“Positive.”
“Does your friend know anything about how happy the shareholders and board of directors are with the leadership?”
“I’ll find out for you, Mr. Coleton,” Adrian said.
My father clapped him on the back, flashing a rare smile. “I think you and I are going to get along just fine, Adrian.”
33
Adrian
Things were moving along nicely with work. I probably should’ve been in the office even on the weekend, but I found myself making an excuse and asking Jordan if she’d cover the calls I needed to make.
I wanted to be with Jules.
On Saturday morning I woke her with an orgasm, then I had my driver come pick us up and take us half an hour to my favorite coffee and bagel shop. Jules was drowsy and cuddled on my lap for most of the drive there.
Afterwards, I let my driver have the day after he dropped us off at my garage. I took a simple, but comfortable SUV and drove us to a butterfly exhibit.
Jules was unbuckling her seatbelt once we arrived, and the morning sun was in her eyes. She had her blonde hair pulled back in two girlish braids and was wearing a thin orange dress with black shoes. “I didn’t take you for the type of guy to road trip for butterflies,” she said.
“I think you’ll like this place. It’s peaceful.”
The truth was I’d learned more about Jules and how horrible her childhood had been. Yes, if you’d asked me when I was a kid if I would want to trade places with the daughter of a billionaire who lived in huge mansions and had every material thing she could ever want, I would’ve done it in a heartbeat. But I knew that wasn’t the life for a kid. Kids needed parents who cared about them. Friends. Opportunities to play and explore.
Jules’ childhood was a veritable prison, and the more I learned, the more I wanted to show her the world she’d been missing out on. I wanted to see it fresh again through her eyes, and I loved how excited she was to experience new things.
Besides, I’d always had a fascination with butterflies. The idea of a creature that could transform itself into something categorically different was always intriguing to me. I couldn’t help thinking how Jules was like a cocoon for me. She was a place I could go to let loose of the ways I’d needed to be the past ten years. I could start to shed some of that coldness, but I had to be careful I didn’t let it all go before the job was done.
We walked through the early sections of the place, which were mostly displays of preserved butterflies held with their wings out by pins. The highlight was the greenhouse, which was a massive space enclosed by heat-trapping glass. It was filled with greenery. There were hardly any other people in the exhibit.
“This is beautiful,” Jules said.
“Yeah,” I agreed, giving her hand a squeeze. “If we sit down some of them will come land on us.”
We found a bench near a bridge that went over a little stream of water. Within minutes, we had dozens of different types of butterflies fluttering around and landing on our knees and hands. Jules broke into giggles when they tickled her with their legs and antennae.
We grabbed a below average meal of sandwiches on dry bread with fountain drinks at the exhibit, then headed for a water park where I planned for us to spend the rest of our day.
“What got into you, exactly?” Jules asked. We had stopped at a clothing store on the way to the park so we could pick up swimsuits. I hadn’t exactly planned out the day before we left, so we needed to stock up on a little sunscreen, too.
“You make me want to do all the things I never made time for,” I said. It wasn’t entirely a lie, anyway. She was my real motivation, but it was true that I’d been neglecting my own experiences for a very long time, too. I collected a pair of board shorts from a rack of clothing for my swimsuit.
“Why not wait until this Coleton stuff is finished?” She looked worried, and I could see all the uncertainty she’d been hiding well until that moment. “What if all this stuff with me distracts you and things don’t go well?”
“You do distract me,” I said. I walked across the aisle to the women’s section and held up a particularly skimpy swimsuit. “And I’d love for you to distract me by wearing this.”
She gave me a wry smile and snatched it out of my hands. “I’m serious, Adrian. It’s important to me that you finish what you started. I know how important it is to you, and I don’t want to be the reason you forget. Eventually, you’ll look back and wish you finished this. And what will you think of me then? I’ll be the reason you forgot. The reason things didn’t happen like you wanted.”