It felt like wearing Nash.
Chantilly left with Cayden, Ida Marie, and Hannah to do an interview with an architectural magazine about the hotel’s upcoming soft opening. Nash spent the morning with Delilah, schmoozing a local politician at an MLB game.
He entered the office around noon, sporting dark denim, a white Henley, and a baseball cap. When he caught me eating the sandwich he’d made, in the shirt he’d come up with, he leaned against the door frame, crossed his arms, and watched.
Self-satisfied and so damn cocky.
I popped the last bite into my mouth, incisors crunching on the Ruffles. “Are you going to tell me?”
“Will you trust that I have my reasons?”
“Yes, you want Gideon to tell me.”
“The fact that you’re calling him Gideon and not Dad is exactly my point.”
Actually, I always called him Dad to his face and mostly called him Dad in my head. In fact, I only used Gideon with Nash because I feared the unknown. So far, I understood the motivations behind everything Dad had recounted.
He stayed in a loveless marriage with Virginia, so he could keep me.
He made Balthazar partner, so he could keep me.
He didn’t turn them in, so he could keep me.
Understandable.
But what if the day came when he confessed he or Nash did something so bad, I could never forgive them? Or worse—I forgave them, because I wanted them both in my life that much.
I wrote my note in front of him and slapped it to his chest.
Nope.
Emery
P.S. The only cheeses I like are white cheddar and string cheese eaten correctly (re: peeled).
A few days later, Nash arrived late to take me to Dad’s, which meant I’d walked to the bus stop, boarded, and watched him trail the bus until the next stop. I hopped down and ambled toward him.
“I got held up at the mechanic’s.” Nash raked his fingers through his hair. Once. “You could have waited. I doubt Gideon would care if you showed up late.”
He leaned against his car, arms crossed. He had replaced the roof. Through the windows, I noticed the leather chairs appeared reupholstered. All evidence of our night baltering… gone.
Pain lashed at my stomach. Ridiculous, but also proof I cared.
“Actually, I waited and texted you.” I opened my Jana Sport. “When I didn’t get a response, I left. Couldn’t risk it.”
I retrieved my sketchbook, barely glancing at the “Come back to me?” on his note from this morning. My pen moved fast across the paper. I yanked the note out, crumbled it into a ball, and handed it to him.
No.
Emery
P.S. Out of all the lies, my favorite was you and me.
He unfolded it and read it with a raised brow. The amusement did nothing for my irritation. “I just realized something.”
I sighed, shoved the sketchbook into the Jana Sport, and dumped it into the car. “What?”
Nash closed the door for me and entered on his side. “Temper tantrums can be cute.”
Nash Prescott—the master of the backhanded compliment.
“For the record,” he continued, “my phone powered down. The mechanic forgot to return the charger to the car after he finished reupholstering.”
The following morning, my letter from Nash read:
You couldn’t look away from me yesterday. I know we're waiting for Gideon and you fear what you’ll learn. I promise you, there's nothing to be afraid of.
Ask yourself: what do you have to lose when being scared? What do you have to lose when being fearless?
Come back to me?
Nash
P.S. Tell Gideon to hurry the fuck up. I’m impatient by nature and prone to getting my way. You could’ve finished a hundred fucking Ava Harrison audiobooks by now.
I did, in fact, relay the message to Dad the following week, who only laughed and told me Nash could wait. The answer would have pissed me off, but he said it with such ease and comfort, I’d never felt more certain that we’d be okay.
We spent the day talking about all the events that had to happen to lead Virginia to him.
“Things happen for a reason, Emery.” Dad pressed a kiss to my forehead. “You've got to trust that.”
That night, I struggled with a response for the first time.
No.
Emery
P.S. What if it was fate that led me to you? When I ask myself questions like this, this path we’re on feels beyond us.
At this point, Dad and I had gotten into a groove. We'd fought our insecurities and found a relationship reminiscent of the one we used to share. This 1001 Arabian Nights-style blackmail could end without either of us feeling like we no longer had a reason to meet.
I could have told Dad to give me a quick rundown, so Nash and I could finally be together again. I didn’t.
Oddly, I did it for Nash.
He wore a distant look every time he dropped me off, and I knew he left for the cemetery to visit his dad while he waited. I also knew he felt so strongly about maintaining my relationship with Dad because he no longer had a chance with Hank.
So, I drew the meetings out, even when it gutted me and I sometimes caught Nash staring at me as if he was trying to figure out if I felt the same way.
Over a month later, the moment I feared came.
The Nash talk.
I wanted to hear this from Nash. How he'd found the ledger and burned it for me. The company he'd built off of the Winthrop Scandal and Dad’s secret investment. About the way he'd mistakenly blamed himself for Hank’s death. How he’d helped so many people to pay penance.
I’d already suspected most of it, so it didn’t come as a surprise. But at the end of it all, I realized something.
I’d seen it on his desk. The burnt leather, pages preserved inside.
Nash still had the ledger.
The one thing that could prove my dad’s innocence.
And he’d kept it to himself.
“Those motherfuckers. Fuck them. Fuck everyone. Fuck the whole fucking world.” Delilah shuffled past me, sheer rage plastered all over her face. “We need to go.”
We left the reception area of the D.C. skyscraper and speed-walked our way to the rental car. After dropping Emery off in Blithe this morning, I’d arranged for Gideon to drive her back to the hotel.
Still, Emery and I had made plans for tonight. I’d helicopter to North Carolina in time for take-out and poking holes in every movie on Chantilly’s Netflix queue.
“Care to explain what’s going on or are you having another temper tantrum?” I slid into the driver’s seat. “Unlike Emery’s, yours are not cute.”
“You're amused. Good. Hold on to that, because you won’t be in a sec. We’re headed to the airport.” She pulled out her phone, dialed a number, and signaled for me to be quiet with a finger. Her middle one. Charming. “Yeah. Did you read my text? I need the soonest flight. Commercial or private, so long as it's the first one out.”
I took off to the airport, sensing her urgency. Fuck. I needed a charger to text Emery and let her know I’d left.