“Feels loads better,” Libby bit out as she strode away.
“Where are you going?” Jessica asked, trying unsuccessfully to keep up. “Wait.”
“I need some—I don’t know what. I just want to be alone. Just leave me alone.” She wasn’t really angry with her friend. Her brain knew that. Jessica wasn’t ever quick with an I told you so. But there was no room in her body for anything other than fury. So leaving her friend standing alone was actually a way to protect her from the venom Libby was trying unsuccessfully to swallow back.
Chapter 21
“Marissa,” James said firmly but quieted abruptly when she cackled loudly.
“Try again,” she shot back, folding her arms across her chest.
“Aunt Marissa,” he said, knowing exactly what she was waiting for, “now is not a great time. It’s very late, and I have some fires I’m trying to put out.”
“Shut up.” She laughed as though she’d been fed this line a thousand times by a thousand men before him. “I’m at the end of my rope waiting on you. It’s ten o’clock at night and here you are exactly where your father would have been if I was looking for him. You are sitting where he sat when he had his stroke.”
“We can’t keep going round and round on this,” James countered but the chirping of his cell phone interrupted his thought. He’d been trying to call Libby all day. He knew she’d taken the flight home from Peru, but she’d been radio silent ever since. It had only been twenty-four hours, but it was starting to worry him. “I need to take this.” He stood, hoping Marissa would leave, but she didn’t move. Too reluctant to let it go to voicemail, he surrendered to his aunt and answered the call while she sat there.
“Libby, where have you been? I’ve been calling you.” He wished his voice didn’t sound so desperate. Marissa’s eyes opened wider, and he could tell her ears perked up. Deciding to show less emotion he cleared his throat. But his plan was dashed the second he heard Libby’s cracking voice.
“You son of a bitch,” she snapped. “You knew all along. You tricked me, treated me like some kind of idiot. I can’t believe I fell for it.”
“Libby,” he said, clenching his phone tightly. “What the hell are you talking about? I didn’t trick you.”
“Shut up,” she cried, the second woman in five minutes demanding that of him. “You want me to be strong, be my own advocate. Stop getting stepped on. Well, fine. I’m starting now. I quit. I don’t want another dime of West Oil’s money. I don’t want to ever see you again.”
“Is this about your father?” he asked, uncharacteristically tripping over his words.
“Yes.” The curtness in her voice had a finality he didn’t like. This was like a business deal that was slipping through his fingers, a negotiation he was losing. Not something he usually dealt with well.
“Come into the office. Let’s talk about it. I’ve been working since we talked, trying to figure out exactly what had happened and what to do.”
“Bullshit.” She laughed with a manically air. “You’ve known all along. So were you just sleeping with me so you could keep me quiet? Or was I really your lowest common denominator, the barometer for your liability?”
“What the hell are you talking about?” he asked, feeling like there was an entire part of this argument he was missing. “Just come to the office, or tell me where you are and I’ll come to you.”
“I’ll make you a deal,” she said, her voice now eerily calm. “I’ll never utter a word of this to anyone. I’ll never expose the gross negligence of West Oil or your involvement in it. And in return all I ask is you never contact me again. Stay as far away from me as humanly possible, and you will have my silence.”
“Have you lost your mind?” James asked, pulling the phone from his ear for a second to make sure this call was really from Libby. As though this were some body snatcher’s nightmare. “You’re not making any sense.”
“Right,” she argued. “That’s my offer. Take it or leave it.”
He didn’t answer. With a gaped mouth and eyes pressed tightly together, he heard the phone disconnect. “What the fuck?” he murmured to himself, forgetting Marissa was there.
“What in the world have you done?” Marissa asked, not accusingly but sympathetically. “Who was that?”
“Libby,” he answered, before he could remember to shut Marissa down and ask her to leave. “It’s a long story.”
“Tell me,” Marissa insisted. “You’re not alone anymore, James. I don’t know why your father sent you away. I don’t know why you were forced to do it all on your own. But I’m here now. I’m family. Tell me what’s going on.”
He contemplated this. She couldn’t really help him. Aunt Marissa had no magic wand she could wave at this problem, at all his problems, but he still felt the urge to confide in her. Like a whisper in his ear he felt his mother was encouraging it.
“Libby is a woman,” he started, “I care about. Yesterday she told me she’d been lying to me. She told me she’d been collecting a paycheck from West Oil for five years even though she didn’t really work here. It was some arrangement made for her after her father was killed out on a rig. Rather than report it the right way, take the hit to the company’s recordable rate or pay out a big settlement, someone made this deal with her.”
“What?” Marissa gasped. “That’s despicable. Your father didn’t know. He couldn’t have.”
“I have no clue. I just started looking into it myself. I told Libby I forgave her. That it wasn’t her fault. She takes care of everyone in her family, and she did what she had to do. But now . . .” he trailed off as he recounted Libby’s bizarre accusations. “Now she thinks I knew all along. That I was playing her.”
“But you weren’t?” Marissa said, mixing a question with a statement.
“I wasn’t,” he asserted. “It was news to me. But someone clearly told her otherwise. It’s not like I don’t have a line of enemies, considering how many people recently walked away angry from West Oil. Now she’s saying if I come anywhere close to her she’ll expose everything. West Oil is at a tipping point. If this comes out, we won’t survive it.”
“Who cares?” Marissa spat out. “That’s business. It’s not love. Do you love her?”
“I don’t know,” he said, genuinely unsure. Love was something James had never felt himself in or out of. It wasn’t a room you could sit in and announce you were there. Love had been a moving target that he’d taken a few shots at but never quite hit the bullseye.
“Figure out if you love her or not. Because if you do then the only thing that matters is making this right with her. The company will either survive or not. It will fail or thrive. But a woman you love is hurt. She thinks you hurt her. You have to make that right first.”
“How?” he asked, astounded that he was asking her advice.
“People think love is big gestures and that fuzzy feeling you get when you’re around someone. That’s infatuation. Do you know what love actually is?”
“No,” he said in a quiet and anticipatory voice. Marissa had known love over the years. James had seen the marriage she had, the way they’d treated each other. If anyone had the answer it was her.
“It’s trying. That’s all. Love is just trying over and over again. Every day. It’s effort. So that’s your answer. If you want to fix this, save whatever you have with her, just keep trying.”
“That’s very vague,” he argued with a raised brow. “Can’t you give me more than that? This isn’t exactly my strong suit. She’s the first woman I’ve ever—”
“I don’t know her,” Marissa shrugged. “You already have the answer. Just think about her. Think about what’s most important to her.”
“I can’t ignore the liability to the business. I have to find a way to solve this problem first. There are four thousand employees counting on that. I have a responsibility to them too.”
“What options do you have?” she asked with a frustrated huff. “I’m guessing she isn’t the
only one this happened to.”
“She’s not. I’ve found nine other deaths over the last fifteen years that were not reported properly. The families were not given the same terms as Libby, but they were in one way or another silenced to protect the company.”
“Holy hell,” she said dropping her head in sadness. “You think your father knew?”
“He had to,” James grunted, a burst of anger popping in his chest. His father had made this mess and left him with it.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized.
“I have no idea how to fix this. When this comes out, and I’m sure it will, confidence in West Oil will plummet. We’ll be slammed with endless lawsuits from people coming out of the woodwork to capitalize on this weakness. The plans I’ve made, the changes I have in store, they’ll fall to shit. No one will want to touch this company with a ten-foot pole, let alone partner with us. It’ll be over.”
“It’s been buried this long,” Marissa reminded him. He darted his eyes across her face as though he couldn’t believe what she said.
“You really think that’s an option?” he asked. “I’m supposed to pretend I don’t know this happened?”
“This is a critical point in the future of this company. You didn’t cause the problem, but you’re on the verge of suffering because of it. Next year, when the plans you’ve made have been put into place, when things are already secure, maybe the company could withstand the scandal.”
“But by then, when it’s looked into, I’ll certainly be liable. People will know I was aware. If I out it right now, when I’ve just been made aware of it, my hands will be clean.”
“This is oil, son,” she said with knowing glare. “Nobody has clean hands in oil.”
He didn’t say another word, and she matched his silence. Standing with a sigh, she moved around his desk and kissed the crown of his head gently. Patting his shoulder, she gave him one more long look before stepping out of his office.
His phone rang again. It was Mathew. James had been avoiding his calls since he came back. Not ready to admit why, he sent his call to voicemail again. If he were going to cover this up, for at least a period of time, then keeping Mathew in the dark was important. He owed it to him to keep him from being culpable in the cover-up.
Was that what he was about to do? Cover it all up? The answer wasn’t clear in his mind yet, something which rarely happened to him. Often he was decisive to a fault, making final decisions before anyone could even weigh in. But now as he looked around his father’s office all he could do was curse the man who’d left him this mess. The company he’d been sure he could run, been determined to improve, had just become the weight that might suffocate him.
Chapter 22
The knock on Libby’s door might as well have been gunshots by the way it startled her. Jessica had gotten the message that she needed space, and James, well he was far easier to push away than she might have thought. It had been three days since she’d heard from either of them. She was grieving. Going through the grieving process: denial and bargaining, taking their turns in her tormented mind.
But visitors weren’t expected any more than they were welcomed. Her house had become a cemetery for empty pints of ice cream and bottles of wine. It looked like she was stockpiling them with the intention of crafting something kitschy and unique, but she just hadn’t found the motivation to toss them out yet.
“Who is it?” she croaked out, her voice almost forgetting it’s job since she’d hardly used it over the last few days.
“It’s Corey,” a voice swam in from the other side of her door, and she hurried toward the peephole. Was this a wine-induced nightmare?
“What do you want?” she asked, instinctively patting down her crazy hair.
“Whoa, sorry. I’ve been texting you, but you went all radio silent. I was worried something might have happened with your mom. When I found out about her diagnosis it started me thinking about you. I know how important she is to you. I figured you must be a wreck.”
Words wouldn’t come. She had a thousand things to say, but they all seemed to crash into each other like a pileup on the highway, ceasing up in her throat.
“Are you there, Lib?” Corey asked quietly. She was instantly transported back to the time in her life when that shortened version of her name made her feel special and loved. Back before she knew love wasn’t supposed to hurt.
“I’m here,” she finally coughed out. “I wasn’t expecting you. I’m just surprised.” She felt the tightness in her chest growing.
“May I come in?” he asked gently. She assumed he was trying not to spook her; his charm could permeate even a closed door. She could picture exactly how he was standing: his hands jammed in his pockets and his head tipped sideways.
She looked over her shoulder at her pigsty of a living room. Her clothes were speckled with splatters of wine. There was no way in hell she’d let him see her like this. “Why don’t we just meet for coffee,” she offered, feeling ridiculous speaking through the door.
“Okay,” he sang out, excitement in his voice. “That coffee shop where I met you? Maybe it’s corny and nostalgic, but I think that would be nice.”
“Sure,” she said, a pang of pain in her heart. She hadn’t stepped foot in there since they’d broken up, and she knew returning would flood her with emotion. But she was aching with a deep hurt she wanted to stop. Corey was by no means the answer. But something in the back of her mind was vibrating. He’d been the one to snuff out that little light in her. All those years ago he put her on this path. Maybe it was a sign that he was here now. “I’ll meet you there in twenty.”
When she heard his footsteps skip down her front stairs, she drew in an anxious breath. Pulling off her clothes, she stumbled toward her bedroom and checked her watch. She had no intention of being there on time. He could wait. He could sit, stew, and wonder. It wasn’t as though she had some maniacal plan to make him pay for all he’d done to her. But the anger, the pain brewing within her, needed to be channeled.
Clicking her door closed behind her and heading for her car she let images of James and Corey blur together. They’d used different tactics, but hadn’t they both betrayed her? Hadn’t she closed her eyes and pretended everything would be wonderful even though there were plenty of reasons to believe otherwise? The entire ride over to the coffee shop was filled with what she would say to Corey, what he deserved to finally hear. She pulled open the heavy wooden door of the coffee house and saw him perched in the chair in the corner where he used to wait for her shift to end. His hair wasn’t shaggy anymore; it was clean cut and styled nicely. His suit was perfectly tailored to his now-wider shoulders, but one thing was the same. His smile still spread across his face and forced his cheeks up high, giving a tug at her heart. This was the man she’d thought she would marry. He was the one who’d taken her virginity and, when he hadn’t treated her terribly, had actually treated her wonderfully.
“You look fantastic,” he said, his eyes circling her body. “I can’t believe we let so much time go by without seeing each other. It’s a shame.”
“I think that’s pretty normal for people who break up,” she said coldly, hugging her purse tightly to her body to ward off a hug. But he didn’t make a move.
“I hope you still drink the same thing; I ordered for you.” He slid a cup over to her and the smell of hazelnut rose toward her. She didn’t drink it anymore. Hadn’t in years, but the smell was like an old friend waving hello. Maybe she’d given it up when he gave her up. She couldn’t remember, but the association between the drink and the man seemed to be strong in her mind now.
“Thanks,” she fished money out of her purse, but he waived her off.
“I think I can buy you a coffee,” he teased. “Though I hear you’re doing pretty well at some oil company now. The rumors are flying.”
“I work for West Oil,” she lied, unsure of why she wanted him to be impressed. “I’m the executive assistant to the CEO.”
“T
hat’s amazing,” he said with wide surprised eyes. “I always knew you were destined for something big. You deserve the best.”
“Why are we here?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at him, still holding her purse in her lap like a security blanket. “Why did you really come knocking on my door?”
“Lib,” he said, his face crumpling slightly, “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable by stopping by. I didn’t mean to. Like I said, I heard from some of our old mutual friends about your mother and your job, and once you were in my head I couldn’t seem to get you out. Do you know what I mean?”
She did, but she wasn’t thinking about Corey when she nodded her agreement. It was James who she couldn’t seem to get out of her head. “I don’t think you and I have much to talk about. We shouldn’t be sitting here like two old friends who just lost touch. And if you’re angling that maybe you and I—”
“I’m not,” he said, cutting her off. “I’m actually seeing someone. I’m not here to make a pass at you or whatever.”
“You’re seeing someone?” A million questions ran through her head. She’d expected he was here to try to win her back. She’d prepared to shoot him down a thousand ways. But hearing now that he was seeing someone threw her off guard. Had he grown up in the years since they’d been together? Had he changed? Was this other woman getting those best parts of Corey without having to suffer through the worst? A misguided pang of jealously filled her.
“It’s not that serious.” He shrugged. “Maggie’s young. You know how it is.”
“Young?” she asked accusingly. “How young?”
“Young,” he replied with that smile.
“Younger than me? Younger than I was when you and I started dating?”
“No,” he asserted. “Of course not younger than you were. That would be illegal. She’s about to be twenty.”
“You’re about to be thirty something,” Libby cut back smartly, aggravated that she still remembered his birthday. “How long have you been seeing her?”
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