Total pages in book: 166
Estimated words: 160356 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 802(@200wpm)___ 641(@250wpm)___ 535(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 160356 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 802(@200wpm)___ 641(@250wpm)___ 535(@300wpm)
“Camryn, this is my daughter, Gail, and my gorgeous granddaughter Marcy. Girls, this is Camryn. I’ve told you about Camryn, remember, Gail?”
Oh, is that so? I imagine it was all kinds of complimentary. I toss Thomas a knowing look as I offer my hand to Gail. “Nice to meet you.” Are you as big of an arsehole as your brother?
Gail breaks away from her father’s embrace, laughing. If she notices my face, she doesn’t say anything. “I’m a hugger.” Then she hauls me into her chest, squeezing me, and I have to lift my coffee over my head to avoid tipping it over both of us. Thomas grins at me as I tense from head to toe, my eyes narrowing on him. “You sure are,” I say quietly, gently breaking away. “Well, it was a pleasure.” I face Thomas. “I’ll catch up with you later.” It’s a threat, and he knows it.
I leave Thomas and his family, going back to my office, holding up my coffee to Debbie as I pass. She flat out ignores my sarcasm. When I land at my desk, I re-read my husband’s text, as if I need to lower my mood more. Then I delete it, like I have every other text I’ve gotten from him. “I don’t give a fuck if you can’t pay the rent and mortgage,” I growl. “I’m paying my half.” Take out “unreasonable behaviour” and I’ll sign the fucking papers.
I rest back in my chair, my cheek throbbing, and pull out my compact mirror to check the situation, mentally estimating how many days it’s going to take to fade enough to get a good coverage—enough to hide it completely. Three. Maybe four. If I’m lucky. I snap my mirror shut on a defeated exhalation. Right now, three or four days not seeing Dec feels like a lifetime. So when my phone starts dancing across my desk, I’m thrown into a horrible dilemma. I want to see him. Let him calm my storm. But I’m quite sure I don’t want to be forced into explaining the tidy cuff on my cheek. And I definitely don’t want to lie. It’s burning my brain, anticipating explaining the unseen scars when he inevitably unearths them. I haven’t the capacity to tackle Dec when he inevitably scolds me for being so monumentally dumb for walking home in the dark alone when the streets are deserted. And, well, my cheek is a mess. So I let my phone ring off and wince when a message pings through.
Sorry I didn’t call you last night. Things ran over. Late lunch?
I chomp on my lip and tap out a reply.
I’ve got a mad few days ahead. I’ll call you Monday.
I’m cringing so hard, I shrink down the chair, and I stay there for a whole fifteen minutes until Dec replies.
Okay.
It’s one word. But it took fifteen minutes to send that one word, and that one word says so much more than okay. It says: Weird. It says: No, that’s not okay. It says: What’s going on? It says: I’m suspicious but I’m just going to say okay because I don’t know what else to say. And it says: You’re too much work after all and I’m bowing out.
God, my head!
I slam my phone down and call Debbie. “Get me the holding account statements.” I hang up before she can tell me I’m two weeks early and get back to my inbox.
* * *
Three hours later, my brain is fried. Jeff wasn’t wrong. The holding accounts have been hit hard, but it’s Barbara who’s been the most active. I email Thomas all the details of his wife’s drawings, my mind racing, considering various scenarios, but always coming back to the same conclusion.
She’s taking him to the cleaners.
I obviously don’t say that, it would be a step too far, but I can plant the seed. He can’t possibly look at this and brush it aside. I feel like they’re trying to sabotage Thomas’s plans. Actually, more than that, they’re trying to sabotage Thomas’s business, and that doesn’t make sense at all. Why rob your own source of wealth that you love to flaunt? I’ve suspected—been certain—that Barbara and Anthony aren’t all too keen on Thomas’s plans to float TF Shipping. And I suspect it’s because they don’t like the idea of answering to a wider board. No more frivolous spending on company cards for personal luxuries.
I hit send and look up at my door when I hear something odd seeping through the wood. “Surely not?” I murmur, standing, torn between going to the door and checking I’m not going mad, or staying here, not risking it, and hiding under my desk. The latter is more appealing, and yet my legs carry me to the door and swing it open.
“Ho-ho-ho!”
I step back, trying to take everything in before me. I can’t. There’s too much. And then there are suddenly squeals too. Dozens of them.