Page 87 of Love on the Vine
It had to be a mistake. There was no way Jake would have sold his company. And he certainly wouldn’t have gone back to work with Thomas Brinkley. The part of me that wasn’t angry with him, the part that still loved him—okay, all of me then—felt distinctly queasy.
I gulped down the rest of my beer and stuffed the magazine back in my purse. On the metro ride home, my mind was spinning, not only trying to make sense of what I’d just read, but also attempting to solve the mystery of the check that had been returned to me.
I was budgeting down to the last centime, so the mistake hadn’t been on my end. There was no way my dad had done this; he was still holding out hope that I’d reconsider going to law school next year. And if my dad didn’t pay for it, that left only one other person who would have done such a thing. Damn him!
By the time I reached the apartment, my blood was boiling. This was fucking typical: ignore me for a month, and then surprise me by doing something so extravagant it made no sense. He was paying me off to appease his sense of guilt, when all I wanted was for him to admit that he missed me and that what we’d had over the summer had been real.
Slamming the apartment door behind me, I threw my bag on the ground and stalked over to Callie, who was lounging on the green velvet sofa staring at her phone.
“Hey, poulette, want to go get dinner somewhere? I’m sick to death of cooking. Maybe we could invite Olivier?” She was still trying to set me up with our downstairs neighbor, a fireman who could pass for Henry Cavill’s French twin. Then she finallynoticed my murderous expression. “Whoa, did Chef Bernard get under your toque today?”
“Yes, I was late again because of this!” I snatched the magazine from my purse and shoved it at her.
“Holy shit!” Callie stared at the photo on the cover and nearly spit out her water. “Sorry, Liv. I mean, this is hideous! Thank God you don’t have to look at this ugly mug anymore.”
She threw the magazine face down on the armchair and faked gagging. It was so over the top, I almost laughed.
“Then to make matters worse,” I continued as I walked back to the tiny kitchen, “I found out that someone paid my full tuition.”
I filled a glass from the tap and gulped it down.
“That sounds like good news to me.” Callie walked over to the counter and perched on a stool. “Was it your dad? I had a feeling he wouldn’t be able to completely butt out of your life.”
“No, it wasn’t my dad. It was Jake.”
“Oh, wow!” Her eyes widened and her red mouth turned up into a smug smile. “See, I told you that the cutting-all-ties method works.”
“Huh! Then maybe you should try it sometime.” As soon as the words left my mouth, I regretted them. Callie’s current on-again-off-again relationship (if you could call it that) with Gaz Greystone was on again because she was incapable of cutting the guy off. “Sorry, Cal. I didn’t mean it like that. I’m just really frustrated and hurt.”
“Hurt that the man you love paid for you to live out your dream in Paris?” Callie crossed her arms. “This is clearly a move for you to contact him. He’s probably waiting by the phone.”
“You said I shouldn’t make the first move.”
“You’re not. He did.”
I hesitated. Hearing his voice might push me over the edge, but I was angry and wanted him to know it.
I picked up the phone and dialed his number. He answered after the first ring.
“Hey.” His sleepy voice sluiced through me like a shot of whiskey. “How are you?”
“I’m okay.” I knew it was rude not to ask how he was, but I couldn’t handle it if he told me he was doing great. “So I just found out that my tuition was paid. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
A few seconds passed and I thought he might deny it. “I wanted to help.”
I let out a deep sigh. “The thing is, it’s important to me that I pay for my classes myself. To prove that I’m capable of doing this on my own.”
“Of course you’re capable. I didn’t mean to imply you weren’t. Listen, the money’s yours. Do you know how much I would have had to pay a consultant to have created that app?”
“You already paid me,” I reminded him. “I insist on paying you back. With interest and everything.”
“I don’t charge interest. In fact, I charge negative interest.”
“That’s not how it works,” I said, flopping down on the bed, my anger defusing. How could he still make me smile despite how much he’d hurt me? “And I’m only agreeing to accept the money now because it would be too complicated to reverse engineer what you’ve done.”
“Okay.”
He was silent for a minute. I wondered if he’d tell me about selling his business. If he didn’t want to share that with me, then I was at a complete loss on where we stood. Finally, my curiosity got the better of me, and I asked, “Where are you?”
