Page 6 of The Arrangement
I threw her a look.
Emily shrugged. “Okay, a raging homophobe.” She bit her lip and dropped her gaze to the floor. “You know…we’ve never discussed this, but…”
“I know you have a girlfriend,” I said with a weary sigh. “I overheard you talking about her with the new intern. Claire?”
Emily snorted. “Not even close. Grace.”
Now it was my turn to shrug. I was good with fossils. Bad with people. “The point is, I’m not a homophobe. At least, I try hard not to be. I believe everyone has a right to be happy. That being said, I would feel more comfortable if men weren’t hitting on me.”
My friend’s wariness melted away, and her wide grin returned. “I wouldn’t worry about that. You’ve got this whole pissed-off porcupine vibe about you. It would be a shock if anyone dared to ask you out without wearing armor.”
Lovely.
My divorce from Fiona hadn’t been messy and was borderline amicable. I still held some hope of finding love and marrying one day. However, Emily was helping to cure me of that delusion.
“Shit. I’m sorry you had to deal with that as a kid,” Emily murmured.
“What I don’t understand is why he did it in the first place? He never returned and apologized. He ruined the rest of my childhood and what relationship I had with my parents. Couldn’t he at least have come back and said, ‘My bad. It was just a joke’?”
“Maybe it wasn’t a joke,” Emily suggested, her voice a thin whisper.
I had considered that. Briefly, when my temper had cooled years later, and I’d been living on my own. I’d wondered if maybe Rome was gay, and I’d been his first crush. But that scared me more than the notion of him playing a thoughtless joke on me.
“I guess I’ll never know because I have no intention of ever speaking to him.” My hands were still trembling, and I wished I had another rum and Coke within reach. But it wasn’t necessary. This time, I’d been blindsided. I’d had no idea that he was livingin the city. Now, I did, and I could keep a better watch for him. Avoid him if by some slim chance we crossed paths.
The plan had formed in my mind as the security door beeped and unlocked. We both looked up to see Dr. Linda Case stride in with wide eyes and an enormous grin on her full red lips. This didn’t feel like a good thing at all. While she might be a paleontologist like I was, she’d handed herself over to administration years ago. It had been at least two decades since she’d stepped out into the field to dig in the dirt. Her focus was the budget, making sure we weren’t spending too much money and that we were constantly raising the funds needed to continue our operations. It was a hell I hated dealing with and was all too happy to leave in her hands.
Except it didn’t stay in her hands. The continuous need to raise money spilled through her fingers and rained on our heads.
“Liam! Liam, my beautiful boy! Oh, Liam, you are a treasure!” she gushed as she clacked across the tile floor on frighteningly high heels, particularly for a woman of her somewhat advanced age. Didn’t she worry about snapping something, like a hip or her neck?
“Dr. Case…is there—” I didn’t get the chance to stammer anything else out. She walked up to me and squeezed my shoulders with her bony hands. I stood, fearful that she was going to embrace me, pressing my face into her stomach.
“I thought we were blessed in getting you here because of your wonderful brain, but it turns out that you’re also familiar with someone who could save our department for years to come.” She was almost singing, but the terror I had shed swamped me again in a black wave.
“What do you mean?”
Her clawlike fingers dug into my shoulders, and she shook me. “Rome Ashbridge! You know Rome Ashbridge! Do you haveany idea how long I’ve been trying to get an introduction to that man?”
“What? But…I don’t…”
“Ashbridge’s charitable foundation is known all around the city. He’s given a great deal of money to the area’s libraries and the art museum. It should be only natural that he supports the sciences properly.”
“Oh no,” I choked out. My legs turned to tapioca. Any attempt to stand so I could pull out of her grasp fizzled. She couldn’t mean for me…
“Oh, yes!” She pointed a finger at me, the perfectly manicured nail coated in a deep maroon. “If you’ve been reading my regular memos, you know that federal funding for the sciences is way down. Until we get a leader in office with a little common sense, we have no choice but to lean on private donors and corporations to keep us alive.”
“But Rome and I…we…we haven’t spoken since we were kids,” I choked out. There was no way I was going to explain to my boss why we were now estranged, and I loathed the idea of being in the same city as him, let alone the same room.
The finger she had pointed at me waggled, and a sly smile rose on her narrow face. Her pale amber-brown eyes twinkled, a perfect complement to her warm ochre skin. I could almost hear the adding machine rattling off sums in her head. “I saw you two talking upstairs. This is the perfect chance for you to rekindle that old childhood friendship.”
Clearly, she hadn’t been close enough to hear the contents of our conversation, but there was no way in hell anyone would think that we’d ever want to talk again after what was said at the bar.
“Um…Dr. Case, I think this could be more complicated than you understand,” Emily interjected while I was trying to get my brain to switch from pure, useless panic into somethingresembling a working mind that would help me get out of this mess.
“What? Nonsense. It’s only complicated if you make it complicated.”
“But—” I tried to argue. She didn’t give me a chance.
