“Sounds like a plan.” I followed him to the house, and he gave me one last lingering look before we stepped inside.
12
Rees
In the end, Byron wrote a check.
It wasn’t a big one, about half of what I wanted. Byron wrote it the following morning, after what turned out to be a very normal dinner alongside a very small, and very gamey roasted bird. I ate a piece, but Millie was smart enough to steer clear.
“Listen here, city boy,” Byron said as he shoved the check in my hands. “You lose this, you die. You don’t make me a lot of money, you die. You hear me?”
“I hear you,” I said, slipping the check into my pants. “You know investing comes with risk, right?”
“Wise ass,” he said, punching my arm, and laughed.
Millie was quiet on the trip back again. I wanted to ask her what was going on but she seemed distant. I decided to give her space, if she needed it—but I kept thinking about her speech, and the look on her face as she stared into the fire and told Byron about her childhood.
I knew she struggled. Lori gave me the basics before I hired her. I knew she was raised by her grandmother, and her parents had died when she was young. But I didn’t know how difficult it had been, not really, and how much she’d done to get herself through school, and into law school at a great university. In some ways, that made a lot of sense, and explained why she seemed so afraid to take the bar. So far in her life, failing had never been an option.
I couldn’t relate to that type of struggle. My problems were different, more abstract, and in a way, they were dwarfed by what she’d been through. I succeeded young, and succeeded wildly beyond anything I ever imagined, and ever since then the pressure to keep performing was a steady drumbeat that marched me through my days. There was no rest: it was work, work, work, make investors money, always improve, always grow. Some days, I imagined walking away from it all.
Fantasy, of course. I liked the life too much. I liked the struggle.
Back in Philadelphia, Millie sat in my office again at my table near the windows, reading through financial statements. I had her hunting for a business we might invest in when the time came, which wasn’t so far away. She was diligent, barely glanced in my direction, but the tension was driving me crazy.
I got up and walked to her. I hovered above her until she looked up, a little annoyed.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
I pulled up a chair and sat right next to her. “That’s not how you talk to your boss.”
She rolled her eyes. “What’s up, Rees?”
“You’ve been quiet lately,” I said. “Ever since we left L.A., you’ve been a little distant.”
She glanced away, and I knew it in that look—something had happened out there, and I didn’t know what.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Things are going okay, right? Alfie’s money’s good. Byron invested.”
“They’re a start,” I said, “but we’re nowhere near where we need to be. And I’m not talking abut the fund right now.”
“What do you want from me?” she asked, a sudden outburst. I studied her lips, her jaw, the way she wore her hair up, slightly messy, but still somehow professional and put together.
“You tell me,” I said, leaning closer.
“Lady Fluke told me something,” she said, meeting my gaze, and holding me there. I liked the defiance I saw, but I went still at Fluke’s name. I knew she’d said something—that was the turning point, when I left Millie alone with her. After that, Millie had been different, more reserved, a little like she was trying to keep a distance between us. Not that I minded, not really, but it bothered me. I thought things were going well.
“What did she say?” I asked, since that was what I was supposed to ask.
“She said not to fall in love with you.” She said the words like flames.
I sat back in my chair, surprised, and struggled not to show it. What the hell was Lady Fluke thinking, telling Millie something like that? Fluke had never gotten involved in my personal affairs before, and certainly never talked to one of my assistants like that. Maybe she saw something in Millie, or maybe she knew that my arrangement with her was a fraud—but either way, it was absurd. I felt a real stab of anger toward Fluke then, unlike anything before. She wasn’t the meddling type, and yet she’d tried to warn Millie away.
“I don’t understand,” I said finally, shaking my head. “Why would she do that?”
“I don’t know,” Millie said, but she sounded oddly relieved, like she’d been holding on to this for some time. “When you left, she came out and said it. You’re not the kind of man I should fall in love with.” Her eyebrows knitted down. “I don’t know what she was thinking. I mean, I don’t feel that way. It’s business between us.”