Page 23 of Want Me

Chapter 13

Ihadonlyvisitedthe Calloway mansion once before, and that had been a short trip to grab some files. It had been years since either of the Calloway children had lived at home, but they came and went as they pleased and still used their childhood bedrooms.

The house was magnificent. It was massive, as expected of the Calloways, with more rooms than I could count. It was daunting to be surrounded by such unapologetic wealth, but Oliver was blind to it after a lifetime in those halls.

He had led me to the kitchen and pulled out an array of crackers to snack on while we waited. Oliver seemed content to lead the conversation and told me story after story from when he and Ben were kids. I could only half listen, though I enjoyed the stories. The other half of me was overwhelmed as we waited for Daphne to arrive.

Oliver had called her before her plane left Los Angeles and asked her to meet him at their home. He had said it was an emergency but didn’t go into detail. Her plane had already landed at JFK, so there was nothing to do but wait.

I had gone through more than half the crackers despite the knots in my stomach. There was so much anxious energy inside me that I felt like I was buzzing, and every minute that passed only made it worse.

I had no idea what I was going to say to her. Oliver had asked that I tell her what I felt, that I faced her honestly. At this point, I wasn’t sure I knew what I felt. Everything was a mess, and my legs itched to run away. But I didn’t. I owed it to myself to see this through.

When the front door opened my mind went blank. A white-hot terror gripped my insides, but Oliver just nodded at me with a smile. He seemed to believe that everything would work out. I wish I shared his confidence.

“Oliver?”

“In the kitchen,” he called.

“What is going on?” she demanded, her voice traveling in from the hallway. The whirr of her rolling suitcase punctuated her arrival. “What was so important I had to come straight here after a six-hour -” she swallowed the end of her sentence as she saw me sitting at the kitchen island. Her brows formed a deep V between her eyes. “Marina, why are you here?”

Oliver stood as I scrambled to come up with an answer, saving me from the question. “I brought her here.” He dropped his hand on my shoulder and gave it a quick squeeze before walking over to Daphne.

She didn’t take her eyes off me until he stopped beside her and pulled something out of his pocket. She tilted her head towards him as she took what he offered, and my heart dropped. “What’s this?”

“Oliver,” I hissed, anger gathering in the base of my stomach.

He ignored me. “Marina’s resignation.” Instantly her eyes shot back to me, so wide they looked close to popping out of her face. “Dad shouldn’t be back until next week, so you have the house to yourselves. I thought you two should discuss it in private.” He looked back at me over his shoulder, unapologetic. “I’ll be at Ben’s after this,” he said. “If you need us.” And with that, he was gone.

I was going to murder him. He hadn’t said anything about giving her that letter, but now there was no way around it. I guess I was jumping in head first.

Daphne had a death grip on the paper, so tight her hand was starting to shake. “Resignation?”

Fine. No more hiding.

“I don’t think we should work together anymore.”

“Why?”

I sighed. “Daph, I can’t do this. It’s obvious that you’ve figured out my feelings, and with Donovan -” I paused, struggling to find my words. “It’s not healthy. I’ll train my replacement and then we can go our separate ways.”

I’d imagined a dozen different ways she might react, from anger, to embarrassment, to denial. But I never thought I would see her cry.

“You love him that much?” she whispered, tears gathering in her eyes.

Wait.

Him?

I frowned, my mind unable to keep up. I held up a hand, “Hold on, hold on. Him?”

Her throat tightened as she fought down her emotions. “Donovan. I know that you’re in love with him.” She turned away, unable to face me.

I was so confused I didn’t know where to begin. “Daph, I don’t love Donovan. I barely even like him.”

She shook her head, looking down at the floor. “Don’t lie to me, Marina. Every time the two of you are in a room together there’s so much tension you could cut it with a butter knife.”

Tension? With Donovan? “Daphne, I’m a lesbian. I am not in love with Donovan.”

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