I swallowed, the sick feeling back stronger than ever. “All?”
“Yeah. Mary, Liz, Charlie, Emma. All of them.”
Shit. Shit. There was no way this was good.
“I’m on my way in,” I told her. “Will you call me when you have that info?”
“Sure thing.” Her cheery voice was a complete contradiction to the dread in my stomach. Rick had specifically told me that he was going back to the hotel. Why had he gone to work instead? And…called a meeting with the rest of the staff…
There was only one conclusion I could come up with. Things were about to get very bad for me.
Chapter Twenty-two
Despite the sick fear in my stomach, I think there was still a part of me that thought I could salvage this. Okay, so it had looked really bad, I’m sure, from Rick’s perspective. If he knew who Will was (and Will was definitely someone—it had taken Etta about ten minutes to find his name on a consultant sheet for a newer firm we had never competed with), seeing him with me on the street must have immediately made him think of the worst-case scenario. I could hardly blame him. His first instinct would be to tell the others, to protect the deal. That made sense.
But they hadn’t heard my side. They would believe me when I explained that I had no idea. Okay, so Liz might take some joy in acting like I was a pariah who couldn’t be trusted. But the others would believe me. Charlie. Rick. Even Mary. Definitely Emma. I couldn’t imagine a scenario in which Emma didn’t take me at my word.
I walked into the conference room without knocking, every head turning as one in my direction. I had a quick impression of angry faces, disbelief from Charlie, something almost like hurt. Rick was standing in the corner, still in those same jeans and T-shirt. He must have come straight here. I swallowed. Emma was sitting at the head of the table, her eyes on a portfolio.
A leather-bound, black portfolio.
Holy shit.
“Everyone out,” she said, her voice soft and deadly. She didn’t look at me.
“What?” Liz screeched. “I want to hear this. It affects all of us, Emma!”
“I said, out.”
Mary and Charlie stood, Mary grumbling, but Liz crossed her arms. “So she can spin you some sob story about how it’s all a misunderstanding?” she snapped. “Get you feeling sorry for her, the way she always has—”
“Liz.” Emma’s voice was like a whip. Even I winced. Her eyes finally lifted from the portfolio, carefully avoiding me. Instead, she stared straight at Liz. “I told you to get out of my conference room. Now.”
Liz stood, and I could see her hands shaking in anger. When she passed me in the doorway, she smiled—a mean, nasty little smile. “It’s about time something dragged you off that high perch you think you belong on,” she hissed, her shoulder smacking mine, hard, as she went.
But my eyes weren’t on her cruelly triumphant face—they were on Rick. Leaning against the window on the other side of the room, he was staring at me, making no effort to avert his gaze.
I had seen him look at me like that before. The day I had told him I wanted to stay home. Like he didn’t know who I was. Like he was wondering how on earth he had been duped by me, again.
“Rick—”
He merely shook his head, pushed off from the wall, and walked out of the room without a word to me. Then it was just Emma and me alone in the room.
She was quiet for a long moment, and it felt for all the world like that time our group had been caught adding food coloring to the school fountain for an April Fools prank and had been called down to see the head master. But that time, I had Emma on my side, to sweet talk him in that way she had, getting all of us out of trouble with no more effort than it took to smile and say a few carefully crafted sentences.
One look at her face told me that she wasn’t on my side now.
And that pissed me off. I was standing in this room with my business partner, with my best friend. Why in the world should I feel like I was about to be reamed out by the head master?
“Do you want to explain?”
“I had no idea he was working for a competing firm.” I was happy to hear that my voice was steady. “I swear to God, Emma. He told me he was flipping houses.”
“And you didn’t think you should check on that fact before you started talking to him about our project?”
“I’m sorry, I’m not in the practice of running background checks on my dates.”
Her eyes narrowed. “So you did share information with him?”
I looked down, feeling shamed. “I did.”
She let out a long sigh.
“Listen, Emma. I didn’t do it on purpose. You know this. You know me. I would never do anything to put this company at risk. You know that—”
“I used to know that.” The anger seemed to have gone out of her voice, replaced with disappointment so deep, I could actually feel it in my bones. “I’m not sure anymore.”
“Emma!” I fell into the closest chair, sure my knees were about to give out with shock. She was saying that she didn’t trust me? After everything?
Then she placed her fingers on the edges of the portfolio and pushed it forward a mere inch. “I take it this is familiar.”
I tried to swallow, but found my throat too dry. “You went into my office?”
Her eyes snapped up to my face, and for the first time, she looked pissed. “You’re going to pull some holier-than-thou guilt trip on me? Seriously, Anna?”
“Look, that has nothing to do with—”
“The hell it doesn’t. Do you have any idea how this looks?” She stood, pacing in front of the windows, running her hands through her hair. I was momentarily shocked by the picture she painted. I didn’t think I had ever seen her look quite so flustered.
“Emma, I’m sorry about Will. I really am. You have no idea how embarrassed I am about this. I was stupid, I know that—”
“I don’t give a shit about Will!”
I actually leaned back, her shout was so much like a blow. Emma never yelled.
“I care about this, Anna!”
She strode back to the table and picked up the portfolio. She opened it to the first page and slammed it down on the table. “What in the hell is this?”
I always knew that there would be a time I would have to tell her about my plan. If I was actually going to strike out on my own, I would have to break the news to her somehow. Of course, I had never dreamed it would be like this.
“Those are plans for a hotel,” I said, my voice quiet but steady. “A hotel that I hope to open someday. Somewhere in Europe, more than likely.”
“On your own?”
Her voice was filled with anger, but the anger I could handle. It was the undercurrent of hurt that made my heart clench painfully.
Somehow, I managed to look her straight in the eyes. “On my own.”
She stared at me for a long moment before finally turning away, back to the window, the views of Vegas stretching below her. “You know how this looks.”
“I guess so.”
“It looks, Annabelle, like you’ve been feeding this guy information about our bid so that we’ll fail. So that you can submit your own plan,” she stabbed a finger in the direction of the portfolio, “and do it on your own.”
“That’s insane. Emma, come on. Why would I want to steal a project out from under our firm?”
“To gain the capital to start your own company.” She finally turned to face me, and now her face was more like a mask. I had seen the same impenetrable hardness on her parents’ faces countless times. It was the way they looked when they were conducting business. When they were unwilling to show emotion, unwilling to let anyone see what they might actually be thinking or feeling. It broke my heart a little.
“That’s what this looks like, Annabelle.”
“To them, sure—” I said tilting my head toward the door.
“To all of us.”
“Emma, come on. That folder has nothing to do with this.”
“How am I supposed to believe that?” She grabbed the portfolio again, flipping through it. “You’ve been working on this for years, Annabelle. Years.”
“It’s just a pipe dream. A fantasy—”
“That you never once thought you should share with me.” The mask cracked a little. “This is your dream? And I know nothing about it. We’re supposed to share everything.”
I looked down at my hands, guilt coursing through me. “I didn’t know how to tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
The moment of truth.
That I’m unhappy. That nothing turned out the way I thought it would. That I’m pretty sure I’m going to suffocate here.
“That I want out.”
Her short intake of breath was the equivalent of someone less composed letting out a cry. “You want out.”
“Emma, I don’t mean it like that. I just mean—”
“You’re off the project.”
It took a minute for the words to sink in. “What?”
“I’m sorry, Annabelle. The others just don’t trust you right now.”
I was having a hard time catching my breath. I couldn’t believe she was doing this to me. “What about you?”
She rubbed a hand over her eyes. “I…I just don’t know. I can’t believe you would intentionally sabotage us, but…” She ran a finger across the binder, the movement somehow heartbreaking. “I also don’t feel like I trust you enough right now to try to convince them.”
It would have hurt less if she’d hit me. “Emma, you don’t mean that.”
“I do. I feel like… God, Annabelle. I feel like I don’t even know you right now.”
I stood, my legs shaking. I wasn’t sure if I was hurt or pissed off. “You do know me. You know me better than anyone.”
“You know, that’s what I would have said this morning.”
I just stood there, staring at her. I couldn’t believe this was happening. Couldn’t believe that after all the work I’d put into this project—much, much more than anyone else in the office—that she thought she had the right to kick me out. Couldn’t believe that she could honestly stand there and tell me that she didn’t trust me. After everything we had been through.
“You can’t just kick me off the project.” I didn’t bother to keep my voice from shaking. “You’re not my boss, Emma. We’re partners.”
She looked at me sadly. “Do you seriously want to fight this, Annabelle? We have forty-eight hours to put this project together. And now we’re going to have to change everything. You get that, don’t you? Now that Will knows our plans, we’re going to have to work all day and night to come up with something different enough that we might have a chance—”
“But that’s fine!” Suddenly everything didn’t seem quite so terrible. “Rick and I have a plan for something totally different. We’ve both been working on it for the last few days.” That was the reason the portfolio was here in the first place. I had brought it in the day before to start incorporating the plans into the new bid. “Did you talk to Rick? Because it’s a really good plan. And Will won’t have heard a word about it, so it’s—”
“Rick doesn’t want to work with you.”
That shut me right up. I gaped at her for a long moment. “He…what?”
“He told me all about the new plan. About how convenient it seemed that you brought it up right at the last minute. He thinks it’s a plan you and Will came up with. To lose us the bid.”
“Rick said that?”
She nodded. “He did. You see, Annabelle? Things are just too crazy right now. If I try to tell everyone else that you’re still on the bid, they’ll freak out.” She slapped her hands on the table, frustrated. “And I just don’t have time. Everything is riding on this.”
“I know that. That’s why we need—”
“You need to go home for a few days. Just let us get through the bid. And then… And then, we can talk about your future with this company.”
“You can’t do this,” I whispered. “You’re talking like…like you’re going to kick me out. It’s my firm, too, Emma! My name is on that door just like yours!” I was starting to cry now, but I didn’t care. How could everything have gone to hell in such a short amount of time? “This firm is my hard work, my sweat, my nights and weekends and—”
“And that’s why you want out?” she asked, her voice deadly quiet. “Isn’t that what you said?”
I deflated, ashamed, terrified, wiping my eyes, trying to figure out a way through this. “Emma—”
“Just go home, Annabelle.” She sounded exhausted. “Just go home, and we’ll talk later.”
“Please, just—”
She turned away, her shoulders set, dismissing me. “We’ll talk in a few days.”
I stared at her back and then down at the portfolio. All my dreams, laid bare for the world. That portfolio was supposed to be the start of something for me. My ticket to freedom. And now it had ruined the best chance I had to get there.
I reached for it, somehow unwilling to leave those dreams behind, no matter how hopeless it all seemed.
“Emma.”
But she didn’t turn. I was outside the sphere of her protection, outside the circle of her friendship. She had dismissed me. She was done with me.
I clutched the portfolio to my chest and I ran.
Chapter Twenty-three
I spent the next eighteen hours drinking my way through all the wine in my apartment. I finally fell asleep around four a.m., slumped on my couch, unable to muster the energy to even go to bed. I woke up a few hours later in a panic, the events of the previous day hitting me like a freight train. I stared out the window, trying to wake up. I needed to plan, needed to come up with some kind of solution, but my brain could only go over and over Emma’s words. She didn’t trust me. Rick didn’t trust me. Rick didn’t want to work with me.
I rubbed at my eyes, swollen and itchy from either the crying or the wine, I wasn’t sure anymore. Everything was feeling fuzzy, numb. Had any of that actually happened?
A quick look at my phone told me all I needed to know. I had called Will a dozen times since walking out of that room. He hadn’t returned a single call. I’d even tried his apartment building, only to be told that he didn’t live there. Everything had been a lie.
It took me a minute to realize that someone was knocking on my door. I groaned. The only person I could think of wanting to talk to in that moment was currently half way across the country. Oh God. My dad. What was I going to tell him about all of this? He had been so sure that I could fix it, that I could kick ass, as he’d said.
So much for that.
The knocking paused for a minute before starting up again, louder this time. “Annabelle!” a familiar voice called. “I know you’re there. Come on, love, open up.”
I rubbed my eyes again. Jim? With great effort, I rolled off the couch and stumbled to the door. I tried to look through the peephole, but it was all too blurry, so I finally swung the door open. If it was a serial killer, at least they could put me out of my misery.
The sheepish, smiling face in front of me was as far from a serial killer as I could imagine. “Well, Annabelle,” Jim said, shaking his head. “It looks like you’re having quite the shitty time of it.”
I promptly burst into tears, and Jim, after a moment of seeming panic, reached out and took me into his arms. I hugged him back, sobbing against his sweater vest. “How did it all get so messed up?” I cried.
“That’s what I came to find out,” he said, rubbing my back. “And to help you put it to rights.”
“It can’t be put to right,” I moaned, pulling back. There was a wet spot on his shoulder that I clumsily tried to wipe at, feeling embarrassed, but he took my hand and led me into the apartment.
“I’m sure it can. Nothing is ever as hopeless as it seems.”
I squinted at him. “You sound like you just stepped out of a Disney movie. What in the hell has Lucy done to you?”
He laughed. “Some of her, uh, optimism may have rubbed off on me. Now come on, let’s talk this through.”
So we sat on the couch, and I worked my way through the last, half-empty bottle of wine while I told him everything. His expression was concerned, but not panicked. I wondered if that was a good thing.
When I finally finished talking, he nudged the wine bottle out of my hand and set it on the far side of the coffee table where I couldn’t reach it.
“How did you find out about all of this, anyhow?”
“I just came from the office.”
I winced. “Liz must be having a field day with this.”
“Liz is a stupid cow,” he replied, and I snorted before the terrible feeling of helplessness overtook me again.
“What’s their plan?” I asked. “Are they going with Rick’s new plan?”
He shook his head. “They’re going with Liz’s idea.”
I sat up straight, suddenly feeling a hundred times more sober. “Liz’s idea?”
He nodded, looking glum. “Classic Vegas.”
“Oh my God. They’re going to be crucified.”
He nodded grimly.
“I can’t believe Rick is going along with that. He knows it won’t win.”
“Rick… Rick isn’t in his right mind right now. He’s very...”
“He’s pissed at me.”
Jim nodded, looking sad. “I haven’t seen him like this for a very long time.”
“Probably since the last time I pissed him off,” I muttered.
“Well, the point, Annabelle, is that he isn’t thinking clearly. He’s thinking with his emotions, not his head, and it’s to their detriment.”
I groaned, closing my eyes. I couldn’t imagine anything more frustrating. To know that they were on the wrong track and to not be able to do a single thing about it.
“Hey,” I said, sitting up straighter as something occurred to me. “Why aren’t you there? Aren’t you supposed to be helping?”
He shrugged, looking abashed. “I may have snuck out.”
“But you’ll get fired!”
“Rick won’t fire me.”
“You said he isn’t thinking clearly. That’s a pretty big risk to take for me.” I let out an unintended sniffle. “Aren’t you scared that I might be betraying you, too?”
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