Page 23 of Love Redesigned
She frowned. “You can’t, or you won’t?”
“Legally, I can’t.”
“Legally? What does that even mean?”
“It means Alicio sent me a cease and desist order.” Frustration filled my voice. “It means I can’t talk about anything related to LeFranc withanyone, particularly those still employed by the company.”
She dropped her gaze, her head shaking sadly from side to side. She shrugged out of my coat and held it out to me. “So I guess that’s supposed to make it okay that you left without talking to me.” Her voice was distant, cold. “I was just another company employee.” The light of the streetlamp above her cast shadows over her face, but I could still see tears brimming in her eyes. “Here,” she said, shaking the jacket she still clutched in her hand. “I’m going home.”
Chapter Seven
Dani
My Uber driver was chatty. He was nice enough, but it was taking every ounce of my will power not to burst into tears. I really didn’t want to hear about his accounting classes in business school, or his roommate from Nepal, or his four-year-old niece no matter how cute she was. The relief I felt when he finally pulled up outside my apartment was palpable.
Outside the car, I paused on the sidewalk long enough to rate my ride and leave a tip for the driver. When I closed out the Uber app, there was a text notification on my screen.
Dani, I’m sorry about the way our conversation ended. I never meant to hurt you, and I hate that I seem to have only made it worse. It wasn’t my intention. I only wanted to say I was sorry.
Fresh tears filled my eyes and I closed out my screen, hiding the message from view. I didn’t want to read his apologies. Before I could drop the phone back in my bag, another notification lit up the screen.
One more thing. Please be careful at work. Trust Chase, and your own instincts. But no one else. I’m sorry I can’t say more than that.
What was that supposed to mean? Be careful? Careful doing what? If he couldn’t tell me everything, I’d almost rather he tell me nothing at all. Plus, he gave up his right to care whether I was being careful or not.
I hurried up the stairs to the loft I shared with Paige. Well, sort of shared with Paige. She was a full-time nanny and had a room at her employer’s home. She didn’t always sleep over, but it was a little bit of a haul to get from the Upper East Side all the way down to Chelsea so she often chose to stay at work. She was home on the weekends most of the time, but with all the traveling she did with the family, I never knew when to expect her. Still, she paid half the rent. I’d have never been able to afford the space without her help.
The loft was tiny. Anything even remotely affordable in the city always was. But it had high ceilings and huge windows and a funky, modern kitchen with Art Deco subway tile and light fixtures that looked like they belonged in an art museum. We were fairly certain the lights were courtesy of the previous tenant, an artist who had also left a mural that took up the whole of Paige’s back bedroom wall.
I hadn’t seen Paige before dinner, much to my disappointment—it would have been nice to talk through my Alex anxieties with her—so when I saw her purse and coat hanging on the chair by the door, I really did start to cry.
“Paige?” My voice cracked. “Where are you?”
She appeared in the doorway that led to the short hall separating our two bedrooms, her face wrinkled with worry. “What’s wrong? Are you okay? Did someone die?”
I shook my head and dropped my bag on the table by the door. “I’m so glad you’re home.”
We met on the couch where I walked her through the entire day, from running into Alex in the coffee shop, all the way through dinner and the disastrous walk afterward.
“Wow,” she finally said, after I’d finished. “You’ve had some day.”
I huffed. “Tell me about it.”
“I saw the flowers when I came home and wondered where they came from. That was at least nice of him, to tip you off about dinner. Can you imagine if you’d shown up and found him sitting there with Isaac?”
I sniffed and wiped my eyes on the back of my hand. “I’d have died. Alex was always like that. I’m not surprised he sent flowers.”
Paige gave me a knowing look. “Ohhh, no.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What?”
“You are so not over this guy.”
“Yes I am,” I said, but the new tears welling up from her words indicated otherwise.
She opened her arms and pulled me into a hug. “Oh, honey,” she said, patting me on the back. “No, you’re not.”
“I’m still so mad at him, Paige. And I can’t even begin to make sense of things he said tonight. Stuff that he can’t legally tell me? What does that even mean?”
