Page 76 of Almost True
“She was that unhappy?”
“No. Please don’t think that. But she saw how it was wearing on you and Martha. She wanted you to have time to travel and do all the things you’d talked about. She wanted Thanksgiving leading up to Christmas to be fun instead of so crammed with long hours and back-breaking work.” And she wanted to be my admin and help me expand my business, but I didn’t need to spell that out, I guessed.
He took a slow breath, his focus pinned on his daughter’s last project for work. Regret and guilt snaked around my chest and squeezed.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I’m so sorry I kept it from you, but I just couldn’t bring myself to. And the longer I waited, the more it felt like it might seem like I was using her to get what I wanted. That’s not what this is. I’m only trying to make clear that what I want, and what she wanted, are similar if not the same.”
He cleared his throat and took a swig of his coffee, that troubled, almost grim look seeming to ease by degrees the harder he stared at the folder. Finally, his gaze found mine.
“You’ve honored Vivienne so well. You’ve loved us, cared for us, and kept this business afloat.” He sniffed, banishing the faint tremble of his voice. “I admit I love the idea of this place being passed down from one to the next of us, but my legacy is in you and Luca. So’s Viv’s. You may not be my boy by blood, but you joined our family a long time ago, and you’re ours.”
He smiled, and I let out a watery laugh-sob. My heart ached and twisted with a potent mix of grief and elation. “Thank you.”
He shook his head slowly, a faint smile on his face now. “No, son. Thankyou.Thank you for being patient and so careful of our feelings. But now it’s time for you to live. And it’s time for us to sell this place so you—so we all—can do that to the fullest.”
We stood at the same time as though choreographed, and he stuck out a hand to me, which I took, then pulled him in to hug him and pat his back. “Thank you for taking care of me and Luca, too. We couldn’t have—” My voice broke, every emotion surrounding us crowding in and pressing on my chest.
He nodded, eyes teary. “I know. I know. We couldn’t have done it without each other.” He patted me once more, then leaned away, sniffing hard again. “And now that we’re done with the waterworks, tell me what I need to do to get the deal done. If you’re not taking it, I suppose this guy out of North Carolina’s as good as anyone else.”
I wiped my cheeks and exhaled, chuckling even as I felt like weeping for joy and relief and a glimmer of wishing Vivienne was here to see me and her old man crying at each other. Of course we’d cried together in years past, but there’d been a dramatic pause as we’d steeped in the work of surviving.
And as we sat and reviewed the offer and all it would mean for him, his posture perked up and his leg started bouncing. His excitement over the reality of truly retiring and having that nest egg accessible seemed to finally hit him.
And when I left, I had one thought repeating in my head. I’d finally been honest and, instead of prioritizing someone else’s feelings or doing some mythical, unobtainable version of the right thing, I told the truth even if it meant hurting them a little. Not in a brutal way, but in the way that needed to be done. And it’d turned out better than I could imagine. I had a feeling Martha would agree once she heard about his plans for a cruise around the world.
If I’d trusted him a little more, I would’ve said this all years ago. If I’d been willing to be vulnerable and open with him, to risk disappointing him, to confront the shame of not wanting what he did for my life, we might’ve come to this place so much sooner.
And that thought circled my mind again and again but with a turn. What if, instead of worrying so much about pressuring Maddie, I’d just asked her to stay? Asked her to try long distance? Askedsomethingof her, and trusted her to respond honestly?
CHAPTERFORTY-THREE
Maddie
Anthony narrowed his eyes at me for the nth time today as I pressed my lips into a thin, sickly version of a smile.
“I appreciate that. Thank you so much.” There came the smile again. It’d been a fixture on my face the last month. I didn’t know how else to cover the reality that had sunk in ever more persistently by the day since I’d been back.
I’d been waiting for it to click back into place—that feeling that had fueled me for years. The satisfaction. The grind and the pleasure that stemmed from it. ThatWorking Womaninside me, ambition personified.
No luck. Not even close.
I hadn’t been fired. They’d simply had an end of month meeting they wanted me there for before we launched into the end-of-summer and rounded the corner to Q-4. All I could think was how unimportant it was and how disrespectful of my time it was to make it seem like theyneededme here during planned time off a solid month-plus before the next quarter began.
I’d worked tirelessly for this company, and they couldn’t give me twelve weeks off? I’d taken what amounted to less than four weeks of vacation in the last fouryears. And on top of that, it wasn’t like I was on a joyride through the French wine country. The first three and a half weeks were spent literally running from a stalker, and the last seven?
My throat locked up and I nodded into the phone, squeezing out an “Mm-hmm. Sounds good. Talk to you soon.” Hanging up before I moved, I turned my desk chair toward the glass windows behind me to escape any more of Anthony’s scrutiny.
“Okay, it’s time to have a talk.” His voice was almost pleading.
So much for evasion.“About?”
When I turned back, he stood with a hip popped out and arms crossed, and my heart sank. I’d fleetingly hoped he might mean something work-related, but the look on his face had a pre-emptive“Don’t even try.”
“I think you and I both know what about, but one second.” He tapped out something on his tablet, smirked, then swiped a finger to answer a call. A familiar voice came on the phone.
“Is she ready?”
I stood. “Is that Juliet?”
