Page 84 of One Year Ago in Spain
The first time she’d kissed her hand in the hotel lobby, she’d actually said aloud, “Ineedyou, Matías.”
The second time he’d shown up, she was in a mild panic trying to get a simple Coke from the park vendor.
The third time, Claire had been buying underwear but freaking out that how many pairs she bought would somehow signify her faith in Matías’s recovery and might jinx him.
As for last night, she’d just left the hospital after being lectured that she wasn’t doing enough for him, and she had been clutching her purse, upset because shewasspending her days doing everything she could to connect with his soul, to try to bring him closer so he could reunite with his body and hopefully wake up.
In each of those instances, Claire had shed some of the armor she usually wore. And in that vulnerability, when she pressed on her palm, Matías came.
Because he knew she needed him.
Her eyes welled up as she looked at him sitting on her bed. “How do I deserve you?”
Matías shook his head. “You don’t have to earnanyone,Claire. Just be you.”
“I doubt that’s enough.”
“I’m pretty sure it is.”
Her stomach growled.
A grin crept onto Matías’s face. “Now how about we order you some food?”
—
Claire couldn’t eatmuch because of the anxiety over what was in her inbox, but after some bread and gazpacho, she at least didn’t feel like she was going to pass out.
“I’m afraid to look,” she said, turned away from her computer.
“Do you want me to read for you?” Matías asked.
“Yes,” she said. “But no. I should do it.”
She took a few more sips of Coke. Then, with no more excuses to procrastinate, she pivoted slowly to the computer and clicked on her inbox.
Claire skimmed the names of the senders. There were so many emails she would have to prioritize whose to read first. She skipped over the name of junior associates, and went right to the ones from Bill Ngyuen, her mentor and the senior partner in charge of the merger, to Mitch Tahir, Intelligentsia Tech’s general counsel.
Reading the emails in chronological order, she saw they began as the usual firing squad type of questions Mitch asked daily to keep up to speed on the ten thousand moving parts of the merger.
But as Claire got to emails from the more recent hours—the end of the business day in the United States yesterday—she stopped seeing messages with Bill’s name as the sender.
Instead, Mitch would copy her on things, with Bill’s prior emails below. Emails Bill had cut her out of.
Until finally, a message from Mitch to Bill:
Is Claire no longer on this deal? Should I stop including her on emails, too?
“No…” Claire stared slack-jawed at the screen.
“What’s happening?” Matías asked.
She didn’t answer. Her hand shook as she started panic-scrolling through the next emails. Mitch had forwarded one toher with the message “I’m sorry, Claire,” and below was an email from Bill:
From:[email protected]
