“Can I talk to you for a moment?” she asked.

Riley couldn’t think of a reason why he shouldn’t speak to her. She was on the Hayes management team, and this could be a work matter. He caught Jim’s gaze and telegraphed his caution. Jim nodded, then turned back to the group he’d been chatting to.

“Of course.” Riley was polite and tried not to think about how uncomfortable she made him feel. She’s good at her job. Dad hired her. He must see something in her. I should give her five minutes.

“Would you…?” She looked left and right at the people near them. “Could we find a quiet space?”

Riley’s stomach sank. A quiet space meant this wasn’t work, and fuck, he wasn’t ready for talking about what he’d seen. Instead he put his Business Riley mask in place and nodded. He led them out of the main board space and down the corridor to what used to be his old map room. The memories were good ones—so many days sitting t cross-legged on the carpet pouring over massive geological mapping surveys. The room hadn’t changed, it was still being used as a map room, but he wondered how many of the geologists now working at Hayes Oil sat on the floor like he used to. The door shut behind them, and abruptly Riley was left with having to face a moment from his past that he resented having in his head.

“I wanted to talk to you,” Charlotte began. She crossed her arms over her chest, dropped them, and then paced to the nearest map table and back again.

“Go on.” Riley felt like he needed to add something there because she was staring at him.

“I think I owe you an apology.”

“No, you don’t,” Riley snapped. “Lisa maybe, but not me.”

Charlotte closed her eyes, and Riley saw the change in her posture. No longer uncertain, she seemed beaten. “An explanation, then,” she said.

Riley opened his mouth to say something, then shut it again. An explanation was something he could handle if that is what she needed to get off her chest.

“Heroin,” she began. Her posture changed again, she stood taller, her shoulders back, and determination was written in her expression. “That was my poison. We all have them, from self-doubt to anxiety all the way through to dependence on drugs, the doubts plague us. I chose heroin as the way to escape… everything.”

By everything, Riley assumed she meant the family she’d been born into. He could understand that.

“I was never as good as JJ. He was the golden boy—” She stopped. “I don’t expect you to know.”

Riley huffed a laugh. “Older brother, asshole, favorite son? You’d be surprised.”

Charlotte’s eyes widened momentarily. “Yes, I guess you do. I didn’t do what you did, though, I let it eat away at me and drugs became my way of proving to everyone they were right and I was a fuck-up.”

Riley held his tongue. He’d chosen sleeping around and acting out as his way of showing the world that his father and brother were right about him. He’d been no paragon of virtue—blackmailing Jack was a case in point—and only by luck had he never chosen narcotics to emphasize who he was.

She continued. “That was when Jeff came back into my life again. We’d had this on-off relationship, a toxic thing.” She touched her throat and hesitated, bleakness filling her eyes. “I let him hurt me. Part of me expected it.” She looked back at Riley. “I can’t believe I’m telling you this.”

Riley held up a hand, then held it out to her. She took it cautiously, and he encouraged her to sit on the carpet. He joined her, and they sat opposite each other, leaning back against the table legs.

“I used to sit in here on the floor all the time,” Riley said with a fond smile. “Jeff never actually came in here, and my dad despaired of me.”

“I used to hide in the kitchens at home. I learned to cook that way.”

Riley nodded. “We both had our coping mechanisms, and we came out the other side.”

“I never meant to hurt Lisa,” she blurted out. “I don’t know why I did that…. Jeff and I had been apart for so long, but he said she couldn’t give him what he wanted, and all he wanted to do was hurt me.” She dipped her gaze, “he liked to hurt. And I was this desperate mess who believed that was what she wanted…” She buried her face in her hands. “Lisa must hate me.”

“Lisa doesn’t know,” Riley admitted.

Charlotte looked at him, her eyes glassy. “You didn’t tell her?”

“The Hayes family was always good with secrets,” Riley deadpanned. He stopped himself. Charlotte didn’t need the offhand summaries; she and Riley needed to get this sorted. “No, I didn’t tell her. What was the point? She was so happy. She was pregnant with Annabelle, and my brother hadn’t entirely ruined her back then.”

“Will you tell her now?”

Riley considered the kind of secrets that sat inside his family, including the big one that hung over them all like a blade waiting to fall. He tried to never think about it, never talk about it, but still, what Lisa had done was something that would be part of his life forever.

“No,” he said. “No point. Jeff is dead, and Lisa is doing well with the kids.”

“And you?”

“Me?”

“Will you forgive me?”

Riley paused. He tried not to think about his anger at finding out she was working at Hayes. He attempted not to focus on the graphic images in his head, then he lied, because it seemed like the right thing to do. “Easily.”

“Thank you, Riley.” She exhaled noisily, then her expression changed. “I’m clean now,” she began with earnest conviction. “That day, when you saw me, what I was doing, it was the first day of admitting what I was becoming. I’m not saying it was easy, and from that day I was done with it all, but I’ve made my amends where I need to. In case you were worried, I have a sponsor, and it’s been six years, three months, and eleven days now. I said Jim could talk to her if he needed to. He said he didn’t.”

“Dad speaks highly of you.”

“You were lucky, Riley,” she began. “You turned out to have a real father who actually cared. I remember the day that we heard Gerald wasn’t your real father. All Josiah could say was that he’d known Gerald would never have a fag for a son. That made me laugh, given he has me as a daughter. My girlfriend, Meg, is a teacher. He hates the fact I have a girlfriend, and you know what? I don’t give a rat’s ass what he thinks anymore.”

The unsure, worried woman who had walked into the map room had become something very different, more like the confident woman she’d been in the boardroom. She was smiling as she talked about Meg. Riley realized one thing: she was happy, he was happy, and Jeff should be left in the past where he belonged, along with all the shitty memories.

“I think we’re done with Jeff.” Riley voiced his summary out loud. He stood and extended a hand, helping her to her feet.

She brushed down her skirt and straightened her blouse and jacket. Then she hugged Riley, pulled him tight close, her head only coming to the middle of his chest though she wore heels. He hesitated for a moment, then hugged her back.

When they separated, she had the flush of embarrassment on her face. “Thank you,” she said.

Riley had never realized that confronting something from his and Jeff’s less than stellar past would prove to be cathartic. “No, thank you.”

She left the room, and Jim came in as soon as she’d gone. He came to stand next to Riley.

“Saw you leave with her. Is everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Riley said. Impulsively, he hugged Jim. “Thank goodness you’re my dad,” he muttered into Jim’s neck.

Jim tightened his hold back. “Thank goodness you’re my son.”

When they separated, they were grinning like idiots, but didn’t say anything more about it.

“You remember the day you found me in here? When I’d been given the marry-for-love ultimatum?”

“I remember. I never thought it would turn out the way it did.”

Riley smiled to himself. “Me neither. Glad it did, though.”