Page 31 of Cajuns. Love. Curves.

Subject: You still haven’t explained…

Okay, I’ll ask one more time. And if you skim over it this time, I’ll let it go. What’s the deal with the 52?

Because I feel like it’s got to mean something!

Peeling back the layers,

Cassie

* * *

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Re: You still haven’t explained…

Sorry. I didn’t mean not to answer. It’s not really a big mystery. I was raised by my aunt and uncle. He was a frogman in Korea. 1952.

And, yeah, that means he was really old by the time they got custody of me when I was a toddler. But my aunt was younger than him, so it wasn’t that bad. They both died when I was younger. It’s why I dropped out of college and enlisted.

But speaking of email addresses… I noticed you’re no longer writing from your work email. Trouble at the office?

Nick

* * *

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Re: re: You still haven’t explained…

Work is good. It just seemed odd to still be using that email when we’re emailing so often now.

Funnily enough, emails from my work email about whether replicants are better or worse than terminators didn’t seem like an ideal use of company resources….

chapterfifteen

Cassie

He’s not really going to show up. Surely, he’s not actually going to show up and try to go on this retreat with me, right?

That’s what I tell myself all weekend long, while I do laundry, clean my apartment, pack for the trip, and… yes, because I’m just this lame … get started on the work I’ll be missing during the week I’m out on this “vacation” for work.

I have no way of knowing for sure if the other lawyers at the firm work as hard as I do. When I was dating Tripp, he complained non-stop about my long hours. Which I thought was pretty ironic since the company has his family name on it.

I tried to make him understand that since his grandfather and father were the Dushanes in the company name, he’d inherited privileges I’d never have. He could take weekends off and still make partner in a couple of years. I couldn’t.

So, yeah, I pack a lot of work into my weekend in hopes that once I reach Belize I can at least pretend to relax on the beach. When I’m not working (or packing or cleaning) I try not to worry about the coming week. And I try to pretend that Nick was joking about coming with me.

Because surely he was joking, right?

Right?

Yeah. He wasn’t joking.

Monday morning, I follow the directions to the private terminal of the airport and hand my car’s key card over to the valet. My bags are out of the trunk and whisked away before I’m even out of the car.

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