Page 10 of A Man of Wealth

“He’s weak,” I rephrase.

“He’s…more dependent upon them,” she clarifies. I wonder what she means by that, but I don’t press her further.

“Do you trust others beyond Sebastian and Aiden?” she asks.

I shake my head.

“Why them?”

I shrug. “I have my reasons. Who do you trust?”

She looks straight ahead, and that answer is all the answer I need. “You trust no one,” I murmur in a bit of awe and also sadness for this woman I loathe. What a lonely existence.

“I have friends. I don’t need some pity party. I just…there isn’t anyone that I trust one hundred percent,” she admits, her jaw tight as she speaks. She’s given away a chink in her armor and that surprises me. What else will Vivienne Westerly reveal tonight?

“You aren’t how I thought you would be,” I admit.

She looks over at me with narrowed eyes. “How exactly did you think I would be?”

I smirk.

“Oh, for the love of God. I don’t have a giant wart on my nose, and I don’t cast magic spells on my enemies,” she groans.

I can’t fight the laugh that erupts from the depths of my chest. “Wow, you really took that all the way, now, didn’t you?”

She glares at me, and it only makes me smirk more. Why does getting under her skin make me so damn happy? I decide it’s better if I don’t answer that question, because the reasons I had before tonight are not the ones I currently have.

“Do you like being a journalist?” I ask.

“Of course. Do you like being a lobbyist?”

I shrug. “Sometimes.”

“Sometimes?”

“Yes. Does anyone love their job all the time?”

“Yes.”

I laugh again. “Who? I’d love to meet this person.”

I’m a bit surprised when a far-off smile graces her face. Her features soften a bit, and she looks, even more beautiful.

“What?”

She widens her smile on what I can only suspect is a very happy memory. “My first year reporting, I was asked to cover a local story. There was a woman who was turning one hundred and two years old. I went to a house to interview her. Most people her age are in nursing homes, but she was still living in her home. She had a woman come in each day to help her, but she was still active and lucid. She made us sandwiches and iced tea, and we ate in her garden. It was the most beautiful garden that I’d ever seen. A little oasis here in the city. She was a florist and gardener. Her late husband and she had owned a little florist shop for sixty years. Her granddaughter had just recently taken over the business, but she still went in every few days to help out with arrangements. I asked her if she liked it and she said that she didn’t like it, she loved it and arranging and growing flowers was more than something she loved, it was her. She felt it defined her. I couldn’t believe that at first. I insisted there must have been at least one bad day here or there. She said no. She said she never viewed something going the way she didn’t want it to as bad; she said those days were just challenges and she liked challenges. She liked to see ways to solve problems, so those days were her most fun days. She was so optimistic and happy. She said doing what she did brought joy to people on their best and worst days and what better could she do with her life than spread joy. She died a year or so after that interview. She was buried in a local botanical garden where she was still volunteering on weekends right up till the end. I went to her funeral and person after person stood up and spoke of her absolute love of flowers. So, yes”—she turns to me—“that was someone that never had a bad day at her job.”

“Well, that’s quite a story,” I state as I study her face.

“She was quite a lady.”

“Sounds like it.”

I look back at the road. We’re getting close.

“What do you think we’re going to find?” I ask.

“I…don’t know exactly. I’m not sure how they are bringing the medicine in, I mean whether it’s coming in a pill form or liquid or disguised as something else,” she admits.

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