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Charlotte

I keptmy eyes on the clock while my fingers typed away as quickly as they could. I made a promise to myself that I’d treat my upcoming vacation as an actual vacation. Not as an excuse to take my work home, close myself up for two weeks, and pretend like I wasn’t still chugging along with work. I had extravagant plans for my summer vacation. Expensive, extravagant, lovely plans for my next two weeks. But it all hinged on me getting this paperwork typed up by five-thirty sharp.

“Come on,” I hissed.

I pushed my fingers faster than I’d never pushed them before. I felt burn-out settling against my shoulders, weighing me down towards my mahogany desk. But I knew once I got the rest of this paperwork submitted to Mother Dearest, I’d be free.

From her, and from this place.

“Oh, come on, Roger. You can’t really tell me you’re bringing this up now.”

I heard my mother’s angry voice in the other office space across the hall, and I felt the hairs on the nape of my neck stand on end.

“It’s four-forty-five on a Friday. What do you expect us to do!? This was something you should’ve brought to us weeks ago, Roger. Do you know what this implicates you in?”

I drew in a deep breath. “Focus. Stand your ground when she comes in. Don’t let her take you down.”

My mother, the prominent lawyer that she had become, didn’t get there by playing nice. She didn’t come to be the influential woman she was in New York City without stepping on toes and bending the rules until they cried out for mercy. But, it was one of the many reasons why I wanted to grow up and be just like her. I wanted my own office, just like her. I wanted my own career as a prosecutor, just like her. I wanted to wear pencil skirts with stiletto heels, just like her. I wanted to wear a grin on my face and have people scatter in the wind, just like they did with her.

But, the idea of lounging around an island vacation home in the Aeolian Islands no worries called to me.

Unlike my mother, who had never taken a vacation in all her life.

I remembered the lonely summer days of my childhood. The vacations my father and I took before Mom had to back out at the last second due to work, or a court date. I understood the terrible toll her workaholic ways brought down onto our family.

One of the many reasons why my parents divorced.

So, I had one aspiration: to have the perfect life my mother thought she had. I wanted the career, the office, the prominence, the sway, and the family. All I had to do was make sure I followed all of her moves while correcting the wrong steps she made while I was growing up.

And it all started with getting myself, and her, on this vacation.

Then, I heard my mother’s heels clicking across the hall before a knock came at my cracked office door.

“Charlotte? You free for a moment?”

I recognized that tone of voice. “Don’t do this to me, Mom. We’ve got—.”

I glanced down at my alarm as she pushed my door open. “I just got a call from Roger—.”

I licked my lips, my fingers flying across the keyboard still. “I’m not letting you back out of this. You need this vacation as much as I do.”

“Sweetheart, it’s not that simple. The Striper Case is—.”

I finally looked up at her. “About to make you cancel this vacation, isn’t it?”

She leaned against my door frame. “You don’t have to cancel. The Striper Case isn’t yours. You’re still more than welcome to the two weeks you’ve taken off.”

“And I have every intention of making that flight Sunday morning. You need to be with me on it.”

“I can’t, sweetheart. I’m sorry. I have to stay here and keep working. Some things have surfaced and I can’t ignore them.”

I blinked. “Can you bring it with you?”

She furrowed her brow. “What?”

“Your work. Bring your laptop and the files. Your work phone, too. Maybe it’ll bring you some peace to work somewhere with an Italian view.”

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