Page 24 of Purchase Power
“Yes. Could have been much worse. Her usual doctor is due to be by tomorrow so we’ll see what she says, but right now Stacey’s fine. Physically.” Noah always added that addendum when talking about the only girl he had ever loved. Stacey was more than fine, physically. It was the mental, more emotional side of her that had struggled for more than half of her life.
And it’s all my fault.
“I’ll have the report to you by tomorrow morning. I’m working on it right now.” Noah wasn’t a liar. He had the charts and formulas on his giant computer screen. Had even been messing around with them when Clark called. However, Noah was far from mentally present as he tracked the current expenditure and future investments incoming for his company’s current real estate project.
His mind was always on Stacey. And the woman he currently kept in his old room.
“All right. I trust you, son.” Clark sighed again. “Don’t let me down.”
“Have I ever?”
That garnered a chuckle. “You’ve only been CFO for a couple of years. Give it time.”
Noah wasn’t sure what to make of that, so he said his goodbyes, hung up, and continued to stare at his computer screen.
If there was one thing to be grateful for, however, it was that Clark always kept their conversations to strictly business, even when off the company clock. He didn’t heckle Noah about his personal life – or lack thereof. He didn’t inquire about new loves, only to deride him when he continuously said he wasn’t seeing anybody. The closest Clark came to interfering with the Gabriel heir was when Stacey came up or he had heard something about Tonya. Sometimes, Noah postulated that his mother and Clark had an affair back in the day. It would have been around the time of the first divorce, anyway.
And the second. Too bad. Tonya wasn’t the best at choosing husbands, anyway.
“Mr. Gabriel?” Candace had been knocking on the office door, much to Noah’s chagrin as he attempted to make heads and tales of a certain graph. Yet the head steward helped herself as if she had every right to be there. “It’s time for your afternoon tea.” Ah, he supposed she did have a right to be there.
“Leave it on the coffee table, please.” Noah kept his eyes on his monitor. “I’m about to take a break.”
Candace gingerly placed the silver tray on the coffee table in front of a low couch. When she stood up, she beheld the old family portrait depicting the Gabriel clan shortly before Noah’s fifth birthday, right around the time his parents divorced. Candace always looked at it, but she never commented on it.
“Is there anything I can get you, sir?” she asked.
“No, thanks. How’s Stacey holding up?”
Candace hesitated, which was never a good sign. “She has not come out of her room since returning from lunch. I’m assuming that I’ll be bringing her dinner later.”
“All right. She seems to be in a mood. Keep an eye on her. We don’t know if she has a concussion from the fall, and the doctor doesn’t come by until tomorrow.”
Candace nodded, but did not leave the room.
“Yes?”
The steward took one step forward. “Do you wish for a report on Ms. Craig as well?”
Noah finally looked away from his monitor. “Excuse me?”
“Ms. Craig. Do you want to know how she is doing, as a guest of this house?”
She had to be kidding, right? Candace was the smartest woman in that house. She may have had the best poker face in all of New England, but she knew damn well what Lucy was doing there in Gabriel Manor.Waiting around… for me…
Lucy wasn’t really a “guest” of the house. They may have called her that in front of the rest of the staff, but that was to simply save everyone’s face. Candace knew the truth. Lucy was a sex worker, and she had one job while she was staying in that house rent free.
“Is there something to report?” Noah flatly asked.
Candace slowly shook her head. “No, Mr. Gabriel. But, if you’d like, I could arrange for her to have dinner with you tonight. Since your…”
“That won’t be necessary,” Noah interrupted. “Thank you, though. That is very thoughtful, but for now, Ms. Craig is to strictly stay in the guest suite. Do let me know if she is unhappy with the accommodations, though.” He turned back to his monitor, as if that were all there was to say.
“I see. Well, I shall take my leave, then.” Candace left the room as quietly as she arrived.
No matter how much Noah attempted to focus on his work, however, he couldn’t penetrate the numbers or make sense of the more technical terms describing the work about to commence in the city’s Old Town district. It was his own fault, really. He kept reading the word “penetrate,” regarding the breaking of ground, and couldn’t stop staring at it.Penetrate the figures. Penetrate this brain fog. Penetrate Candace’s meaning. Penetrate the shield Stacey has had up for years.
Penetrate Ms. Craig.
