He looked unconvinced, his body still slightly poised in the direction I’d just come from.
“Please!” I begged, more desperate than I’d ever remembered being with him, and it felt like I was pleading for so much more than just to stop him from going in that bar. I was pleading for him to choose me, for once, instead of his wrath. For him to listen to what I needed and not what he thought I needed, a battle I’d lost over and over and over in our marriage. “Please, Edward! Please!”
He paused.
With a labored sigh, he put one arm around me and pulled out his phone from his pocket with the other. “Bert, we’re ready,” he said.
He held me until Bert came, neither of us speaking, and even when we got into the car, I clung to him, grateful that he’d listened, relieved that he’d chosen me.
But also fully aware that the clock was still ticking, and that eventually—soon, even—the time bomb would explode.
Eleven
Edward
“Second quarter reports aren’t ready yet, but I guarantee you the earnings are well above predicted. Now is the time to double down on investment, not back out.”
I tapped my pen against my chin and stared out the suite’s living room window at the sun setting over the park. The rep from Sonovision continued his spiel through my mobile, but I was barely paying attention. The phone call had been on my agenda for days, and as it was Sunday evening (after nine in the morning in Tokyo), I hadn’t thought to cancel it until it had been upon me.
I had no real cause to cancel, anyway, except that I was distracted. Celia’s reaction to her meeting with Pierce unnerved me for several reasons. I very much wanted to hang up on Sonovision and call him instead. Whatever he’d said or done to cause my wife’s distress deserved following up, and I was eager to do so for her sake.
And I was still very much interested in negotiating for the Werner shares. That battle wasn’t anywhere near over, and if Pierce had expected his little scene tonight to dissuade me, he obviously didn’t know who he was dealing with.
But as much as I was ready and willing to attack Pierce, I was very aware that Celia was keeping me in the dark. She’d shut down entirely on the ride back to the hotel. Once in our suite, she’d occupied herself with the baby and ordering dinner. When the meal arrived, I’d hoped to have a chance to talk with her, but she’d spent the entire time on a phone call with her mother who was lamenting about the likelihood that Ron’s sentence would be announced the following day. The bits and pieces I’d gleaned from that conversation riled me up in their own way. How the woman’s concerns about her brother-in-law could still be so self-centered and trivial with no regard to Celia baffled me. Though Madge’s ignorance to what happened to her daughter might have been understandable before Ron’s arrest, it certainly seemed she should ask the question after his past was revealed. Her husband, for sure, was practicing willful denial, and so I spent my own dinner alternating between fantasies of putting Pierce in his place and fantasies of putting the Werners in theirs.
As soon as Celia hung up with her parents, my alarm went off reminding me of my scheduled phone call with Sonovision, forcing any discussion to wait even longer. All that to say, negotiating a new anime streaming service for distribution in the UK was the least of my current concerns.
“We could be ready to send a contract over in an hour,” Toshiro said, calling my attention back to him. “You could be ready to stream by August.”
He allowed me to consider. In the silence, I realized the water had stopped running in the next room, which meant Celia was done with her shower, and frankly she was the only situation I could truly invest in at the moment.
“I’m going to need to discuss this more with my team, Toshiro,” I said, hoping he wouldn’t realize the conversation had been the waste of time that it had. “And we’ll want to wait for your second quarter reports before deciding anything. Get those sent over when you have them, and we’ll talk again.”
I hung up before he had a chance to refute, just in time for Celia to come out of the bedroom to grab something from the kitchen fridge.
“Feel better?” I called from my desk. It took all I had not to jump up and corner her, demand answers, force her into breaking down her walls and telling me everything.
We weren’t like that anymore, though. We hadn’t been for quite some time.
She crossed to stand by the bookcase, a bottled water in her hand. “A bit,” she said, unscrewing the cap and bringing it up to her lips. When she lowered it, she kept her eyes out the window. “I’m sorry tonight wasn’t more helpful. We just need to change our course of action, is all. I’ll start reaching out to my cousins with shares available to sell tomorrow.”
“Mm,” I said, taking a deep breath before commenting with something more substantial. “You realize that it would be helpful if you talked about what happened tonight. Not just for me, but for you.”
“I’m not so sure about that.”
“I am. Sit down. Let’s talk.”
Her gaze swung to meet mine, and I caught a flash of panic in her eyes. “Are you suggesting a session?”
“Why not?” Immediately, I chastised myself for not being more commanding about it. “Yes, I am suggesting a session.”
She swallowed, then ran her tongue tentatively across her bottom lip as she looked toward the couch then me at the desk. I could sense her thoughts whirring as she contemplated giving in.
Once upon a time, she wouldn’t have deliberated at all.
Once upon a time before that, I wouldn’t have given her a choice.
Eventually, she shook her head. “It’s really not necessary. Nothing needs to be rehashed. I just…” She trailed off, her brow creasing deeply.
Whatever was bothering her, it was pressing at her. I could feel her anxiety in the air, like it was a live thing with energy. It ripped at my insides, making me feel both like fire and mush. I burned to do something for her, to fix it, to figure it out, and I ached that she wouldn’t allow it, that she stood so far out of reach.
“What is it?” I asked, standing from the desk. My mobile buzzed with a call, but I ignored it and took a step toward Celia, stopping when she shook her head.
“Go ahead. Take your call.”
I silenced it. “It’s not important. What are you worrying about? Tell me.”
“Nothing,” she said too quickly. She paused. “Just...you haven’t done anything...have you? With Hudson?”
“I don’t know what you’re asking.”
“Like…you haven’t tried to bully him or, I don’t know. Terrorize him? In some way?”
“No.” It rankled that she had to ask, despite knowing that I wasn’t forthcoming about a good deal of my agendas. “I’m trying to earn his trust right now, not destroy it. Why? Did he suggest that I had?”
My mobile started to ring again. A quick glance said it was Hagan, likely wanting to know if he needed to follow up on my call with Sonovision.
At the same time, the bell to the suite rang. “Take it,” Celia said, nodding to my phone. “I’ll get the door. It’s probably turndown service.” She headed down the hall.