Page 95 of Red Flag
I’d imagined my kids having his grey eyes, his dark brown hair. But I’d always wanted my kids to know their father adored their mother. That wouldn’t have happened.
We shared similar qualities. Ambition, hard work. Devotion.
His devotion to me had fallen ridiculously short.
All I felt now was niggling anger low in my stomach.
If he was too cowardly to approach me, I would approach him.
I offered my hand. “Adam.”
He only looked at my gesture in horror. “Come on, now,Livie, we’re not like that.”
I retracted my hand. “Come on, now, Adam, we are.”
I walked past him to the open-plan desks where my ex-co-workers sat. One or two new faces smiled at me, but the other six swarmed me, asking how I was and offering cups of tea.
I didn’t miss my old job.
But I hated how it had been taken from me.
How my friends had been taken from me.
Howshehad been taken from me. RuthlessLiviethat didn’tput up with shit.
In a way, I guessed Nix had unknowingly forced her back to the surface with how bloody annoying he was at first. Thinking about him made me smile, made me stronger.
We sat as a group in the conference room, eating doughnuts and ready to share what we had onVinny’scase. Adam, Victoria and I were the ones called as witnesses, and we placed all of the worst articles across the long table and on the pinboard. We scoured through emails to see if there was anything that would be helpful for the lawyers to draw their attention to.
But we still hadn’t been able to retrieve my sent emails. The only ones I could find that would be helpful were from replies when I’d initially emailed sayingVinnywas struggling with his mental health.
And when Victoria left for a phone call late in the afternoon, I pointedly stood at the pinboard, facing away from Adam.
“You don’t have to be like this, you know,” he said.
“Like what?”
“Cold.”
I laughed once without humour. I hadn’t spoken to him about anything other thanVinnysince I had insulted his skills in the bedroom. He was probably only hurt over that.
Either way, I wasn’t about to spend any more time alone with him. I texted Nix that I was ready to go.
His reply was immediate.
NIXONARMAS: I’m only around the corner.
Adam had stood and was at my side, looking over my shoulder at my phone. “Like I told your brother, I can get you some freelance work. You’ve done such a great job withArmas. He seems like an actual decent man. Though he isn’t.”
My eyes narrowed. “What do you mean by that?”
“Come for a drink with me,” he said.
The first time he’d said thatfour years ago,I’d been giddy with excitement. Now I just felt repulsion looking at his tanned, chiselled face.
“Let’s try and be friends again.”
Friends.Right.
