Page 28 of Under Control
“Obviously.”
“And you’re not seeing him again until Saturday?”
“It’s an almost forty-minute drive on a good day and in Boston, there are very few good traffic days. And he works today. Tomorrow and Thursday he’ll have his kids. He works Friday.” She put her hands up in a questioning gesture. “And you know as well as I do, I don’t have room to take three hours out of my schedule on a weekday.”
Kelsey cocked her head. “Three hours with an hour and a half for travel time? That’s just plain sex. If you’re having great-in-block-letters sex, it’s going to take longer than that.”
“Remind me to schedule something that requires me to leave before you get here on Monday morning.”
“You’ll have to come back eventually. You live here.”
“Remember that whole ‘I appreciate your discretion’ thing?”
“Don’t worry. I won’t tell a single soul all the details you’re going to tell me. Speaking of, his place or yours?”
“He’s coming here.”
“That’s a big deal for you. You must really like this guy.”
“I do.”
“I bet we could come up with a reason for me to be just leaving as he arrives and I could meet—”
“No.”
Kelsey laughed and went back to the office, while Olivia started getting ready to leave. And when she picked up the phone, she made a conscious effort to put her mother’s text out of her mind. She couldn’t afford to be distracted this morning. The hopefully new client she was meeting today had the potential to bring her a lot of business and she was bringing her A-game.
Several hours later, exhausted but thrilled to have been able to text thegenerate a contracttext to Kelsey, Olivia bought a slice of pizza and a water before walking the short distance to a small park. Pizza was a particular weakness of hers—something that could be eaten mindlessly with one hand while watching TV or reading—so she only bought it by the slice for special occasions. This slice was part reward and part fortification.
She’d considered putting the call off until evening so she didn’t ruin her current mood, but she didn’t want to be on the phone with her mom if Derek called. He was working, but if he had down time, he’d probably call. So she took a few slow breaths to center herself and then tapped her mom’s number.
“Hello, Olivia.”
“Hi, Mom.”
“I was beginning to wonder if my text got through to you and it doesn’t tell me if it did or not.”
She knew it didn’t. She had the read receipt function turned off because people tended to be put off if they knew she’d read their text message but hadn’t responded right away. People like clients. And her mother.
“I was in meetings. I called as soon as I could. What’s going on?” Then she took a big bite off the end of the pizza slice, knowing from experience that she’d have plenty of time to chew before her mother took a breath.
“Your father’s trying to kill me.” And that was all she said, which left Olivia in the awkward position of trying to chew and swallow fast without choking. “Olivia? Did you hear me?”
“I’m here,” she managed to say. Then she had to take a quick swig of water before she could say more. “Dad’s not trying to kill you, Mom.”
“He is.”
“He’s not. If he was capable of killing you, he would have done it years ago.” As soon as the words left her mouth, Olivia wanted them back. Deb didn’t like sarcasm any more than she liked her ex-husband. “I’m sorry. Why don’t you back up a little bit and tell me what’s going on, but an abridged version because I have a meeting soon.”
“His stepdaughter wants to teach at the beauty school and you know Camilla, who opened it, is a dear friend of mine, and he had the audacity to ask me to put a good word in for her.”
“And that’s trying to kill you how?”
“You know how my blood pressure is, Olivia. Don’t be sarcastic.”
“Mom, he’s just trying to use connections to help his stepdaughter out. You know as well as I do that’s how the world works.”
“I amnotone of his connections. I want nothing to do with him or that woman he married. You remember what she called me.”
