Page 53 of Inevitable Inheritance

“They are going to say worse things about me, Derrick. You can’t go getting into fights with everybody because they say stuff.”

“It’s different now,” he said.

“Why?”

His expression was pained when he looked at her. “Because then, when he said that,” he said shaking her phone at her, “you weren’t here. I couldn’t talk to you or see you and touch you, and all I had was my memory. So when he called you that, when he talked about you, it was like he was in my head and stamping on my memories, and I just couldn’t take it.”

Taylor stared back at him. “Oh,” she said softly and slid her hand down from his wrist to take her phone. She looked down.

“I’m going to go print off the stuff Todd sent,” he said and left without another word.

* * *

They pretendedthe conversation had never happened. Well Derrick did at least, and Taylor just took his lead. They spent the evening going over bios of her directors at Preston Corp. Simon came in and had dinner with them in the sitting room and talked some business with Taylor, going over the absolute basics, and Taylor was pleased that she already knew a lot of the things he was saying.

When Taylor felt her eyes grow heavy, she was ready to call it a night. “I’m done,” she said, closing the folder of photos.

“Ready for bed?” Derrick asked, getting up and stretching.

She nodded as she covered her yawn. “Yup,” she said, pushing herself up. “Where should I go?” she asked him.

“Uh, our room?” he said like she had just asked if gravity was real.

There was that “our room” thing again. “Well, I was thinking that maybe after the pool thing,” she said, her cheeks blazing, “that we should put space between us.”

“Tay, I’m not going to jump you. You said no, and the answer is no,” Derrick said. “Besides, it will look weird if we suddenly start sleeping apart.”

She felt like a fool when he called her out on her fears, and he was right—people would talk if all of a sudden they decided to sleep in different rooms. And the worst part, which she hated to admit to herself, was that she wanted to be next to him.

“Okay,” she said softly and walked from the room with Derrick right behind her. Taylor stood beside the door to Derrick’s room and let him go through it first. Derrick moved past Taylor to the door and grabbed her hand as he went, taking her with him over the threshold.

“Looks like she found you some stuff,” Derrick murmured as he popped the light on.

Taylor’s jaw dropped as she took in the king size bed piled high with at least thirty shopping bags.

“Holy shit,” she said as she moved forward and grabbed the note with her name scrawled across it propped on the heap of what must be her new wardrobe.

You are going to look fabulous! I think these pieces will be a great start for your casual wardrobe. I have your work things being pressed and hemmed. I will get them closeted for you when they are all set.

Love,

Marty

“A start?” Taylor whispered at the note, the stuff on the bed appeared to be enough to clothe her without repeating an outfit until she died. Movement on her left forced Taylor to look away from the note and see Derrick looking in the bags and moving them from the bed to the closet. “What are you doing?”

“Finding the bed,” Derrick said as he continued his task undeterred.

“Stop, don’t put it in there. I can’t keep all this!” she yelled shrilly at him.

Derrick stopped, turning back from the closet to look at her. “Why?”

“It’s too much! I don’t need all of this! Look at all of this stuff. It could cloth hundreds of people. It’s just too much!” she repeated, her eyes wide.

“Taylor, you need clothes,” Derrick said as if this was the most normal thing in the world.

“I need a few pairs of pants and a T-shirt, not all,” Taylor fluttered her hands at the mass of textiles in front of her, “not all this! This is crazy. There are people who don’t have enough to eat, and I have all of this that probably cost the same as a family’s yearly income.”

Derrick cracked a smile. “You sound like your mom,” he told her.

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