Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 82767 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82767 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
“I’m sorry for the way we left things the other night,” he said.
“Me too,” I replied. “But I’ve changed over the years. I’ve had a lot of time to grow up, and I’m used to my independence.”
“I see that,” he said. “But I can’t stand by if I think you are making bad choices. I care about you.”
I bristled at this. “But they are my choices, right?”
“I want us to be together, Freya, I think you know that. I want them to be our choices,” he said.
“We have only just become friends again, isn’t it a little early to be talking about shared decisions?”
“I don’t think so,” he said, matter of factly.
“I do, Drew,” I said.
“Freya, why are you resisting this?” he demanded, and I was stunned into silence. “We have finally got things back to how they should be, and now you are doing this whole independent woman thing!”
“I’m not doing an independent woman thing,” I said calmly. “I am just making my own decisions. I will choose where I work, what I do, and for what purpose. You clearly have a problem with that, and that isn’t going to work for me.”
“So now what?” he said, a touch of anger in his voice. “You’re going to throw the whole thing away just so you can play some pathetic spy game?”
“I’m not throwing anything away!” I had raised my voice in frustration now. This was way too intense. We hadn’t made any promises to one another other than to spend time together as friends and see where things went.
“You are throwing us away!” he answered, his own voice rising.
“There is no US!” I shouted.
There was silence on the line for about a minute, and then I heard the beep of him hanging up the phone. I threw myself down on the couch and cried. My tears were hot, angry tears. Why had I ever thought that Drew and I could work? Why was I desperately trying to cling to the past? If I was being honest with myself, I knew that what Drew had called my ‘pathetic spy game’ at Clover House was a convenient excuse for not following through on my travel plans. Had he just been an extension of that? Someone convenient who I could be pretty sure wouldn’t break my heart? But then, if I was so eager to protect myself, why on earth had I responded to Keegan the way I had?
Sleep wouldn’t come. I replayed the events of the past few weeks, searching my brain for any evidence I might have missed that would explain the theft of Animagic by Clover House. I thought about Drew, and why he was so desperate that I should take his advice to leave Clover House and slip right back into whatever relationship he and I were clearly having inside his head. I thought about Keegan and then pushed those thoughts away, sensing danger. I got up around four in the morning, made tea and sat down on the floor, unpacking my suitcase, and checking it. It was going to be a short trip, no need for much. Some Effie Hancock work stuff, including the formal dress, and some Freya Hamilton wandering-around-Dublin stuff. I tried to focus on this part of the trip. All I had to do was tick off my checklist at the launch, go with Keegan to the offices, take notes, and smile and nod, then I was free to explore. I swapped the anxiety I had felt all weekend for excitement and was ready to go with my suitcase in hand half an hour early, sitting perched on my case at the side of the road waiting for the car that Clover House was sending to take me to the airport.
Chapter 20
KEEGAN
I HAD A LOT on my mind on the morning of the Dublin trip. Mick had been on the phone twice before I even left for the flight. It was a novelty to hear him panic over the details of the opening event; he was always so annoyingly self-assured, but his new office was his pet project and he wanted it to be perfect. Listening to him, I couldn’t help but feel a little in awe of him.
“Mick, if someone had told us a few years ago you’d have been shitting yourself about some fancy caterers and whether there was enough Champagne, we wouldn’t have believed it,” I laughed.
“I think you are forgetting just how important alcohol was back then,” he laughed. “Only it wasn’t Champagne…”
I hadn’t been back home for any extended length of time since moving to Boston. It was always a few days here and there. For the first year I hadn’t been back at all, at my father’s insistence. It was a stark reminder that they didn’t trust me, and while that was understandable in the beginning, it was something I had grown to resent as time passed. Yes, I had fucked up repeatedly, but I had got myself out of all that shit. I had swallowed my pride and done everything that my parents had told me to do. I hadn’t made any of what my pa called my ‘unwise decisions,’ because I hadn’t made any fucking decisions at all. Not about my real life outside of Clover House. My life was on hold.