Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 136025 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 680(@200wpm)___ 544(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136025 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 680(@200wpm)___ 544(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
I hang up.
And I storm out. Only looking for one person. I fling open the curtain to his bunk. “Charlie.”
He squints at the light and then glares at my scowl. “What?”
I open my mouth, about to say, how long have you known the board would vote me out? But I freeze, my vocal cords iced and immobile. My brain is telling me no, don’t go there. You’re wrong, Maximoff.
He’s my cousin. He’s family. He wouldn’t hurt me. Then I remember my parents and the rumor—how badly that hurt. But I also remember what my dad said. To protect each other, we sometimes react out of fear and love.
For Charlie to not tell me, it’d just be out of cruelty.
So he couldn’t have known about the board or the vote. I believe this.
I know this.
Because despite all the bad blood, I trust Charlie with H.M.C. Philanthropies and the wealth. It’s why he’s on the board. If an apocalypse happens, Charlie Keating Cobalt is the last safety net.
The one person who’d shut down any dissention.
And he’s been absent from the office, with me, for four months. An ambitious prick could’ve taken advantage of that.
“Moffy.” Charlie props himself on his elbow. “What’s going on?”
My muscles thaw. “The board just voted me out.”
His face falls before his yellow-green eyes pierce the wall. Shock, then anger—his reaction isn’t that far off from mine. “Who’s the new CEO?”
“Ernest Mangold.” I explain every damn thing that Victoria told me in less than a few minutes. “That’s all I know.”
“Son of a bitch.” Charlie climbs out of the bed in boxer-briefs, his golden-brown hair messy. He follows me into the first lounge. Jane and Farrow hang back, letting us deal with this mess.
I find a laptop and open it by the coffee pot. Still standing.
Charlie hovers close. “Ernest must’ve manipulated the board—and those fucking idiots fell for it.” He groans into his hands, then pushes his hair back. “People are so stupid.”
“He could’ve blackmailed them.” I’m still super-glued to this theory. I pop up flights out of the Denver airport. The tour bus will have to take a short detour, but my cousins will still make the Boulder FanCon in time.
Charlie watches me search for flights. “I should’ve left the tour weeks ago—”
“No.” I risk a short glance at him. “I’m glad you stayed. You surprised me.” I seriously thought he wouldn’t last the whole tour. I thought he’d quit on everyone and just leave. He proved me wrong. “I shouldn’t always think the fucking worst about you, Charlie. I’m sorry.”
He flinches at the sudden apology.
I let out a pained laugh. “And now I’m the first one to bail.” Sarcastic, I add, “Fifty points to Hufflepuff.”
Charlie slides the computer towards himself. My hands slip off the keyboard, and he uses the track-pad and pops up a new window.
He logs onto a site where we book private jets. “Don’t fly commercial. This’ll be faster.” Charlie angles the laptop towards me. He knows I prefer flying commercial, even though the paparazzi are like locusts at the airport. But private jets cost a lot, and they’re bad on fuel and the environment.
Charlie waits for an argument.
But he’s right. It’s faster, and it’ll help me reach Philly more inconspicuously. No media speculation or attention. So I fill out the flight box and I hesitate on the line: how many passengers?
My eyes flit to him. “You coming with me?”
He looks away in thought.
Even the idea of confronting the board without Charlie feels suffocating. He’ll be the only person I trust there. He’s the safety net.
I remember Harvard. How I felt the exact same back then. He was supposed to be the familiar face on campus, my one lifeline. Maybe I should’ve told him that. Maybe he has no clue what I felt.
Or maybe he still would’ve left me, no matter what.
But I can’t just let him go this time.
“Charlie.” I catch his gaze. “I need you to be there with me. I can’t…” I shake my head as the words lodge in my throat, afraid of saying the wrong fucking thing. I lick my lips. “I can’t do this alone.”
He doesn’t break eye contact. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
Charlie nods, assured. “Count me in.”
The private jet flies off the tarmac, and Farrow and Oscar seclude themselves in the front of the plane. Giving Charlie and me space. Or maybe forcing us to talk. Something we rarely do.
Unlike the twelve-person sleeper bus, there’s nowhere to hide. We can’t retreat to a bunk and ignore each other. My beige leather seat even faces his.
We’re on the same figurative side, fighting for the same purpose. But our past still wedges between us like a crater that we’ve never known how to fill.
Charlie drums his armrest and stares out the airplane window. I fold my paperback of Aristotle’s The Nicomachean Ethics, barely able to read with the tense silence.