Page 49 of The Marriage Bid
I waved goodbye to them all, noting how Tyler acted as though we were merely colleagues. But I guess we were.
Malaya sent me a text:
Malaya: Girl, isn’t that your husband with another woman?
Me: It’s fine. We agreed to date other people because our
marriage wasn’t real anyway.
It hurt to type that message. It was now clear that I had been tending a small flame for him. I didn’t know I was doing it, but it was time to snuff it out. I didn’t go to my apartment. Instead, I went to the storage unit where I had put away some of the stuff my father left after he died. It wasn’t a place I liked to visit and I avoided it at all costs, but if I wanted to find out more about who was actually blackmailing Tyler, the information might be there.
I entered the storage unit and scoured through the files and documents he left. There were plenty of them, most regarding his business dealings and offshore accounts in his name. And—what is this? Tucked within a file named Panama was a company in my name. I’d never heard of this company. Dad probably used my name to dodge tax filings. I went through the file. There were plenty of company documents, most in his name and some in Aunt Pamela’s name as well. Of course. He probably used her as well. I took the file. The storage felt like a dead end, but there might be something in this file.
Chapter 23
Saffron
The Hawthorne and Hawthorne offices did not feel as awful coming back to them as they did the last few times I had to come here. The project was close to getting done, and it was time for an update with my client. It definitely felt odd to see Tyler again, especially after our meeting last week. It did not feel like it then, but it was the douse of cold water I needed.
I entered the meeting room to find I was the first person to arrive. The boardroom differed from the one I had to give the pitch in. This one was smaller and more intimate. Good, because I was going to ask for a budget extension, and I didn’t want to do it in front of many people just in case Tyler thought it a fun idea to embarrass me for laughs.
“Ah, Saffron!” The door burst open, and Richie entered beaming. Then he frowned when he glanced around and saw that I was alone. “Where’s everyone!” He checked his watch. “Isn’t the meeting supposed to start at eleven?”
I shrugged and went back to setting up my laptop to the projector. “You tell me. That’s the time I got.”
He strode over to me. “Let me help you with that.” He took over the job of setting up the equipment. “It’s ungentlemanly to let a woman do the work while I stand.”
“It’s fine, Richie. How’s life?”
“You know how it is working for Tyler.”
Tyler hadn’t been giving me much trouble ever since we came back from Italy. He had pretty much let me do my job in peace and agreed to any ideas I sent to him. I had noticed that previously it was he personally who would reply to me via email. Now it was his assistant doing so in his stead and CCing Tyler. The approvals were so quick that I was not sure if he actually read my suggestions. He barely cared about my work anymore, and I was sure he was going to punt me to a junior architect or just let me work with the project manager, but he didn’t.
That was good, right? Working with him like this instead of him constantly questioning my judgment was better, right? It didn’t feel like it. I hate to admit it, but I missed his negging. Agh. How fucked up was I?
“All done!” Richie brushed his hands and pressed the space button on my laptop to start the presentation, then turned to the projector. It began playing. He scrolled through it with the clicker and then handed me the device, a big smile on his face as though he had just put me on the moon.
“Lovely, thanks.” I rewound the slide back to the start.
“What are you thanking him for?” Tyler strolled in with Quinn and Matt trailing him. He looked almost…mad? He was glaring at Richie. His gaze communicated a silent warning to Richie that I couldn’t parse, but Richie understood perfectly.
“Nothing! I was just helping her out with the…uh.” Richie turned red. He motioned to the projector, his previous confidence gone, then he skedaddled into a chair.
Tyler gave me a menacing smile. “Miss Channing.” Then he went to sit at the end of the oval table. The project manager and Matt chose chairs that were opposite Richie. “We were in another meeting before this one. I hope you can forgive our tardiness.”
“It’s perfectly fine,” I said. “I wasn’t here long.”
He leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands. “But long enough to flirt with my people.”
There’s the asshole reappearing. “I wasn’t flirting; he was helping,” I said through gritted teeth. “Now, should I start the meeting, or do you have other accusations you want to fling at me?”
The room went so quiet that you could hear a pin drop. Matt bowed his head, a clear sign of not wanting to be involved in a tiff. The other two were perplexed enough to frown at each other.
“The floor is yours, Miss Channing.”
I began the presentation, first by going over what we had achieved so far and the money spent. The new assistant Malaya hired had made a three-sixty view of one of the rooms, making it easy to explain.
“So you see,” I said at the end of my presentation, “that’s why I think we need a budget extension if you want the penthouse suites to be on the level you require.” I scanned my gaze around the room. Richie was nodding and typing on his laptop. Quinn was taking notes, and Matt had his pen in his hand, attentively reading the last slide. The only person who was looking at me was Tyler. He was rubbing his chin, his steely glare lighting me up.
