ChapterFive
Piper
The elevator ride down to the garage is silent yet is loud with the resonating echoes of my embarrassment. Brienne remains stoic, standing next to me, her arms loose at her sides. She’s a formidable woman. Her uniform of black pants and black button up makes her look like a ninja. A tall, blond, middle-aged ninja.
If only I hadn’t told Oliver I wanted him.
If only I hadn’t stood there, eavesdropping on his conversation.
If only I could crawl under a rock and live there for the rest of eternity.
We exit the elevator at the garage level, and she opens the back door of a town car idling nearby.
“Thank you for taking me home.”
She heads toward the garage exit. The ride is smooth as silk.
“It’s my job. I’m glad to do it.” Her eyes crinkle in the rearview mirror.
Curiosity pricks at me. While I’m under contract to create at least four pieces for Oliver’s new gallery, he’s not my boss. I would consider him like anyone else who’s commissioned me to make sculptures, not really an employer. He’s also sort of a family friend since Archer grew up with him. Archer isn’t technically family yet, but I would be surprised if he doesn’t propose to Finley by the end of the year. I can’t imagine what it would be like to work for Oliver day in and day out.
“How long have you worked for Mr. Nichols?” I ask.
She pulls out of the garage and onto Fifty-Seventh Street. “Eight years. Best job I’ve ever had.”
“You sound like you mean that.”
“You sound surprised.”
She turns down Seventh, and it takes a full city block of bumper-to-bumper traffic for me to come up with a response. I want her to tell me more about Oliver without being too obvious that I’m digging. “Oliver strikes me as someone who would be an exacting employer.”
“He is. He doesn’t talk much except to give orders, but he’s fair, and he provides more than adequate compensation.”
The dollar is king. That makes sense, I suppose.
The car slows down as we make our way through Times Square. I gaze out the window at the lights and the bustle of the city. The vitality of New York is so different from the energy in LA. The beaches and hills of LA are beautiful, but perception is everything. You can’t go on a hike without running into a dozen or so influencers and social-media darlings posing for photos. New York is less pretentious. It moves faster. It’s more condensed, as if the energy of all the people living so closely together has been bottled up and is ready to burst at any moment.
We crawl down another block before Brienne speaks again. “Last year, my dad had a stroke.”
I blink, surprised at the unexpected topic. “I’m so sorry.”
“He’s fine now, but he spent some time in the hospital, and he had to go through weeks of physical therapy before they would let him go home. He was a fall risk.”
“I’m glad he recovered.”
Traffic creeps forward at a snail’s pace. The subway would have been faster, but at least I don’t have to worry about crowded trains or getting lost.
“Oliver paid for all of it. Everything.”
My mouth pops open.
She glances at me in the rearview mirror. “He covered all of my dad’s medical expenses, continued to pay my salary when I had to leave unexpectedly, and had a nurse check on my dad every day when I came back to work.” She shrugs. “I didn’t ask—he just did it. Maybe it was high-handed of him, but I couldn’t complain. He made a terrible situation manageable. I don’t know any other employer who would bother. Don’t get me wrong—he has high expectations, but if you do your job, he’s loyal, and he takes care of all of us. You know most of his staff live in the building?”
“No. I didn’t know that.”
“Two floors of the building are for staff apartments. Nice ones. He furnishes them, too, and definitely doesn’t charge even a fraction of what a place by Central Park should be."
I knew he owned the building. I knew he lived on the top floor. His offices are on the floor under that. The second and third floor must be the staff accommodations. The first floor is the garage, where a bunch of vehicles are parked, along with a security office. I thought all the cars were his, but some must belong to his staff.