Page 64 of Sunset Tides
Rob was halfway to the door when he heard Lucy gasp. “What’s wrong?” he asked, even though he knew. He knew exactly what was wrong. He needed to run.
“It looks like there’s a document about who requested the hotel be condemned. Hang on, it’s loading.”
What if he just turned and ran out the door? It would give her enough time to process what she was seeing, and it would give him a chance to get to the safety of his car.
But Rob didn’t run. He didn’t move at all, instead standing there, frozen, staring at her.
He watched as her eyes scanned left to right, left to right. She put a hand on the counter to steady herself before looking up at him.
He cleared his throat. “Is everything okay?” His voice sounded weak, like all the air had gone out of his lungs.
She looked like she was about to speak, but then she stopped, instead getting up and silently walking toward him.
Rob took a step back. “Lucy?”
“I cannot believe you.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. She stood in front of him with her fists balled at her sides. “It was you all along.”
Rob put his hands up. “It’s not what you think it is.”
“Isn’t it?” Her nostrils flared, her voice growing louder with every word. “Because itseemslike you’ve been distracting me for the past few weeks while you were plotting to steal Claire’s hotel!”
“That’s not what happened. I tried to steer OSSawayfrom the hotel. I just did an entire presentation about alternate sites and – ”
“When were you planning on telling me you were behind this?”
He looked down, then back up at her. “I wanted to tell you on Saturday, but – ”
“But you’re a coward and all you care about is your stupid career that doesn’t matter?”
He stopped. She had no idea what she was talking about. Who was she to say his career didn’t matter? Or to call him a coward,when he’d dedicated so many hours to fixing this? “That’s not fair.”
“Your entire company is a leech on society.”
He drew in a sharp breath and narrowed his eyes. “Am I a leech, too, then?”
“Yeah!” she yelled. “You’re the fattest leech of them all!”
Right. He was a leech. So much for her starting to like him. Apparently that was an illusion. “How would you even understand the value of a career when you can’t stay in one place for more than six months?”
“I’ve had plenty of careers! I’m not afraid to walk away if a company wants to do something immoral. You, however, have no qualms. All you care about is money. And yourself.”
“Yeah, I only care about myself, but youreallycared about the farm.”
She glared at him. “I did. I do.”
“No, you don’t. You’re just looking for distractions. That’s all it was for you, a distraction, and you go from one distraction to the next. You can’t commit to a career because you’re afraid to put roots down, and you would never understand the sacrifices I’ve – ”
“Get out.” She pointed to the door.
He closed his eyes for a moment. He’d gone too far.
The regret hit him instantly. Rob hadn’t meant to say it likethat.He’d put a lot of thought into Lucy’s career troubles, and he naively believed he could be helpful, or insightful. He ‘d planned to talk to her about it some time, thinking he could help her. He wanted to do it in a way that would show her he’d been thinking about her and that he cared.
Instead, he’d thrown it in her face. “Lucy, please, let me – ”
“Good luck at the hearing,” she said, pulling the door open and waving a hand for him to go through.
A customer appeared then, at that perfectly awkward moment in time, and tried to make his way around them.
