Page 18 of Crocodile Tears
“Dove,” I countered in the same scolding tone. “You are the perfect person for the job. You already knew exactly what this charity should be before it even existed. You will lead us in the right direction until we can find permanent leadership.”
The food arrived, granting us a momentary reprieve from the tense conversation. Dove’s Lobster Thermidor looked so good that she instantly dove in, pausing our argument, to my great relief.
We ate for a minute in companionable silence, and I gave her a moment to mull over everything I’d just said. I glanced out the window, and Cody was standing across the road, swiping a dramatic hand across his face in an instruction to smile like the most insufferable stage mom. I fought back the urge to roll my eyes and smiled at Dove while she was too busy eating to notice. I loved that she devoured her meal, not giving one flying fuck about being demure and delicate, not performing for anyone, least of all me.
When she finally spoke, she asked, “How long?” and I was very relieved it wasn't “absolutely not, you insane weirdo.” There’d been a 50/50 chance of that.
I sighed in relief. Moving my risotto around with my fork in contemplation, I mulled it over before answering.Maybe this will work out after all.
“Only a few weeks until we can organize some interviews,” I assured her. “But I didn't want to wait to get started.”
“Because you're trying to cover your ass.” She spoke through a mouthful of food, and even though she clearly had more to say, she took another bite before speaking again.
I didn’t blame her. The food here was amazing, and I’d eaten at Michelin star restaurants all around the world. Maybe it wasn’t entirely the food though. Maybe it was the company. Despite her overt anger toward me, twelve-year-old Dove and Deacon would’ve been high-fiving each other in disbelief that we got to eat in a restaurant like this.
My inner child smiled even as I wore a casually bored expression in an attempt to neutralize Dove’s ire. So far it seemed to be working.
“The girl in the viral video being yourinterim directoris damage control,” Dove pointed out.
“I’ve already donated a large chunk of money into the trust for specific allocation to the skink breeding program,” I said, blotting my lips. “Here’s your chance to spend all my money on something you deemworthy.”
“Tempting.” She tossed her head back and forth. “But I don’t want to be your scapegoat. You only want to make the situationlookbetter. You don’t actually care about fixing anything.”
That was a wallop of an accusation. Worse, she was right. For a long time, I’d only wanted to deflect the blame onto someone else. It was still my first instinct. I cared so much about being perceived as a good guy that I allowed bad things to happen without taking any action. But ever since Dove’s video, it was like a hurricane of reckoning had stormed into my consciousness.
Dove reached for another breadstick, and I covered her wrist with my hand before she could retract it. I swept a thumb over her warm skin and waited until her deep brown eyes met mine to speak.
“Despite what you think, I actually care about making this right,” I admitted. “Now more than ever. You made me see howselfish I was being and I’m trying to fix it. Please, help me? When it comes to this, I don’t trust anyone more than I trust you.”
She seemed pleasantly surprised by that statement, and I felt momentarily victorious in cracking an inch through her icy exterior.
“Well, I mean, I would be an excellent interim director,” she said with an uncomfortable laugh, as if she weren’t quite boastful enough to admit it. “I was born into conservation work. This is the kind of opportunity my parents dreamed about. My dad always wished he could’ve made an impact on this kind of scale, but we never had the funds.”
“Exactly,” I encouraged. “And you can make that dream a reality.”
“With your money,” she added smugly. She retracted her hand from my touch to nibble on her breadstick. “Me holding your purse strings? I kind of like the sound of that. So what now?”
“Cody will handle all of the press releases and announcements.” I nodded out the window to where Cody stood with a baseball cap and sunglasses, snapping photos of us on his phone. “It would help us both out if you smiled at me just once.”
“Absolutely not.”
“You know, I knew I was pushing it.” I gave her a wink.
Dove waved through the window as three more cars pulled up onto the sidewalk. “Aretheypart of your entourage too?”
Before they even got out of their cars, I knew that they were paps. Uncaring that they were illegally parking, nothing else mattered but getting close enough to snag the perfect shot. I didn’t know how they did it. There was nowhere in the world I could randomly appear that wouldn’t be swarmed with cameras after an hour.
“Actually, let's have lunch in the private room.”
I flagged down Luca to tell the staff to move our table. If the paps got a shot of us, Cody wouldn’t be able to control the narrative the same way. I wanted the news to be about the conservation trust and not about the angry, viral zookeeper.
“Ooh, fancy pants with the private room,” Dove jeered, doing little jazz hands as she stood, holding her plate of lobster.
“The servers can bring the plates,” I said, rising.
“You will take this plate from my cold dead hands,” she countered, biting the air between us and making me guffaw. “As your interim director, I order you to bring yours too.”
I couldn’t hide the laughter in my voice as I said, “That’s not how this works.”
