“I was only trying to protect you! I didn’t know that —”

“There are a lot of things you don’t know, a lot of shit you can’t seem to remember lately. But since we’re sharing stories now, let me help you out. Let me tell you exactly why what you think will never matter to me: You were never there when I needed you to be. Ever. You let me, a fucking kid, take care of a toddler while you and my father were out doing god knows what. You showed up high to everything I had at school—you were so fucking high you made me drive the car to the store when I was eight! But you don’t remember that do you? You don’t remember how you never did shit for us—how we had to beg you to come back with food, or how you left us in a trailer that damn near killed us. You still have yet to even apologize for that because you don’t want to own up to being the horrible fucking mother that you are. ”

“I was on drugs! I’ve apologized over and over and you just keep dragging this out because—”

“Get out.”

“Please just lis—”

“Get. Out.” I pulled the door open and walked over to my desk. I was done with her.

Sobbing, she slid her purse strap over her shoulder and headed for the door. She twisted the doorknob and slowly pulled it open.

“Wait.” I sighed.

She looked back with tears in her eyes. “Yes?”

I glared at her, tempted to say “I never want to hear from you again. Stay the hell out of my life,” but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

As furious as I was with her, I was now even angrier with Claire. She didn’t even think to tell me about everything that had gone on; she’d simply used my mom’s behavior as an excuse to take the easy way out.

“Take a seat.”

“No...” She wiped her face and sniffled. “I don’t care how mad you are at me, you’re not going to treat me like—”

“SIT DOWN, mother.”

She moved away from the door and walked over to my desk, plopping down on a seat.

I took a deep breath. “You and I are going to talk, without our therapist. You’re going to be completely honest with me and I’m going to be completely honest with you. Once we’re done talking, if nothing good comes of it, we’re going to go our separate ways...I want you to know that I’ll always take care of you and give you whatever you need, but we don’t have to pretend like this relationship is something worth salvaging if it’s really not. Can you—”

“I want to be a part of your life regardless of this conversation. I don’t think it’s fair for you to write me off like I’m some type of—”

“Was what you did to Claire fair to me?”

“No...” She sighed. “And I’m sorry, but I—”

“I said ‘if’ this isn’t something worth salvaging, so you better be completely honest with me. Are you willing to do that?”

“Yes...”

“Good. Give me one second and we’ll start.” I picked up my phone and called executive affairs. “Milton, get me the proper paperwork to impeach a member of the board. I want it within an hour and I’ll be exercising clause seventeen to make the impeachment effective immediately.”

Chapter 29

Jonathan

Two months later...

Stacy ran her fingers through my hair and kissed my lips. She tried to part them open with her tongue, but they wouldn’t budge. She slowly unfastened the top buttons of my shirt and started to pull it off, but I pushed her hand away.

She sighed. “I should’ve known you weren’t up for this...” She grabbed her bra off the chair and handed it to me. “Can you help me put it back on?”

“What?”

“My bra...Can you help me put it back on?”

“Oh. Sure.”

“The third row, please. And for the record, I’m officially taking the ‘with benefits’ tag off our friendship. We haven’t had sex in forever.”

I snapped the last hook on her bra. “Fine...”

“I’m really worried about you.” She turned around and cupped my face. “You’re scaring me...”

“Because I’m not having sex with you?” I rolled my eyes.

“Because you’re not being the Jonathan I know. Why can’t you just call Claire? You’re not the type to stay away from someone you like. This isn’t you at all.”

“You’re suggesting that I call the woman who broke up with me and begged me to leave her alone?”

“I’m just saying that—”

“That’s not my style.”

“Whatever. How long do you need me to stay in town?” she asked. “I need to tell the condo manager a date tomorrow.”

“Not long, and you’re more than welcome to stay here or at one of the beach houses.” I re-buttoned my shirt. “I just need you to go to the Juniper Conference with me as my date in two weeks. I’ll need someone to keep the single women away from me. I don’t want them thinking I’m available.”

“I don’t have to accompany you to the morning tech sessions do I? You know that stuff bores me out of my mind.”

“Not unless you want to.”

“Ha! No. Parties and mixers only, and I’ll do my best to act like I’m your girlfriend. By the way, since I flew out here and you left me hanging again, I’ll need a shopping spree on your behalf. Tomorrow. Actually, make it every day this week.”

“Fair enough.” I stood up. “Are you spending the night here?”

“Um, I was actually going to—”

“Can you?”

“Why?”

I sighed. “I just need someone to be here...” I didn’t feel like going into another spiel about Claire.

“Sure.” She put on her shirt and kissed my cheek. “I’ll set up my bed in the living room. You want to get breakfast in the morning?”

“We can’t share a bed?”

“No.”

“Why not? We normally do.”

“Jonathan...” She sighed. “You haven’t called me ‘Stacy’ once today. You’ve been calling me Claire ever since you picked me up from the airport. You didn’t even ask me how I’ve been doing until we were at dinner...As a matter of fact, after I told you, you asked me about Ashley and Caroline ... I didn’t want to say anything because I’ve never seen you like this and I didn’t want to upset you.” She placed her hand on my shoulder. “I don’t want to put you in a situation where you sleep with me, subconsciously thinking that I’m Claire because I’m not. I want you to get your shit together and figure this out. I’ll be in the living room if you need me...Okay?”

“Okay... Goodnight, Stacy.”

“Goodnight. See you in the morning.” She gave me a reassuring smile and walked away.

As soon as she left my room, I walked over to my dresser and pulled out the latest set of pictures: Claire was running on the Golden Gate Bridge, hosting meetings at Starbucks, and lying on the beach in a beautiful black bikini—one of the ones I’d bought for her to wear on my yacht.

I flipped through the pictures over and over, scrutinizing every part. Then I realized that the running pictures were all taken at night, and that these weren’t the latest pictures—they were two weeks old.

I called Greg. “Greg, are you—”

My doorbell rang and I knew it was him; he was always nearby.

I rushed downstairs and let him in, ushering him into the parlor room. I poured us both a glass of scotch and sat in front of the fireplace.

“Good seeing you, Greg...” I took a few sips of my drink and leaned back in my chair, wondering why he wasn’t doing the same.

“You called me in the middle of the night to have a drink with you, Mr. Statham?” He set the glass down and raised his eyebrow.

“Did they find that suspect who was doing the random muggings on the Golden Gate Bridge?”

“Not to my knowledge sir, they haven’t. I doubt he’d appear in the daytime though. If you’re concerned about your employees’ commercial shoot there tomorrow, I can arrange to have—”

“No, it’s not that. It’s...Can you make sure someone from security is on the bridge at night to watch Miss Gracen? She runs on Wednesday and Thursday nights between eight and nine...She doesn’t need to know you’re there. I just need you to make sure nothing happens to her.”