Page 107 of Corkscrew You
My phone beeps. Chiara:U OK? WTF up with ur man?
My man? Not anymore. Not after this.
I text back:U busy? Need help.
She comes back right away:Break at 10. C U at hotel.
I rummage around the Dodge in the hope of finding tissues. There’s a scarf, batik cotton, probably Mom’s. It’ll do. My reflection in the rearview mirror is some leagues short of Bartons-acceptable, but I think Ted will understand. Guaranteedheknows everything now, too.
Not wanting to sully the Bartons parking lot, I leave the Dodge on the main street. Shutting its door, I’m overtaken again by a wave of distress. Dad was so proud when he got the truck painted up with the Flora Valley Wines logo. He did laps of Verity, so everyone could see. I don’t even want toimaginehow he’d take this latest news. Or what he’d think of me for letting it happen.
Chiara’s waiting for me in the Bartons lobby. She takes my arm and swoops me into the hallowed space that is Ted’s office, which is exactlyhow I’d imagined it, green velvet and all.
“Shelby, darling.”
I expect Ted to double-kiss me, but instead, he embraces me. And, to my absolute humiliation, I start to sob against his chest. His beautifully tailored, expensively shirted chest.
“There, there.”
Ted holds me, and I don’t know whether his cologne contains some calming therapeutic oils, or if it’s just his naturally unruffled demeanour, but I manage to pull myself together before his shirt is soaked right through.
“Sorry,” I say.
But all he does is smile and whip out a pristine white cotton handkerchief. Which I take gratefully, knowing I can make it as soggy as I like because he will never expect it back. My guess is he has a team of women in some remote English village, who hand-sew them especially for him.
“Come along.”
Ted steers me to a beautiful green velvet chair, into which I slump. Chiara arranges herself much more elegantly on another, while Ted stays standing.
“Tea, coffee, or a shot of the hard stuff?” he offers.
“Tempting,” I reply. “But it’d better be coffee.”
A quick word out the door, and Ted pulls up a wooden chair that looks antique. Not small-town junk shop antique, the itemized on the insurance policy, heirloom kind.
He cuts right to it. “I’ve given Javi the day off. He’s normally a model of self-restraint, but this morning, I feared he’d put a fist through a hotel wall.”
“What the hell, Shelby?” Chiara steps in. “Did Nate have some kind ofbrainbleed?”
I can only shake my head. His actions are beyond my comprehension, too.
“Did you really know nothing about it?” she adds.
I glare at her. “Ofcourse,I didn’t!”
She raises her hands in the surrender pose. “OK, OK. So he … what? Just didn’t tell you?”
Chiara has a real knack for digging her thumb into those pressure points.
But she’s right. There’s no way I come out of this looking good. Either I’ve been stupidly ignorant, or I’ve allowed myself to be deliberately ignored. Given I’m supposed to be a senior person in my business, both are unforgiveable.
A small tap, and Ted jumps up to open the door. Mei-fen, who’s usually on in the afternoons, enters with a tray. Coffee in a silver pot. See-through porcelain cups and saucers.
“Thank you, Mei-fen,” says Ted.
She sets down the tray, and arches one perfect eyebrow at Chiara.
“Break ends in eight minutes,” she says.
