“Well, then hear this. You don’t spend enough time with us, and you throw money at the problem and bury us with gifts just like Dad did, but I’ve told you a million times that’s not what we want. All we want is to see you more, and we can’t always come to you. It would be nice if you’d visit us sometimes.”
Tears fill my eyes, and my throat burns with every breath I take. “I will be there for every holiday from now on.”
She nods. “I will hold you to that, and impose horrific guilt trips on you if you go back on your word.”
I manage a smile. A shaky one. “I’d expect nothing less.”
“One more thing. Don’t shoot the messenger. I mean, don’t blame Winona for this. It must have taken a lot of courage for her to come directly to you. She did that because she trusted you. She trusted what you guys have together. If you made her feel bad about telling you the truth, which I am pretty sure you did, then you need to go apologize right now.”
Winona! I just tore Winona to shreds, and possibly destroyed her relationship with her parents, in defense of a man who did the indefensible.
“You’re right. I have to go apologize.” I stand up, and the floor feels wobbly underneath my feet. Nothing to worry about, just my entire reality melting away. “I’m sorry again for being such a dick, and thank you for everything you went through to keep me safe.” I hang up the phone and run from the room.
When I reach the guest suite, the door is open and everybody’s gone. I rush through all the rooms in the suite, yelling for Winona. Her parents and the other ladies from Peach Pit must have packed at the speed of light, because there’s not a trace of them.
“Sir? Is everything all right?”
I spin around and look at Henry, the man who has stayed by my side for decades, who’s been far more loyal than I deserved. He somehow sensed I’d need him, and he came.
“Henry. Winona mentioned that maybe I don’t give you enough time off.” My voice is husky with sorrow. “If you had a month off, what would you do?”
“A month?” His gray eyebrows shoot up. Yes, he’s gone gray in my service. I remember when his hair was dark and his forehead was unlined. “Well. I would attempt to win Thérèse, back. Although…”
Henry and Thérèse? I’ve been such a work-obsessed, self-centered ass, I never knew. That’s why she hates me. That’s why she handed in her notice. And that’s why Henry’s been distracted lately. “Although what?”
“Nothing, sir.”
“Henry. Everyone’s been keeping secrets from me, and it’s my fault, because I made it pretty damn clear that I didn’t want to hear the truth. That ends now. Please just be honest with me and finish that sentence.”
He stands there, neat and formal, hands folded in front of him. “My position does not really leave me an appropriate amount of time to properly maintain a relationship.”
Jesus. This is all on me. She quit the store because she couldn’t bear working with a man who never made time for her.
Sounds familiar.
Except it’s my fault Henry never had enough time for a personal life. And I don’t think I kept Henry around all the time because I needed his services eighteen hours a day. I was lonely. I am lonely. Henry’s been like a father to me, more than my own father ever was. That doesn’t make it right that I’ve monopolized his time like this.
“You’re taking a month off.” My voice is thick with emotion. “And after that, you’re working forty hours a week. Nine to five, Monday through Friday, and I’ll hire as many additional people as necessary to pick up the slack. And you’ll take two weeks off for Christmas, and four weeks in the summer. Same salary and benefits, of course.”
He hesitates. “I don’t know, sir.”
“Henry. I’ll be all right. You know everything that needs to be done, which means that you’ll be able to appropriately delegate tasks.”
Henry nods slowly, and I think I see his shoulders rise a little bit, as if I’ve lifted a weight that’s been crushing them. “I imagine I would.”
Tears blur my eyes. He’s shrunk a little over the years, I think, and he wasn’t a tall man to begin with. I am such an asshole.
“I also need to start delegating more. Alice and Winona are right. This isn’t a life. I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t know where Hudson’s stops and I begin, and I need to find out.” I point to the door. “Go call Thérèse.”
“I’ll take two weeks off, sir. I think a month might be a bit much. And before I do that, I’ll spend a couple of days making sure that all your needs will be met while I’m gone.”
“Thank you. I’m sorry.”
He smiles, and there’s pity and worry in his pale blue eyes. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”
A few minutes later, Henry has departed, leaving Xena and me alone in a house full of ghosts and sorrow.
I try to call Winona, and then I try again, and again and again. It goes straight to voicemail every time.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Blake
Winona’s resignation email, sent one week ago and addressed to the HR department, was clipped and to the point. She was quitting effective immediately. Her work phone and tablet were delivered by messenger the next morning.
In between dealing with the board members and our lawyers and my uncle, who’s been suspended, I have tried everything to get hold of her. She’s not responding to her personal phone, email, texts, singing telegram…yes, I sent a singing telegram. Or I tried. Quinton refused to let the singing telegram guy into the building. I have also been banned from the building, and no bribe is large enough to overturn it. I get the impression that the entire Kitchen Krew threatened Quinton with dire consequences if I put even a toe over the threshold. For some reason, he seems to be especially scared of Edna.
“The pizza will work,” Nico assures me.
“For sure.” Renata nods enthusiastically. “Nobody can resist our pizza.”
Yeah, their pizza is like crack with cheese on top, but I think this situation is going to take considerably more than a really excellent pizza.
Nothing else has worked, though. Bouquets of flowers, some of them including boxes of Summer’s Eve; I hoped that might make her smile. Boxes of quirky pajamas. A single beautiful gown. A dozen gowns.
Everything has been promptly returned to the store, with scrawled notes in handwriting that is not Winona’s, suggesting I do various anatomically impossible things with my apology gifts. I gather she’s recruited her friends to intercept anything I send to her, and also her friends apparently think I can, or should, fit three dozen roses and a vase in a part of the body where the sun never shines.
A heavy mantle of gloom has wrapped around me, and it clings like a cloud that never stops raining. I hurt Winona, and I hurt her family, and the need to make it right – the need to hold Winona in my arms again and see that look of love and sparky humor in her eyes – is burning a hole inside me. I’m barely sleeping. I’m yawning my way through emergency meetings with our company’s lawyers. Xena’s picked up on my horrible mood, and she’s moping around the mansion.