Wish You Were Gone(77)
“You just don’t want to be bothered putting up a fight,” Hunter said. “Fine. Whatever.”
So much for that bonding they’d done earlier.
“Hunter—”
“Forget it, Mom. You can do this one yourself.”
Hunter stalked off to his room and slammed the door. Seconds later, Kelsey did the same. Well. That had gone perfectly. Emma walked to the couch and collapsed onto it. For half a second she considered calling Gray back and conceding the point. Let her send the cadre of lawyers or whomever they hired to do such things. But no. She wasn’t going to admit Gray was right. She couldn’t. Not right now. She reached for the phone to call Lizzie.
GRAY
It wasn’t like she was checking up on him. She was simply surprising him for lunch. This wasn’t completely unprecedented. Sometimes, when she had a light day or meetings in the city, she’d pop in and take him out. Perhaps Dante and Derek would be able to join them and they could make it a family thing. The truth was, Gray needed some time with her family as much as she needed to check that Darnell was okay. Everything felt so fragile at the moment, like her whole life could be blown to the far reaches by a soft breeze.
But she knew she couldn’t keep ditching work like this. Sooner or later, she was going to have to get used to the fact that his life had to go on the same way it always had. Until it couldn’t anymore.
Gray left her car in the parking garage under the building on Madison Avenue and rode the elevator up to the lobby. She took her time walking around the modern, chrome-and-granite space, enjoying the feeling of opulence and ownership she always felt here. Garrison & Walsh wasn’t the only company in the high-rise, but the owners had given each of the public relations and advertising firms housed there a display case in the lobby, to showcase what they were all about. Gray paused in front of the photo of her husband and James Walsh posing with the Stanley Cup. Positioned around it were various PR awards, replicas of Super Bowl rings, and more framed documents—articles covering the bigger PR moments in some of their most illustrious clients’ lives.
It had been a good run. For just over twenty years, the two men had made this thing work. She remembered so clearly when Darnell first told her that he was going into business with James Walsh. Even then, she hadn’t loved the guy on a personal level. He was fun to be around, good at a party, a talented speaker and storyteller—traits his daughter inherited. But there had always been something about him that felt off—predatory, self-aggrandizing, egotistical. When Gray first met Emma, she’d both fallen in love with her and started wondering what was wrong with her that she could have tied herself to such a man. But he was an amazing businessperson. A natural connector of people. He was the kind of guy other guys wanted to hang out with and women wanted to impress. Perfect for his chosen profession. And she had since learned that there was nothing wrong with Emma aside from her having a bargain-basement level of self-esteem coupled with a huge, na?ve heart.
Darnell and James had hung their first shingle in a modest office suite just a little too far south and a little too far east to feel prestigious, and started out with a handful of mid-list clients. And look at their company now. One of the top five firms in the business. They couldn’t let it all fall apart.
Gray’s eyes pricked. She knew she was partially at fault for the current distressing state of things. James was gone, and who knew how long Darnell would be able to hold it together? But there were things she could do. Advice she could give. Moves Darnell could make to protect his legacy. She refused to believe all was lost.
Shaking her hair back, Gray moved toward the elevator bank and almost tripped over her own two feet. Lizzie Larkin was walking out of one of the elevators, head down, her raucous curls hiding half her face. For half a second, Gray thought she must be seeing things, but no. It was definitely her. There was no mistaking that particular sense of style.
“Lizzie!”
The woman started as Gray grabbed her arm and dragged her toward the U of couches near the window.
“What the hell are you doing here? Are you stalking my husband now? My boys?” Gray could have torn the woman to shreds in her current frame of mind. But then she noticed that Lizzie’s face was red and blotchy, her pale skin unable to mask a thing.
“Don’t worry about it, Gray. I’m done,” she said, her voice thick with tears. “I won’t be bothering you again.”
Before Gray could even recover from the shock, Lizzie had slipped her garish sunglasses on and disappeared through the revolving doors.
EMMA
Emma was driving to Ben’s café for some coffee when the email came through. The second she saw Zoe’s name on her phone, she quickly pulled into the parking lot between Ben’s place and The Tap Room. She threw the car in park before it stopped rolling and her body was thrown forward against the seat belt, but she didn’t notice. Outside, the world was gray, and a stiff wind tossed brown leaves across her windshield.
The email was huge, the attachments totaling hundreds of megabytes. Her phone wouldn’t be able to handle it. Luckily, her car had Wi-Fi. James had convinced her to pay for the subscription so that the kids could play games or watch movies on long trips. But really, it had been for him. So he could download files if he were ever stuck in the car with them, which he rarely was. Now, she could have kissed him for suggesting it.