Page 40 of The Summer I Destroyed You

“I might be from Elliott Springs, but I read the paper. I know who Damien Ellis is.”

“Well, I’m better at Damien Ellis’s job than he is, so when he discovers what I did here, he’s going to want to hire me, and I’m going to ask him to buy out my company instead and put me in charge. He’ll do anything to have me glued to his side when he sees the end result.”

They called Damien Ellis ‘the thinking woman’s favorite bachelor’ in the article I read, and Emerson is a thinking woman. Just how closely does she want to be glued to him? My skin prickles at the thought.

Her eyes lift to mine. My jealousy is making me stupid, I know. But something inside me no longer cares. I’m going to kiss her. I can’t not kiss her, so fuck it. I’ll sort it—

Her phone rings. She holds up the screen, and we both see that it’s another fucking FaceTime call from Donovan. I reach over before I can stop myself and decline it.

“Why the hell did you do that?” she demands.

“I don’t know.”

I don’t know why I’m doing much of anything anymore.

22

EMMY

Over the weekend, the painful dreams about my childhood are replaced by delicious dreams of Liam.

Liam looking at me in that way he does sometimes, soft and heated both at once. Or getting irritated when Donovan calls, except this time he ends the call and kisses me while he lifts my skirt around my waist.

I wouldn’t actually let him push my skirt up in the middle of Lucas Hall, but it’s a dream, so I allow it.

He is none of the things I want and his behavior is frequently outrageous—who the fuck ends someone else’s call?—and I can’t stop thinking about him anyway, even while I’m the phone with my asshole boss.

“Walk me through,” says Charles.

“I am,” I reply between my teeth, holding the camera aloft so he can see the theater.

It’s irritating that he’s even making me do this. I’m not some untrustworthy fifteen-year-old niece he was forced to hire for the summer.

But I’m consoled by the fact that someone at Damien Ellis’s firm just looked me up on LinkedIn, I assume at Ellis’s behest. Charles can go ahead and enjoy these last moments of authority—he’s going to have none whatsoever once I convince Damien Ellis to buy the company out.

I take Charles through the theater where Liam’s guys are putting in the concession stand, but he’s not interested in that, since it’s just for show, and we’ll sell it off once we’ve got our apartment complex.

Outside, I hold up my camera to the street, pointing out the future location of the new restaurant, the gym, and the smoothie place.

Charles, of course, only sees the things we haven’t been able to get ahold of: buildings we don’t own, people who don’t want to sell.

“Diner’s still there, I see,” he says, nostrils flaring as if he’s smelled something unpleasant.

I’m not sure how he thought I’d get rid of it in three weeks. Since the camera’s facing away from me, I can roll my eyes at leisure. “They own the building and aren’t interested in selling.”

“Then make them interested,” he says. “Or make their lives hell. Call the health board on them. See who they’re employing…I bet there’s at least one undocumented worker back in that kitchen. Call the news and say you’ve found glass in your food. I don’t care what you do, but get it done.”

I won’t try to claim that using such underhanded tactics is beneath me, but when I think of Jeannie, it gives me pause. Yes, the diner is an eyesore. It won’t be winning a Michelin star anytime soon.

And yes, Jeannie raised an asshole who deserves to have his legacy torn away from him. But I’m no longer sure I want to be the one to do it.

I finish up with the grocery store. I should have started with it since it’s going to end this call on a sour note. “I’m going to sit in on the grocery store manager interviews so we don’t run into another Nashville situation,” I tell him, and he doesn’t care, because he’s focused on the fact that Liam and his guys are tearing the floor out.

“What the fuck is going on there?” he demands.

“We had an issue,” I reply over the noise. “The contractor we hired put the subfloor in wrong. I got most of our money back and hired someone else.”

“You mean the contractor you hired,” Charles corrects.

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