Plan B (Best Laid Plans #2)(56)

“Sorry it’s late. I just got in. Flights to Chicago were cancelled so I had to drive or I’d have been here earlier.”

She blinks at me, head tilted to the side. “You drove from Philadelphia?”

“Of course.”

She stares some more.

“Daisy, may I come inside? Please?” I add when she doesn’t seem certain she’s going to allow it. She shrugs and steps back, leaving the door ajar for me to follow.

“Where’s Margo?”

“Margo? What the fuck does Margo have to do with anything?” Unless… unless she saw the texts Margo sent. My iPad. Fuck. “It’s not what you think.”

“What do I think?” she challenges, arms crossed over her chest, her chin tilting up in defiance.

“I imagine you saw a handful of the texts she sent to me and you think I’m a lying, cheating son of a bitch, but you wouldn’t think that if you could see my half of the texts. You can, if you want.” I pull my phone out of my pocket and unlock it, then attempt to hand the phone to her, but she’s taken a step back and is looking at me like I drown kittens for fun.

“A handful? Do you text each other all the time?”

“Daisy, no.” I exhale and run a hand through my hair. This is going badly.

“I saw you get in the car with her yesterday. When you were supposedly in a meeting.” She says it quietly, her eyes wary.

“If you saw that then you arrived a minute too late to see there were already two lawyers and a representative from human resources in the car. We took her to an off-site office to let her go.”

“Let her go?”

“Margo was fired yesterday, or technically speaking, she agreed to take a severance package and resign to avoid a bigger mess.”

She blinks at me, surprised.

“Yesterday’s texts were not the first unwanted and inappropriate texts from her. I’ve brushed her off in the past, because it’s complicated due to our history together and my position at the company. But once you came into the picture I escalated the situation to human resources and we began the process of an exit package for her.”

“You drove all night?” Apparently she’s ignoring what I’ve just said and bouncing back to that.

“Yes. Of course. Whatever it took to get to you.”

“You could’ve just called. If my phone was on.” She’s uncrossed her arms and is wiggling her wedding ring on her finger. I’m relieved to see she’s still wearing it.

“Agreed. But I’d have still come to get you anyway.”

She nods, not really looking at me. She seems distracted, or like she’s not ready to believe me quite yet. “Why did you escalate the situation when I showed up?”

“Because you’re my wife and I wasn’t going to allow her to disrespect you that way.”

“Right.” She gazes at me like I’ve just said something wrong.

“I’m in love with you, Daisy. I fell in love with you on the sidewalk in Boston like a lovesick teenager, and it terrifies me, you must know that.”

“You love me?” Her head is tilted to the side and she’s examining me like this is all so very interesting to her while I’m bleeding my guts out on the floor.

“Of course I love you. I’m crazy about you.”

“Hmm,” she murmurs.

“Daisy, do you love me? Could you… love me?”

“Did you knock me up to gain an heir for some bizarre corporate takeover scheme?”

“Jesus, no. I’m sorry, I should have told you about that before.”

“So you did know about it?”

“I did. But it’s never been relevant to me.”

“Until I showed up pregnant.”

“No, that’s not what I meant. It’s never been relevant to me because I was never going to have a child simply as a means to gain company stock. That’s ludicrous. If I’d been willing to do that I’d have gotten married a long time ago. I don’t need the shares, Daisy. And even if I did, I’d never do that.”

“MoneyWeek seems to think you need them.”

“MoneyWeek is trying to sell magazines. And I wasn’t interviewed for that story or I’d have set them straight. I didn’t even find out about it until ten minutes before the meeting to extract Margo from the company and honestly, I thought the chances of you reading a financial magazine that hit the newsstands just that day were small, or I’d have rescheduled the Margo meeting and come straight to you.”

“Hmmm.” Again.

“I don’t need the shares, Daisy. I promise you that. The board is aligned with my business plan and no one is challenging my role as CEO of the company. The only person who’d have a real vested interest in doing either would be Wyatt, and he doesn’t even care enough to show up for board meetings—or work, actually. Honestly I’m not even sure he has a job at the company.”

“He doesn’t? What does he do with himself?”

“Who the hell knows? Lives off his inheritance and enjoys life, I assume.”

“How nice for him.”

“It’s something,” I say, not really interested in discussing my wayward cousin. “Daisy, you can’t believe I planned all this to trap you into having my baby. For a corporate scheme, as you put it. You can’t believe that. I’ve done everything I’m capable of to show you how I feel about you.”