The compliment stroked me like nothing else in the world could. “I suppose it’s about time,” I said.
“I’d say.”
“So?” I said. “Are you going to tell me about this foundation we’ve started?”
“Yes.” She checked her watch and stood up. “But I have to go into the city for a meeting. I’ll have Justin send over the details. Jim signed the paperwork before he died. You can step in as executive director as soon as you’re ready.”
“Executive director?” I said, stunned.
“Why not?”
“Because I have zero experience.”
“You worked for Jim’s foundation.” She shrugged.
“Yeah, as like a glorified fundraiser.”
“That’s not true,” Caroline said. “You had big plans.”
“Caroline,” I said and shook my head. They were hardly big plans. It was an idea that with enough money we could solve small problems. Make big changes in small ways. Micro-loans for single mothers. Breakfast programs for smaller school districts. Rural bus route improvements. Fidget toys for diagnostic kindergartens. Classroom wish lists for public school teachers. The kinds of programs that weren’t sexy and didn’t make the news, but that would really matter.
“They were creative, and you are capable. I’ll be right behind you making sure nothing goes wrong. But I have total faith in you.”
Total faith. Had anyone ever had total faith in me? HadIever had total faith in me?
I got to my feet. “Monday?” I asked.
“Do you feel like you’re ready to go to work?”
“Past ready. But—” I was really feeling myself here.
“You want to negotiate salary?”
“No.” I didn’t need money. I had more money than I knew what to do with. “But you’re not lying to me anymore, Caroline. I’m not a pawn you can push around to get what you want. I owe you so much, but I don’t owe you my pride anymore.”
She looked at me for a long time, completely unreadable. And then she smiled, not the soft fuzzy one I usually got, but the one she saved for her bloodthirsty children.
“What’s gotten into you?” she asked.
“I don’t actually know,” I said. But Ronan was the answer. Ronan and burning my clothes.
“Well, I like it. When you’re ready, call me.”
On the tip of my tongue was a question about Ronan, about who he really was and why she trusted him, but she was all but pushing me out the door. And I didn’t know how to ask about Ronan without giving everything away. Every conflicted feeling I was wrestling with when it came to him.
Justthinkinghis name made me blush.
There were moments last night when I hated him as much as I ever hated Jim. But I never wanted a man the way I wanted Ronan.
No man had ever made me so curious. Or reckless.
And the way he seemed to know the power of asking for what I wanted? What was I supposed to do with that kind of man?
“The foundation’s offices are in the Halcyon building. When you’re ready, we will get you all set up.”
I wondered briefly why the offices weren’t in the brownstone, but in the end it didn’t matter. My future was happening.
There was a memory, dim and fragmented, of my two years at college. How I’d ridden my bike around Union, feeling that excited... possibility. This feeling in my chest didn’t feel like that, but I wasn’t a girl anymore.