Page 40 of Plum

“That man is trash.” Mom sniffs.

“So I gather.”

“He wants something from you. Money.”

“Possibly.”

“Definitely.”

“I don’t plan on responding.”

She pauses, purses her lips. It looks like she’s going to say something, and then she thinks better of it. “I’m surprised he’s on email.”

“You are?”

She gets a faraway look in her eye. “He was always very clever with numbers. Like you are. He was awful with reading and writing, though. Dyslexic, probably.”

It’s the first thing besides his crimes against us that she’s ever shared. The disclosure lets me dare pry. I never have before.

“Whydidyou give it all up for him?”

Mom’s raises her eyebrows, but to my surprise, she answers. “You don’t remember Grandma and Grandpa Anders very well, do you?”

I don’t. Once Mom married Thomas Wade and gave birth to Marjorie, the Anders took her calls again, but by that point, I was at Mountchassen. I saw my grandparents a few times on holidays, but Eric and I would bail as soon as we scarfed down the meal.

“They weren’t very…demonstrative. I was an only child. Summers were boring. Ryan Morrison worked for the company renovating the stables. So cliché.” Mom’s face darkens under her thick, flawless makeup. “He had a motorcycle. I was young and stupid. I had no idea what really mattered in life.”

“You fell in love.” It’s hard to imagine Mom swept off her feet. I’ve never known her not to know exactly what she’s doing.

“I miscalculated.” For a second, there’s a flash of pain in my mother’s cold blue eyes. Then, she gives herself a shake and dabs the corner of her mouth with her napkin. “Anyway, you should steer clear. I can’t imagine what good could come from Ryan Morrison.”

Neither can I, but still. There’s a part of me that wants to know, and it’s unsettling, because it isn’t the desire of the man with the corner office on the top floor. It’s the desperate longing of a cold, hungry boy throwing punches in a vacant lot.

I shake it off, but it’s another layer, another distraction eating at me.

I pay the bill, escort Mom to her waiting car, and then I walk to the Wade-Allyn building. There’s a chill in the air, and a brisk breeze coming off the river. The morning’s hot anger finally ebbs into something detached and hard, leaving a stale, bitter taste in my mouth.

Lunch with my mother put some things in perspective.

Plum did me a favor. An eighteen-thousand-dollar bottle of wine and some petty cash is, after all, much cheaper than a lifetime of symphony boxes and tables at the Christmas Auction. And wondering—hell, probablyknowingthat the woman beside you in bed sees you as a meal ticket, not a man.

It was a memorable night. She scratched an itch I didn’t know I had, and then she stole from me and reminded me what she was.

I learned a lesson I shouldn’t have needed. I can wallow in the humiliation, or I can do what I always do.

I nod to doorman as he greets me. “Mr. Wade.”

My head is clear again. Well, clear enough. It’s time to get back to work.

???

At six o’clock, I throw in the towel before I end up throwing my monitor. I’m struggling to make easy calls, and I keep asking questions and not listening to the answers. My team’s getting frustrated. I disconnect from the video conference with instructions that they go home.

I pour myself a bourbon and stare at my screen.

I should be working on ArrowXchange.

I decided last night was a one-off. I dodged a bullet.

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