“Thong?” he asks hoarsely.
“You can’t even see it, unfortunately.”
“Fuck,” he says, pulling it to the side as he thrusts into me. “The idea of it’s enough.”
I ride him hard and fast. I’m not sure what happened to the girl who always put herself last, because there’s no doubt in my mind that I’m doing this entirely for myself.
“Holy shit,” he groans. “What’s brought this on?”
I say nothing because I can’t tell him the truth: that it’s starting to feel like the odds are stacked against us. That they’ve always been stacked against us.
And that maybe we weren’t meant to wind up together after all.
32
CALEB
Lucie and I file our disclosure paperwork with HR on Saturday morning. Beck and I search her car for a tracker, and I have her phone wiped for the second time—though my tech guy finds nothing on it.
Harrison can’t ask for a restraining order because if he gets one, Jeremy has no reason not to press charges against me for throwing that punch.
It already feels like I’m failing her somehow, and then I get a call Monday morning that guarantees I’m going to fail her. It’s the call I’ve been waiting on for weeks—the meeting that will change everything. But it means I have to cancel our weekend away and I’ll be gone most of the weeks that would have led up to it.
I text Lucie and ask her to come down to my office.
“Close the door,” I tell her.
She takes the seat across from mine with her brow furrowed. “What’s up?”
“I finally got invited to Brad Caldwell’s compound in Maui.”
The light in her eyes grows dim. We haven’t discussed what happens after the merger goes through—how soon I’ll have to leave, how we’ll see each other when we’re on different coasts. A piece of me has just been hoping for a miracle, though I don’t know what it would be.
“Isn’t that a good thing?” she asks quietly. “It means the merger’s going forward?”
I nod. “Yeah. That’s pretty much the final step of this whole thing. But he wants to meet over Fourth of July weekend, so I’ll need to cancel our trip, and I’m going to be gone a lot between then and now. I’m leaving tonight for India and I should be home within a week, but I won’t be able to help with Henry’s project much.”
Lucie flinches. She hasn’t even complained, but I already want to remind her that I never promised anything.
“Okay,” she says, taking a deep breath. “You’ll still come to the show though, right? On the twenty-second?”
I pinch my brow. I’d rather not commit, but I guess I already did. “Yeah.” I slide her the phone that just arrived. “That’s for you. Jeremy’s still tracking you somehow and just because we haven’t found spyware doesn’t mean it’s not there.”
She shakes her head. “I can’t accept this. And for all we know, he’s paying someone to follow me.”
“We live out by the lake. You’d see someone behind you on all these back roads. Take the phone. Please. It’s the only way I’ll be able to relax while I’m gone.”
“Okay.” She climbs to her feet, and I move around the desk to pull her against me. Her head presses to my chest. “Henry will miss you.”
I tug her closer. “What about Henry’s mom? Will she miss me too?”
She smiles, reluctantly. “Yes, but thanks to Molly, she owns a vibrator, which will take the edge off.”
I groan and press her hand to my crotch. “Just like that, Lucie. I tell you I’ve got to do nothing but work, and in two seconds, you’ve got me ready to throw it off to the side.”
Her laughter is quiet and forced. She presses her lips to mine. “Have a good trip,” she says. And then she walks away, disappointment weighing on her like an invisible yoke.
I sink into my chair as the door shuts behind her and bury my head in my hands. You can’t serve two masters. That’s what my father said to me when my mother finally asked for a divorce.
I heard those words in my head when Kate discovered she was pregnant. We were mostly over by that point—there was the occasional weekend in San Francisco, but we were both more invested in our careers than each other. It was like a game of pretend, deciding to keep the baby and get married, hoping I could be a better father and husband than my dad. I started failing at it all almost immediately. Beck was the one who was there for Kate during her pregnancy. He painted the nursery and installed the car seat because I was too busy. He saw Hannah’s sonogram photos first because Kate had to show them to someone and I was on a trip. I resented the fact that I’d missed out and also resented the way I came out of it looking like the villain when I was just trying to do my fucking job. And here I am, the villain again, when the actions I’m taking will impact everyone at this company, Lucie included.
TSG is my father’s legacy and mine, and we’ve both sacrificed too much to step off the gas now.
But it feels like history is about to repeat. And I’m wondering what we’ll lose when it does.
33
LUCIE
Henry’s been bright-eyed and eager the whole way home. I didn’t want to tell him Caleb’s gone just before we got in the car—I didn’t want him to crawl inside himself the way he does when he’s sad and go to that place where I can’t reach him. I wanted to have him in my lap and offer any of a thousand other bribes to keep him happy, but my eyes sting as we get closer to the house because I already know it won’t work. There’s nothing I can do or say or offer him in Caleb’s place. Nothing.
And Caleb’s leaving. That’s the bigger issue. However difficult I find the next few weeks—they’re simply a small taste of what’s on the horizon, when he leaves for good.
Henry scrambles out of the car, already looking toward Caleb’s house for signs of life. When we enter, Sophie rushes in first, scattering shoes, dumping her backpack out in the foyer to show me the picture she drew and the book she got from the library.
Henry quietly hangs his backpack on its hook by the door and turns to me. “I need to change. It’s project night.”
I sit on the stairs and reach out my arms for him. He hesitates before taking a seat on my knee. “Sweetie, Caleb had to go out of town. He’s not going to be able to come home tonight, but maybe we can go get ice cream instead.”
He stares at me, unblinking. “I don’t want ice cream. I want to work on the arm with Caleb.”
It’s as if he’s wrapped his little hand around my heart and given it a hard squeeze.
“He wanted to work on the arm with you too. But a really important thing came up and he’s going to be gone a lot. Maybe I can help you.” I try to pull him close, but he’s stiff in my lap, unwilling to hear me, unwilling to accept this outcome.
“You’re not good at building,” he says.
“If I can’t figure it out, Molly will help us. She’s good at everything.”
His shoulders sag. Caleb has brought so much into his life these past months. But as the light fades from Henry’s eyes, I’m forced to ask if it was worth it.
I wanted Caleb for my own. I wanted to save him from himself.
But I should have avoided bringing my kids into it…and Jeremy makes it clear he agrees.
“You invited Caleb to Henry’s show?” Jeremy screams on the phone that night. “Do you have any idea how bad this makes you look?”
I could point out that I wasn’t the one who invited him, but I’m not sure that will help the situation. “Are you through?”
“You’ve barely been on your own and you’re already throwing yourself at someone else,” he says. “And if you think I was a disappointment as a father, just wait until you’re depending on someone who isn’t even related to them.”
Ah, there it is. He’s finally managed to say something that hits a little close to the bone. I knew he’d get there eventually. Because that’s the crux of it, right? Jeremy owes the twins something, whether he wants to or not. But Caleb doesn’t owe them a thing. He can simply walk away as if we never existed, and that seems to be what he intends to do. He hasn’t brought up what happens after he leaves even once.