Page 26 of Almost True
“I’m channeling you, probably. ‘Bossy Boardroom Maven’ as I think I recently saw a paper refer to you.” She set her purse on the chair next to her and stood with a hand braced on the high bar top.
I groaned. “Maven? Who writes this stuff?”
She welcomed the glass of sparkling iced water I slid toward her and sipped before quipping, “Well, they can’t use the alliterative option in that paper, so they had to get creative.”
Ah, yes. How often had I been called the b-word in either a complimentary or accusatory way? Too many to count. I never took offense and didn’t particularly mind the moniker, but it got old. I was not, in fact, all that bossy. I was assertive, firm in my convictions, and really good at my job. I did it without showing them I was sweating, and that let everyone say I did it without breaking one. Apparently, this made me a…maven.
As for the reason she was really here, Juliet didn’t dive right in immediately. She kept it to surface-level chatting about her travels even though I knew what was coming, and finally, she pinned me down like I knew she would eventually. We’d snuggled into the couches, alone in the house aside from whatever security guard was stationed out front. Now that Taggart was in jail without bail, I actually got privacy fairly regularly.
“Any ideas who leaked the story?” she asked.
“Oh yeah. It was Chad.”
Her jaw dropped. “Seriously? Why would he do that?”
I gave her a look. “You expected better of him?”
She chuckled. “No, of course not. But it’s not like he needs the money from selling a story like that. It just seems so…”
“Vindictive? Juvenile? Selfish? Stupid?”
She sighed. “All fair. And I guess there’s no sense in getting upset now, is there?”
I admired this about her—her innate ability to accept when things happened. It was like her brain just took the information and adapted. She seemed so sweet and soft, but anyone who truly knew her saw the layers of intelligence and strategic thinking underneath. I would never consider myself a particularly flexible person, so this quality of Juliet’s always inspired me.
And this time, I agreed. “No. Can’t take it back. Wilder warned me we’ll be getting an influx of press, so they’re going to shut down the neighborhood and I’ll need security in town now.” Frustrating, but having been through the madness of the last few months, I’d rather play it safe.
“Good plan, though I’m sorry. I know you were hoping this would be an escape from all of that.” She sipped her wine, her kind eyes studying me.
“I was, but such is life.” Ireallywas, but again, no point wishing it hadn’t happened, and I’d always known it was a possibility. Hopefully, being here in Silverton, the locals wouldn’t feed into it, and the tourists wouldn’t be around long enough to care. If I gave a few interviews or whatever I had to do to get people off my back, maybe they wouldn’t be camped out in front of my house and hounding me constantly.
I’d still get my little vacation from real life and recover in time to return to reality and remember who I was and what life before all this mess looked like.
She gave a small grin and continued watching me, waiting for something. Finally, she prompted me. “So you saw him? Catch me up.”
She’d been traveling the last few days and with family for a few before that. She didn’t like being tethered to her phone, so when she spent time with loved ones, she usually got as close toofflineas a person could be these days. All of that meant she knew little of what’d happened with Aidan since our coffee last weekend.
“He’s been working with his crew in the back yard since Wednesday. I guess he doesn’t normally do the grunt work, but since he has two guys out sick, he’s right in there with them.”
“Sounds like a good leader.”
I gave her an unimpressed glare. “He’s been ignoring me.”
She gasped and her hand shot to her chest. “How is that possible?You!?”
I stuck my tongue out at her. “Rude. But seriously. I’ve been putting myself out there—taking them all ice water, coffee, snacks… honestly, whatever Anthony and I could come up with that didn’t make me look pathetic.”
“Can we just agree right now that having a crush on someone doesn’t make you pathetic?” She did that little tilt of her head that meant she was actually a little concerned and not just joking.
Discomfort rippled through me. Admitting having a crush felt a lot like the whole underbelly situation. “Sure.”
Her gaze didn’t waver, nor did she take my dismissal of her point, and she let me continue. I huffed, loving her for pushing me even though it was easier when she didn’t. But that was why I neededherhere. Anthony couldn’t do this for me, and neither could anyone else. Quinn Darling was the first person other than Juliet and my brother to do something like that in ages, and even then, it’d been different.
“Fine. I get it. But I feel stupid because he said we should keep it to work. But after the girls’ night, I thought maybe they were right. And then he ignored me, right up until his chatty man Jake mentioned the whole stalker mess, and then he suddenly cared, and I wasn’t having it so I went inside. Well, that and I hadn’t seen that the story was out, so I did legitimately need to go deal with that.” My heart raced, trying to block out what came next.
“And? I can tell there’s more so just tell me, love.”
Why did I feel like crying? Why did her gentleness always do this? It wasn’t like I was starved for it.Shewas gentle and kind to me and always had been. It had to be the still mixed-up feelings surrounding his check-in last Friday that had me off-kilter.
