Page 44 of Billionaire Corruption

Chapter 18

Paul

I was about to go out and meet Grace for breakfast when I got a phone call from Clarissa. I was tempted not to take it, but I had been avoiding her for weeks.

“Hey.”

“How have you been, you’ve been quiet lately?”

“Busy, you know. How about you?”

“You know, this time of the year, events start slowing down, so there is less to do.”

She sounded a little down.

“I’ve been invited to a dinner party tomorrow night, a bit last minute, I know, do you want to be my plus one?”

She kept it light.

“Actually, I’ve started seeing someone.”

“Oh?”

It was the first time I’d come out and admitted it out loud. So far, Grace and I had been very discreet about what was happening between us. We didn’t talk about it, but we saw each other a couple of times a week. Since her brother’s stay in hospital, we’d been out a few times, ending up at my place. But she always had to go home. I was thinking about going away for the weekend, somewhere with fall foliage. This was the romantic thing to do, I’d heard, I’d never exactly gone for that sort of scene. I was more looking forward to having Grace to myself for a few days.

That in itself, was a strange feeling.

I’d never had that with anyone before.

But Grace was not a talker. Being with her was not about long conversations deep into the night. I remember almost all the women in my life wanting to talk for hours on end, exploring their feelings and wanting to examine mine. Theresa, in particular, had always seemed to enjoy taking me apart with almost surgical precision.

But Grace wasn’t like that. She was content to be with me, in the moment, and being with her was almost as good as being alone, but better. It was the best kind of company. Occasionally, she would mention something, about her past or her family and I would gain an insight into who she was, the forces that had shaped her character. It only made me want to be with her even more. I could hardly explain the effect she had on me.

“Who is it?” Clarissa asked, the jealousy barely concealed in her voice.

“Someone from work. It’s early days,” I said, to make it sound less serious.

“But serious enough to tell me about it, to feel you can’t take me to dinner,” she said, sharply. “Even though, we’re friends, right?”

“We’re more than friends,” I said. “You know that.”

“Maybe a little more, but never more than that.”

I didn’t like the way this conversation was going. Clarissa was beginning to sound needy.

“I have to go, I’ll call you sometime, okay?”

“Of course,” she sounded sad. “I’m happy for you. I hope it lasts.” She paused.“This time.”

The way she said the last two words, stung me. I tried to shrug them off, but they cast a pall over my day, even as I was sitting across from Grace, us eating bagels as the sun peeped through the clouds for a few glorious minutes. I asked her to go away with me the following weekend and she agreed. Toby was better and there was a lull in the investigation at work. The tension had lifted for a bit, and I proposed we take Friday off and fly in.

“Where do you want to go?” she asked.

“I was thinking Maine, somewhere?”

“Pretty,” she smiled at me and that was it. No suggestions of where she wanted to go, what the place had to be like, how I’d have to check the location. My mother always insisted on looking at places online before my father booked them. My sister refused to stay anywhere “creepy”, which usually meant any building older than ten years. When I was with Theresa, going away involved detailed planning as she always had to work around her hospital schedule, and she was constantly on call.

No such issues with Grace. She was happy to go wherever I wanted to go. I found a quaint coastal town and a guest house and booked out the entire place. The proprietor was a bit suspicious, wanting to know if we were planning on hosting parties. I told her it was a romantic getaway, that we wanted privacy, and she was much more obliging. She’d had a big booking that had cancelled only the day before when it turned out someone in the party had to get an emergency appendicitis. Lucky for me, the entire place was now available.

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