gotten with me for doing that just now are more than outweighed by you going behind my back and talking to the one person I told you not to talk to,” I tell Malcolm. “Get her up here. She has five minutes from the time the elevator door opens.”
Malcolm’s smart enough not to say anything. He just walks past me and out the office door, closing it on his way.
I know what she’s going to say. It’s nothing new.
She’s going to tell me that if I don’t get the company out of Mulholland, she’s going to tell the board why I wanted to move it there. Appearances are everything. I don’t just mean in business.
The board’s already working on collecting evidence of mismanagement. They’re going to find it whether they know about Ellie or not. The only difference is they’re going to work a lot faster once they have the full story.
There’s a knock on the door, and I can already feel the side of my mouth twitching.
“If you’re waiting for a red carpet, you’re in the wrong building,” I call out, and the door opens.
Marly shows herself in, but she doesn’t have her usual smirk. If anything, she’s hanging her head a little. She’s trying to get my sympathy before she even opens her mouth.
The one problem with Marly is she never got it through her head I’m not an idiot.
“Close the door and start talking,” I tell her. “Make it quick, too. I look forward to going back home and to bed so I can pretend this whole thing was a nightmare.”
“You’re so dramatic,” she says, her voice quiet. “You don’t have to be dramatic.”
“Thanks for the advice,” I tell her. “Now, if there’s nothing else…”
“Why do you have to do that?” Marly asks though I can barely hear her she’s speaking so softly.
“What was that?” I ask, just to prod at her.