Page 40 of Things We Tell Ourselves

“All you want is exclusivity,” Camille utters, scared to look at him as if the offer will morph into something less if she were to look away. “You don’t want to buy it outright from me.”

Wade lowers his voice. “We were under the belief that you and your business partner were wanting a partnership—”

“I do,” she adds quickly, breathing a sigh of relief. “I mean, we do.” She sinks back in the seat, lifting the paperwork to hug it to her chest. “I just never thought it would happen.” She looks over the packet one more time, wondering if she somehow misread it. “And future options for my up-and-coming inventions?”

Wade grins, seeing the excitement in her eyes. “That’s right. A little bird told us that you were already working on something new.”

Gwen. She smiles, remembering Gwen watching as she reached for her bag, wanting to grab their company’s next project and throw it at Derrick’s smug face.

“The last page requires both of your signatures,” Wade continues as she hunches over to read the offer for the third time. She’s still half-expecting it to morph into a less impressive offer. Five million dollars, and they want to see more of what she comes up with in the future. It’s too good to be true. She wishes Evelyn was here.

“Are you okay?” Wade asks, placing a hand on her shoulder.

Camille wipes a tear. “It’s a relief is all.” She looks up at him. “I prepared myself for the worst.”

Wade’s face falls.

“Not that this weekend hasn’t been great with your family,” she adds, “but this,” she holds up the offer, “this is better than all of it.”

Wade beams. “Hard work pays off. I’m happy the offer is what you were looking for.”

Camille looks him over a second, taking in his beautiful jawline and lips. His smile starts to fade as she feels the heat growing between them.

“Where’s the pen?” she asks, forcing herself to divert her eyes to the page.

“Our lawyers will have to be present when you and Evelyn sign, but,” he juts his right hand out between them. “How about an old-fashioned handshake to symbolize the deal?”

Camille takes his hand, trying to match his firmness. He takes the paperwork from her, the heat between them ebbing.

“Now that we got that part over with,” he slides the paperwork back into his briefcase, “we can enjoy our evening without having the back and forth over contracts and royalty splits.”

“Wait,” Camille tilts her head at him, glancing down at the briefcase, “I can counter?”

Wade runs his hands over the top of his khakis, smoothing the wrinkles. “You can counter whatever you want, but I’m here to tell you that is the best offer we’re willing to make.”

She narrows her eyes at him. “The guy representing the Lichtenstein brothers told us it was their best offer as well.”

Wade doesn’t bat an eye. “Was their offer as good as ours?”

“I doubt my business partner would want me to tell you what your competitors offered us.” She continues to stare at him, but the longer he doesn’t blink, neither does she. After a few seconds, she loses their unspoken staring contest. “It was a terrible offer.”

Forty minutes later, they pull up to the airport. They get to the main entrance, driving past it without slowing.

Camille watches the airport fade behind them and looks to Buck. “Where are you taking us?”

It’s Wade who answers, “You don’t go through the main airport entrance when you fly private.”

Camille nods. “That way, the wealthy don’t have to mix with the poor.”

Wade smirks at her. “We don’t use the word ‘poor’ we prefer—”

“Peasants,” Camille finishes his sentence for him.

Buck glances back at her from the rearview mirror, grinning at her joke.

“Exactly,” Wade chuckles.

Past the central airport, through a tall chain-link fence next to one of the airport’s multi-storied buildings, Buck enters a code into the box outside of the fence to gain entry. He pulls the car up to a long white jet with two blue stripes that intertwine past the windows. Camille counts seven windows down the side of the jet. Each window is twice the size of the commercial plane she flew in on.

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