Chapter 25

Beckett

My office was the picture of minimalism. No room for passion or decoration. Nothing but a massive walnut desk in the center of the room, a desk phone, and my work. No pictures on the walls, which were glass—misted when I pressed the button under my desk—and only a sofa in the corner for when I stayed late instead of going out to party.

The only other item in here was the bar in the far corner, stocked with the best whiskeys money could buy.

I’d chosen an office chair that was styled for comfort. I spent a lot of time sitting at this desk. Or I had before I’d run into Olivia and Penny in the Granite Room.

I rolled my chair forward and tried focusing on my laptop’s screen. No dice.

Nothing but her image in my eyes.

Fuck, maybe it was burned into my retinas.

This office, which had been my home away from home was strange now. It was empty and quiet. This was what a week of no work and all Olivia had done to me? I was a stranger in my own skin.

My office phone trilled, and I lifted it, pressed to my ear.

“What?” I grunted.

“Mr. Price?” My timid receptionist, timid only because I’d yelled at her once for getting my coffee order wrong, swallowed.

“You expected someone else?” I asked.

“No, I’m sorry to bother you while you’re working, Mr. Price, but I’ve got a Mr. Cooper on hold. Would you like to speak with him?”

I should’ve been angry that this prick dared call my offices. He was my main competitor. He’d sniped Dane Holmes from me, and the three potential investments I’d been considering. I should’ve fumed about it, but I felt nothing.

Calm, quiet, cold.

It wasn’t like me.

“Mr. Price?”

“What the fuck’s your name again?” I asked.

“It’s Jessie, sir. Jessie Pinkney.”

“Put him through, Jessie, and then take the rest of the day off.”

“Sir? Are you sure I should—I mean –”

“Don’t make me regret the decision.” I slammed the receiver into the cradle.

Two seconds later, it rang again, and I lifted it, placed it to my ear, and waited in silence.

“That’s what you’re going to do, Price? Mouth breathe into the receiver? No hello for your old buddy Coop?”

“We were never buddies by any stretch of the imagination, Cooper,” I replied and held back a sigh.

Cooper chuckled that dry laugh of his, like a snake slithering through fall leaves. “I’m sad to hear that, Price. Here I thought we were the best of friends. After all we’ve been through over the years, you still don’t want to share a bottle of whiskey with me?”

“You can send me a bottle of whiskey, and I’ll drink it by myself.”

“To celebrate your recent victories, I assume,” he replied, with another laugh.

He was at least ten years older than me, more experienced in the game but also a hotshot. And he’d dominated this past while. He’d swept everything out from underneath me, and I’d let him.

I didn’t care about the businesses. About the investors. About my image.

For the first time since I’d started Price Capital, my will to work had totally dried up.

“What do you want, Cooper? A medal?”

“No,” he said. “Just to gloat a little. And to ask if you’re doing OK.”

“Huh?”

“Price, I’ve always considered our rivalry as friendly. Competitive, yes, but friendly, too. We’re in the same game, we must have a lot in common, even if you are still in diapers.”

I laughed this time.

“I heard you’ve got some issues in your personal life. I wanted to wish you all the best in resolving them.”

“Why does that sound like a veiled threat?” I asked.

“It’s not.” Cooper cleared his throat. “I must say that these past weeks have been boring without you snapping at my heels.”

“You mean crushing your toes.”

“Ah, there’s the arrogance,” he said. “I wanted to wish you luck and warn you. Just because you’re going through something doesn’t mean I will let up, Price. Bear that in mind.”

“I’m truly terrified,” I said then put down the phone.

It was a bullshit tactic to feel me out. He was a competitor, and he’d always taken things to extremes. The two times I’d personally met him, he’d acted like he was the big dog but pissed like a puppy when I’d opened my mouth.

Cooper and his threats were the least of my worries.

Before all of this, they might’ve even pissed me off, but now? Now, they fell on deaf ears. All that mattered was Olivia and Penny.

And there was someone I had to talk to about it.

Someone I needed to let go of before I could make things with O work how they should.

I’d been a fool.

I’d had her all along, her heart in my hand, and I’d let it lie there untouched.

Claiming her hadn’t been physical, it’d been emotional, and that was the one area I’d refused to touch.

I lurched out of my chair, bent on a course of action, then made for the door.

An hour later, I stood in front of my best friend’s gravestone, reading the words etched into it again and again.

Michael Abbott. 1989—2017. You kept me breathing until the last.

Shelly-Ann Abbott. 1991—2017. I lived because of you.

My throat closed up.

They’d written those dedications for each other and placed them in Michael’s will a couple months after Penny’s birth. Michael had wanted to cover all his bases.

Clouds scudded across the afternoon sky, casting shade on the granite stones, the white lettering, and the set of doves touching beaks above their names. The wind tugged at my suit jacket, and I buttoned it, coughed once to get rid of that lump.

“Bro,” I said, then laughed at the absurdity of the word in this place. The mirth died just after it left my lips. “Brother,” I repeated. “That’s what you were to me, Mike, still are. Listen, you know I’m not good at this shit. I’m not the emotional dude, that’s you, but I had to come here to see you.”

I chewed on the next words, formed them in my mind and rewrote them again.

“I don’t visit you enough here. It’s too—fuck, dude, it’s too hard. It’s too hard to come here and think about all the good times. It’s too hard to think about the conversations and the fights and the nights out drinking when we were young. And even worse when I think about you and Shelly and Penny together. Man, for the longest time I’ve been steeped in guilt. It was my fault you died. It was my fault you were in that car on the way to see me, and that’s part of the reason I’m here today.”

I swallowed again because that lump was back, and I wouldn’t let it own what I had to say to this gravestone. If there was an “up there,” hopefully he was looking down at me and listening, shaking his head.

“I’m here today for selfish reasons. You know me, always looking out for number one. Here’s the thing, Mike, I’m in love with your sister. I think I have been since we were kids. Since the day you two moved in next door and I saw her unpacking the car in her cowboy boots, with her hair tied up. Fuck, I won’t bore you with the sappy details.” Another gulp. “I made a promise to you that I wouldn’t touch her because you thought I wasn’t good enough for her. I tend to agree on that.”

An elderly woman appeared just ahead, walking between the gravestones, clutching flowers to her chest. I should’ve brought a bouquet, but I hadn’t even considered it. Michael wasn’t a flowers kinda guy.

I lowered my voice and continued. “But it’s different now. Olivia’s looking after Penny like you wanted, and she’s doing a fucking amazing job. All she cares about is that little girl and right now, she needs my help. And I need her. So, I came here today for your blessing, even though you can’t give it to me. I want my conscience to be clear, man, because I have to be with her. I’ve spent years throwing myself at business and alcohol because I couldn’t erase her from my mind, and that’s over now. That’s done. She’s the one I want. I hope you can forgive me for that.”

The clouds above parted a little, and sunlight slanted down from the heavens and landed on the name “Abbott.” I wasn’t a huge believer in signs, but I took this as one.

“I swear, man, I’m going to make this right with Olivia. And I’m going to ensure Penny is well looked after and that she grows up real good, man. Just like you did. With lots of love and joy.” I pressed two fingers to my lips, kissed them, then touched the top of the stone. “I’ll be back. Next time, I’ll bring the girls.”

And with that, I turned and walked back between the stones, my shoes squashing the green, green grass flat.

I’d meant every word. I’d make this right with O if it was the last thing I did. Hopefully, that wouldn’t be the case. Maybe she didn’t want to admit it, but she needed me now. She was strong, but she wasn’t savage like me, and with people like that piece of shit uncle and aunt of hers, it was crucial to be a little mean.

OK, a lot mean.

I drove my Audi TT back into the city and into Manhattan, took it all the way to Olivia’s apartment and parked outside. Different car, different day, but the same feeling I’d had as when I’d run up there and taken her to her bedroom for the first time.

Nerves, resolve, need.

I slipped out into the street and walked toward the front of her apartment building, hands in my pockets, the setting sun on the back of my neck. This was fucking it. This was the moment I took her as mine for good.

I shoved the glass doors inward and strode across the marble floor of her lobby. The guy behind the desk bobbed up and called out, “Mr. Price!”

Fuck, I’d been here so often these dicks already knew my name. I swiveled and eyed the ratty dude. “What?”

“Mr. Price, you can’t go up there.”

“Watch me,” I replied and punched the button. “What are you going to do, kid, call the cops?”

“No, sir.” He bobbed his head and flattened his palm to the name tag attached to his uniform.

“Good, because that would be a pointless exercise. I know all the cops.”

“Sir, that’s not the problem.” He shuffled around the desk but still kept his distance, as if afraid I’d launch myself at him like a rabid animal.

“Enlighten me.”

“Ms. Abbott isn’t home.”

I deflated, shoulders sagged a little, but I straightened them right the fuck out again. “All right. When will she be home?”

“Sir, I’m not sure.”

“Why not?”

“I—she left with several bags and the little girl, too.”

“She left?” I marched across the marble floor and right up to him.

He shrank into himself like two testicles shrinking from a bucket of ice. “Sir, yes, sir.”

“Where did she go? Tell me, man. Where?” I clenched and unclenched my fists, scanned him for the answer.

“I don’t know, sir. But she’s gone.”