“But why not?”
“I already explained that to you. We each signed contracts. We aren’t allowed to share any personal information or enable each other to get in contact outside of the retreat. I’m not even supposed to know that his name is Noah. All of the other men used their aliases throughout the entire time that I was with them. Even if I wanted to contact him again, I wouldn’t be able to.”
“But you do want to,” I said.
Snow sighed and I took that as confirmation. Suddenly I felt envious of Snow. Though she was hurting now, she was feeling something that I never had. I was about nothing more than sex. I rarely had the same partner more than once, and if I did, I was very careful to make sure that there was a clear understanding that it was not a relationship. We were not a couple. We would not be going on romantic getaways. We would not be having breakfast together unless it was snatching a granola bar off the grab-and-go counter at the hotel where we spent the night. While it was fun and I never had to deal with the type of pain that Snow was feeling, I never got to experience whatever it was that made it worth it to risk that type of pain.
It seemed that Snow was about to say something, but her phone jangled in her purse and she leaned down to fish it out. She looked down at the screen and clicked through the screen to check the text that she had just gotten. She read through it a couple of times and let out an exasperated sound.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Apparently, I’m supposed to go into the office tomorrow,” she said.
She filled her spoon with another huge bite of her ice cream concoction and put it in her mouth. I had to give it to her, she certainly knew how to girl.
“Why?” I asked, picking up the spoon from my place setting and snagging some of the goo for myself. It was so delicious I felt like I could probably go through a little heartache if it meant that I could stuff myself full of caffeinated ice cream. “I thought that you had been in no uncertain terms banned from the office.”
“I thought that I was, too,” she said, dropping the phone back. She rolled her eyes and let out a groan. “Maybe they’ve decided that I’m in trouble because of the door.”
“What did you do to the door?”
“I thought I told you about that,” she said in that way that meant she was trying to scoot past something without really acknowledging it.
“Um, no,” I said. “You told me that your coworker brought you a copy of The Apple and that you barged in to Lucille’s office to confront ----oh, lord. You bashed her door down, didn’t you?”
“Maybe,” she said.
“Snow...”
“Alright, yes. I kicked the door down. And they didn’t really say anything about it.”
“You are going to walk in there and the police are going to be waiting for you.”
“I would hope that Hunter would have mentioned the intention to throw me in jail in his text,” she said. “He might be Lucille’s assistant now, but he knew me first. Besides, he can’t stand her any more than any of us can.”
“Well, that’s reassuring.”
She nodded, taking another bite, but her eyes reflected worry that she obviously didn’t want to talk about.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Snow
I didn’t know what I should wear to the office the morning that I was to report after Hunter’s text. Should I go for business attire, like I was going back to work? An everyday outfit because, clearly, I was not going back to work? Business casual, whatever the hell that is?
What is the best outfit to wear for jail intake?
I finally settled on a pair of fitted black slacks with a yellow and blue sweater and my favorite red heels. It was appropriate enough that no matter who I was facing in the office, I would feel comfortable, but also versatile enough that if I was being hauled off to the hoosegow at least I would be able to climb in and out of the backseat with some of my dignity intact. When I arrived at the office, I had my old ID badge at my hip like I had every other morning I had worked there. Though I expected it not to work, the door clicked and swung open just as it always had. I stepped into the lobby and saw Hunter waiting in the center of the space. He had a hint of a smile on his lips and he opened his arms as I approached.
“It’s so good to see you, Snow,” he said. “We’ve missed you around here.”
“It’s good to see you, too,” I said as I accepted his friendly embrace. “I’ve missed all of you. Well,” I hesitated, looking toward the door that led onto the work floors, “maybe not all of you.”
“I guess that that is as good a segue as any,” he said, gesturing for me to head in that direction.
We walked together through the door and onto the first floor. There was a feeling of more energy in the air and I noticed that I could hear the low chatter of people talking and laughing, a sound that had all but died out by the time that Lucille fired me.
“Things seem to be better,” I said.
Hunter shrugged and guided me onto the elevator. As soon as we stepped out, I knew that he was leading me toward Lucille’s office.
“You can wait in the reception area,” Hunter said.
I reached out and grabbed onto his elbow.
“You would tell me if something horrible was about to happen, wouldn’t you?” I asked. “I mean, if you knew that I was about to walk into an ambush or something, you would let me know. Send a code or something?”
Hunter laughed and peeled my fingers away from his arm.
“I sincerely doubt you are going to be ambushed,” he said. “To be honest, though, I don’t know why he specifically asked to speak to you.”
It took a second for what Hunter had said to sink in.
“He?” I asked. “What do you mean, he?”
“You haven’t heard?” Hunter asked.
“Heard what?”
“He’s ready for you,” Cindy said from the desk beside the office.
“Heard what?” I asked again even as Hunter put his hand to my back and started guiding me toward the now-repaired door to the office.
“Lucille is no longer in control of Royal and Company,” Hunter said.
“What happened?”
I didn’t put voice to my somewhat shameful hope that she had met some kind of horrible demise, or at least that she had caught something miserable and was holed up in the hospital for the next few years or so.
“The company was taken over,” Hunter explained “It turns out that Walter Royal had been considering selling the company for some time and had been negotiating with the owner of another agency a few cities over. He had been grooming you to act as vice president under the new owner so that the company would continue to run as it always had. When Lucille came along she thought that he was giving her the company for good and was going to go off and retire while she worked. In reality, though, marrying her only convinced him even more that he was ready to go ahead and retire. He put her in control for the time that he would be enjoying his retirement trip, assuming that she would take care of the company and make sure that everything went smoothly in preparation for the transition to the new owners and to your promotion before they both retired to enjoy their life together.”
“Somehow I don’t think that she took it well when he told her.”
“Well, what went worse was when she told him that you had been fired. He felt horrible that he hadn’t told you about his plan and that his decision had cost you your position and the future of your career. He came back from his trip immediately, removed her from her position, and finalized the sale to the new owners. One of his conditions was that the new owner’s son consider bringing you back in.”
“His son?”
“Apparently, he wants to have more responsibility in his family’s business so his father handled the negotiations with Mr. Royal, but he is the president now.”
“So that’s why I’m here? Walter pleaded my case to the new owners of the company so they’re calling me in to let me down easy? That should be my second favorite thing that has ever happened in this office.”