Tributary: A Billionaire Romance (Oak Creek Book 2)
Page 13
They approach the porch and I rise to offer Abigail my chair. She shakes her head and plunks herself down on the stoop. Hunter joins her, his hand going immediately to her lower back, rubbing in gentle circles and making me ache to touch Diana.
“I just got here a bit ago,” I tell Abigail. “Probably going to hang around awhile.”
Hunter looks at me, the moonlight glinting off his eyes. “I presume you are aware of my sister’s financial news.” I nod, spreading my knees wide and leaning forward.
Abigail squeezes Hunter’s leg. “She isn’t quite sure what to make of all of it. I think she’s camped out with Sara and Indigo tonight, synthesizing feelings.”
I’m not sure if she’s telling me that as a hint for me to crash the party or just relaying information, but I get the sense that I should hang tight another day before I go share my career pivot with Diana. Maybe wait to see if she comes to share her news with me. “Well, I don’t want to keep you two…”
“Not at all,” Abigail insists. “We’re neighbors! Isn’t that wonderful? I mean, sort of neighbors.”
“Say, Abigail, what’s going on with your book?”
She lights up and I can see her whole demeanor change at that question. “Oh! Thank you for asking! I actually just signed with an agent. I’m so excited. We’re going to start shopping for publishers.”
“That’s great news. Diana says it’s butting in if I tell you my company…well, Wexler Holdings has a publishing house in our portfolio. I hope you’ll let me know if I can make a connection for you.”
She grins and stands up from the porch, brushing off her jeans. “I will definitely hit you up about that—my new agent is really big on making every conversation count, talking about building my platform, all that stuff.” She claps her hands. “Hunter, babe, let’s go home.”
They walk off toward their house arm in arm, and I admire how nicely they work together. The quirky biologist and the bubbly writer, both on the cusp of career defining moments. I’m glad I can be a small part of that.
Once the lights go off in Abigail and Hunter’s first floor, I stay on the porch a bit longer, trying to plan my approach for my next move to find my own defining moment with another member of the Crawford family.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Diana
“I JUST CAN’T believe it.” The world looks so different from the floor of my brother Archer’s office, where I’m sprawled out with Arch, Sara, and Indigo and a huge picnic of snacks from the co-op.
“I can!” Indigo kisses Sara and grins. “Sar has been saying for years that she could sue that jerk skunk for you.”
“Yeah, I knew she was good at her job…I just—”
“You didn’t trust me to be that good.” Sara pats my leg and throws a baby carrot at me. “But it’s ok, because I have enjoyed these years showing you my prowess.” She laughs. “Seriously, though, Diana, I’m here for you. Always. Please know that.”
My eyes well up with tears, remembering how difficult it was for me to say the words once I decided to go to Sara’s office this morning. To actually knock on her door and ask her for help. I wanted to cry with relief when she sprang into immediate action, sending off a courier faster than I could blow my nose.
“Did it come through yet, Arch?” Indigo rises to peer over Archer’s computer, where he’s been refreshing my bank website to see if the money transfer came through yet. We got a call from Epi-D’s legal team late in the afternoon explaining that they were offering us a flat sum, which Sara and Archer encouraged me to take.
Archer swallows a big sip of his beer and shakes his head. “Not yet. But I’m digging this picnic as a distraction from tax hell. Maybe you should sue someone every April when I’m delirious.”
“Really, Archer, you and Indigo should both be going home to get your rest.” Sara looks on with concern as Indigo yawns and Archer nearly tips over when he stands to recycle his beer bottle.
“We can carry on this party tomorrow when everyone’s had some sleep.” Sara is already in fierce mama protector mode even though the baby won’t be here until Thanksgiving.
I start to clean up the food, stuffing the perishables in the small fridge under Archer’s giant desk. “You two go on back to the Inn,” I say. “I’ll make sure Archie gets to his house ok. And no worries—I will pay you your fee as soon as the check clears.”
Sara scoffs, helping Indigo into her sweater. “You will pay no such fee. You will work off this debt in babysitting hours, Diana Crawford.”
We all bust out laughing at this, and I even toss in a joke about teaching the baby to use a machete. But really, I’m just so overwhelmed. It’s a big deal for me that I asked my friends for something, and I wasn’t mentally prepared for things to go my way so easily.
As I walk Archer to his little bungalow on the outskirts of town, I start to think about how much Asa must have influenced today’s outcome. I will burn him to the ground and I will hand you his ashes, he’d said. I feel a tremor inside at the thought. I’ve been working so hard today coming to terms with the idea that claiming my own work back isn’t groveling. I’m not whining here and I’m certainly not the loser in this situation.
The more I stared at my plants today, the more I realized I would never let anyone steal from my friends or siblings like that. I mean, I would never let my friends or siblings get emotionally involved with such an obvious asshole, either. But I kept thinking back to how I insisted Abigail stand up for herself when Hunter went back on his word to help set up the Autumn Apple festival. And that was just setting up a damn cider booth.
I moped around for years because my ex-boyfriend stole my thesis research.
Sara said I didn’t let her sue sooner because I didn’t trust her, but that’s not the whole story. Today I realized I had not felt worthy of anyone’s help. I had been viewing the loss of my graduate work as a penance for my stupidity, the price of having my eyes opened to my naiveté.
Never again.
Somewhere between panel discussions about fertilizer and losing at darts, I remembered that I’m really fucking smart. I’m glad I finally asked Sara for help. Signing the lawsuit papers felt like blowing away a heavy fog.
Now all that remains is to tell Asa Wexler I don’t need his damn money after all. And maybe apologize for the things I said during our last argument. Or not. He did say he cheated at darts.
Restless and energized after dropping off my brother, I keep walking past my shop, toward the little side street past the inn. Toward the Espenshade house.
I stop in the sidewalk when I see Asa on the porch, alone in the moonlight. “Oh,” I mutter. “How did you get here?”
He shrugs from his bag chair. “Took a train,” he says. “Want to sit for a bit?”
I hesitate. “You’ve only got one chair…”
“I’ll share it with you.” He pats his leg, and I notice he’s wearing those tight gray sweatpants again.
“I don’t want to rip the chair,” I tell him. I swallow, and continue. “Maybe we can sit inside where you have more room.”
“I’d like that,” he says, rising to open the front door. A square of light illuminates his porch and I follow him into the light like a moth to a flame, catching the scent of his deodorant and his soap and his Asa-smell. I sit next to him on the couch, a bit stiff, because I don’t know where to begin. We both said a lot of things to each other the last time we shared a couch.
“I don’t need you to invest in my plants,” I finally say, kicking off my shoes and tucking my feet under me.
He nods. “I heard something about that today.”
“Did you have something to do with the larger settlement?”
He shakes his head. “It’s not larger. Epi-D isn’t going to have future profits now that Wexler Holdings pulled out their investment. I estimate they’ll go belly up within a few months. Get absorbed by one of the larger pharm companies.”
I chew on my bottom lip. “Does that mean people won’t ha
ve access to the medication? I don’t want that at all…”
He shakes his head. “No, it just means Jay Buford won’t be the one selling it to them.” Asa pats my leg. “You earned that payout, Diana. Don’t you ever believe you didn’t earn every cent of that.”
This is all new, and it’s really big and my instincts are screaming at me to punch him or go running, or possibly fuck him. Instead, I say, “Thank you. For your part in the settlement.”
We’re quiet for a bit until he asks, “What got you interested in cannabis to begin with? Why that of all plants?”
“Oh, that’s easy,” I tell him. “It was really the first time a plant was making a splash in the scientific community as medicine for, well maybe for a century. When I started graduate school, everyone was talking about medical marijuana relieving pain for cancer patients, and the buzz was just starting about—am I rambling?”
He smiles and slides closer to me. “I love your animated ramblings. Please. Tell me.”
I get distracted when his thumb starts circling my wrist again, but eventually I find my words. “People were just getting excited about using marijuana to treat seizures. It occurred to me that I could maybe isolate the most effective parts of the plant and, oh. That feels really good, Asa.”
I didn’t come over here to sleep with him, and I don’t want to just end every argument by throwing him down on the floor and riding his cock until we both can’t walk. I notice a pile of suitcases in the hall and find the energy to ask, “Are you planning to stay awhile?”
He nods. “I quit my job today.”
“Wait, what?”
Asa pulls me into his arms, and I let him embrace me, resting my head against his chest while he sniffs my hair. “I still think you’re a witch,” he says.
“Ok, but why did you quit your job?”
“Because there’s another job I want more. I came to Oak Creek today to ask you to hire me.”
“Me hire you?” He nods again and runs his fingers through my hair, pulling it loose from the messy bun on top of my head. “As what?”
“Well,” he says, rubbing my arms now, “we can maybe discuss my title another time, but I think I have the skills and experience in business to help you expand your small robot weed farm.”
A laugh escapes my throat, taking me by surprise. “Robot weed farm?”
“We can discuss branding, too. But think about it. You’re a brilliant scientist. You have brilliant partners and you have the funds to get your license. You also know nothing about marketing, you’re lousy at details like proper insurance, and you don’t have time to worry about the complex accounting involved in a business that’s sill not legal at the federal level.”
“Mmm tell me more about what I don’t know.”
Asa turns me around to face him. “I’m serious, Diana. Let me work for you. Your company. Your intellectual property. Your name. My strategic advice.”
When I close my eyes, I can see it. Me spending long hours developing perfect conditions to cultivate perfect plants. Him handling the rest. It’s a dream I hadn’t even dared to dream, not even in my quietest inner mind.
“Ok,” I whisper. “But you have to call me ‘boss’ when we’re at work.”
“And then I’ll call you Dr. Crawford in the bedroom,” he says, slapping my rump and causing me to yelp.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Asa
“YOU WANTED TO see me, Boss?” I never tire of that joke and I’m pretty sure Diana is into it when I call her that at work. As soon as her settlement check cleared, Diana brought me on as Chief Operations Officer for Tributary Farms. I was able to leverage my contacts to process her paperwork pretty quickly and almost immediately, we had more dispensary customers than we could service from the small space in the back room of Houseplant Haven.
Archer had a hot lead on an abandoned warehouse not too far outside Oak Creek, and Diana and I got ourselves situated, gearing up to scale up operations. That’s where I find her now, hunched over a row of sensors in the grow house, wearing her typical worn jeans and work boots.
We’ve got other employees and lab assistants around now, so I can’t really ravage her at work as much as I’d like. She turns her head and grins at me. “Yes, Mr. Wexler, thank you for coming so quickly.” She’d pay for that line later, I vow. I tug her up to standing. “I’ve got a harvest date for you and I’m pretty sure we can time it so we don’t miss Hunter and Abigail’s wedding.”
“You do realize I’d never let you miss your brother’s wedding for some plants, right?” Diana peels off her gloves and tosses them in a bin as we walk toward the door. “You ready to head home?” She nods, double-checking the last row of sensors, even though we’ve got techs monitoring the plants around the clock now.
When Diana sold the building for Houseplant Haven, she had to move out of her sunny apartment upstairs, and I very carefully (with the help of her entire family) convinced her to move in with me. Their role in the proceedings was more logistical, since they started slowly carrying boxes of her things to my place. I lovingly convinced her that sharing a bed with me every night meant I could wake her up most mornings with kisses of all varieties.
We climb in the car and I veer off the typical route back to our house. She doesn’t look up from her phone—she still monitors her sensors from afar, but she’s getting better about trusting our staff to care for her plants. Better this way, I think, wondering how she will handle this surprise.
Diana finally looks up from her phone when I pull into the lot at the Nobler Experiment. She crinkles her brow. “What are we doing here?” She asks, looking at the full parking lot. I shrug.
“Felt like a beer you didn’t have to make.”
“Well, I don’t have to make them,” she says, climbing out of the car. “I like to do—”
When she pushes open the door and sees our families, she freezes in her tracks. “What’s this, Wexler?”
Tessy unfurls the CONGRATULATIONS banner behind the bar and Diana bites her lip. A moment later, Rose Mitchell streaks out from the crowd and all five feet of her surround Diana in a tight embrace. “We’re just so proud of you, darling. You’ve worked so hard for this.”
“What is this even about?”
I step aside to the bar, where a hugely pregnant Indigo is propped on a stool. “She just really has no idea about anything, does she?” Indigo grins. I pop a pastry in my mouth and shake my head. Diana is always first in line to plan celebrations for her friends and family. She’s on the top of everyone’s speed dial. When I suggested we ought to celebrate Diana’s dreams coming true, everyone in town jumped at the chance to contribute.
Ed Hastings ran a special edition of the Oak Creek Gazette with a front-page story about Diana’s business, writing that her plants “flow into the wider river of humanity, carrying our town along in the current of prosperity.” I watch as he presents her with a framed copy, both of them teary-eyed.
My parents catch my eye from the side of the bar, where they stand stiffly, talking with Daniel Crawford. As I walk up to them, I hear Daniel asking my mother to teach him to make latkes this winter. I grin, and drop a kiss on her cheek. “Oh, Asa, you’re here.” She smiles a bit and reaches up to kiss me. My parents are still mortified that I walked away from venture capitalism, but Wexler Holdings is thriving under Andrea’s guidance and it’s looking more and more like Diana might agree to give my mother a grandchild someday. They’re trying their best, although I received several panicked text messages about the linen quality at Diana’s parents’ house.
Daniel Crawford drops an arm around my shoulders and smiles. He’s an easy man to like and he whispers something to me about headstrong women. I notice that Archer and Hunter arrive along with another man who shares similar features.
I hear Diana squeal as she runs across the bar and throws herself into the arms of this man who seems vaguely familiar. “FLETCHER!” She screams, squeezing her youngest brother and rocking him side to side.
I hear Hunter retort that “I’m certain the occasion for his return is my upcoming wedding to Abigail,” but Diana isn’t listening. I make my way toward them and she beams.
“Asa, this is Fletcher. I know you’ve met him via video chat before. But he’s here in real life.”
“Nice to meet you, man,” Fletcher says, pumping my hand. “I can’t believe my sister finally decided on a mate whose head she doesn’t want to rip off.”
Diana circles the room and I follow, keeping her within touching distance. I love to see her happy like this, receiving congratulations from everyone. As the night wears on, I notice she sticks closer to my side and when we sit at a booth, I jump, feeling her hand massaging my leg under the table.
She doesn’t turn away from her conversation with Indigo, but keeps her fingers crawling higher and higher, making me squirm. I grow rigidly hard, uncomfortably close to bursting the seams of my pants as Diana assures her friend she will absolutely drop everything and be present for Indigo’s birth. “It’ll be fantastic,” Diana coos. “You’ll be amazing.” Her fingers flick the tip of my dick and I jump up from the booth.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” I say, retreating to I don’t even know where.
I step out the door of the bar and lean my head against the building. In just a few short minutes, Diana had me nearly blowing up at the table in front of our friends and family. When she slinks up to my side a few seconds later, I still feel like a rocket about to launch.
“This was a nice surprise, Wexler,” she coos, one hand tickling my arm and the other returning to my aching crotch.
“You’re worth it, Diana,” I manage to say, before I turn and devour her mouth. No matter how long we spend together, I am always starving for her. I slip my tongue between her lips and we trade moans. I rock my hips against her center, needing her to feel what she does to me. I know we both need the friction. “We have to get out of here,” I say as she bites the skin on my neck.