Page 89 of The Summer I Destroyed You

She frowns and leads me back to a tiny office that’s full of boxes and piles of paper and still is a marvel of cleanliness compared to my mother’s house. She gestures to the chair across from her. “Sorry about the mess. What’s up?”

I take a deep breath. “I’m going to tell you to do something, and I need you not to ask a single question. I also need you to never tell a single person what I’m about to say.”

Her eyes widen. Her nod is barely perceptible.

“Get a commercial cleaning company in here. Today. You need to have them clean everything, top to bottom. You need to be able to eat off the floor when they’re done.”

“Are we getting inspected?” she whispers.

“I think so. I don’t know how fast it’ll happen, but I suspect it will be really fast. And for the next couple of days, don’t have anyone working that could get you in trouble.”

“Trouble?”

“I’m not asking about this, and I don’t want to know, but if you’ve got anyone here who’s undocumented, give them tomorrow off. If you have anyone who’s violating parole, who’s wanted for something…give them the day off too.”

“We’ve been inspected before,” she says faintly. “We always do okay.”

I stare at the floor. “Jeannie, this isn’t going to be that kind of inspection.”

I want to tell her they’re gunning for you. They’re going to make it so hard to operate your business that you just give up. But as much as I like Jeannie, I know that anything I say could come back to bite me in the ass. If I admit how Inspired Building operates, she could appear at the final hearing about Lucas Hall and ruin everything.

“Did you make this happen?” she whispers.

I shake my head. “No.”

Suddenly, I’m so fucking glad not to be a part of it.

* * *

“That was a nice thing you did,” Liam says over dinner.

I look at our plates. “I barely helped you cook. You said, and I quote, that my assistance is ‘mostly ornamental, and we’re safer that way.’”

He grins. “I meant what you said to Jeannie. At the diner.”

I exhale loudly. “For fuck’s sake. She wasn’t supposed to go running her mouth about that.”

His tongue prods the inside of his cheek. “She wasn’t running her mouth. She was telling your boyfriend—”

My mouth opens to correct him, and he stops me. “You fucking live with me. Don’t argue about that. Anyway, she was telling your boyfriend about what a nice thing you did.”

My arms fold. “She still shouldn’t have said anything. I mean, she just gave information that could get me fired to my only competitor for Lucas Hall.”

Any hint of a smile leaves his face. “Are you serious right now? Would you not have told me about that because you still think I’m trying to steal Lucas Hall? After everything we’ve been through, you still think I’d fuck you over?”

No, I don’t. But that’s the thing about having the rug pulled out from under you: it’s always when you don’t expect it.

“Crazier things have happened,” I reply.

He pushes away from the table. “Jesus Christ, Em. I don’t even know what to say.” His hands press to the top of his head, tugging at his hair. And then he grabs his keys and walks out the door. Panic swells in my chest, but I’ve no clue how to back things up, how to fix them. A few seconds later, the truck roars as he tears off down the street. I swallow hard and press my face to my hands, trying not to cry.

I don’t want to be like this. I don’t want to be this cynical and untrusting. I was made this way by being put in the exact situation he’s putting me in now: by being asked to trust someone, by having someone assure me he had my best interests at heart. How many times did I meet someone new and later learn he or she had only been nice to me because they were helping Bradley with one of her schemes? It didn’t happen once, or even twice—it happened multiple times and I fell for it again and again.

I start cleaning up dinner, but when every last dish is in the washer and there’s nothing left to be done, tears start to stream down my face. I hate that he left. I hate that I have no one in the world, other than him, and now he’s gone too. I hate that nothing about destroying Elliott Springs feels the way I’d hoped it would.

The lights of his truck sweep the kitchen as he pulls into the driveway. I turn toward the sink and remain there, trying to pull my shit together. He crosses the room while I grab a sponge and start to scrub the already spotless stainless steel. I can’t seem to stop crying.

“Em,” he says quietly, pulling me toward him.

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