“Well, it’s been…interesting,” Elena chose her words carefully, “but things have been okay so far. I think this will be good for me.”
“You definitely needed a change of pace, Elena. You were either working or sleeping, and very little in between. Seattle kept you busy, but it also made sure you didn’t have a social life.”
“I didn’t think so…”
“Come on, you must have noticed. We used to talk all the time on our lunch breaks, and even with your hours enabling you to have plenty of time off, you ended up doing more and more work. If you had been given monetary bonuses, then it wouldn’t be so bad, but free tickets? That’s okay every now and then, but not every time. You deserved to be treated better.”
Elena hadn’t thought about it like that. She’d thought she was getting a good deal, seeing as the tickets could get very expensive. But Fleur was right; she deserved better than that. And Jason was paying her double the salary she’d had in Seattle, which could have been her salary anyway if the teams she helped out paid bonuses for her.
According to Liam, when he wasn’t complaining about the steps Elena was putting him through, Wenstown was quite a cheap place to live for the most part. There was a strong sense of community, and if you could endear the locals, you would be well-loved. Elena hoped that was the case; she had seen what people had done to Jason, and all he had done was buy a team.
She had seen people react in bizarre ways to that before, but never in this way. It was like nobody wanted their team to succeed, and they wanted to drive Jason out. That wasn’t fair on him, and Elena had seen the pain in his eyes when he saw the state of his car.
Whoever was doing this to him was going too far.
“Elena? Are you still there?”
“What? Oh!” Elena shook herself. “Sorry, Fleur. I got distracted.”
“That’s fine. As long as you’re okay. You’re sounding okay, actually.”
“Am I?”
“Definitely.” Fleur’s voice was warm. “You sound better already. Less stressed.”
Elena grunted. “I don’t know about that.”
“I do. While I don’t want to stress you out more, have you heard from Mom?”
“No, I haven’t.”
Their mother didn’t yet know that Elena had moved to another state. If she had, she would have tried to get Elena to stay. Given that things were strained between them, Elena thought it was a good idea to keep each other at arm’s length. And the arm was very long.
Also, ensuring that her mother didn’t have her address did make Elena feel a little safer. At least she wouldn’t be able to turn up on her doorstep. Jessica was a city girl, and she made it very clear when she wasn’t in city limits. Elena didn’t want to let her loose on her new neighbors.
She loved her mother, but she was downright exhausting.
“I was just checking. I thought you might have blocked her number again.”
“Not at the moment. I completely forgot after what she did the other day.”
“What did she do?”
Before Elena could respond, she heard a beeping in her ear. Another call was coming through. She checked her phone and saw her mother’s name flashing up. Sighing, she went back to Fleur.
“Speak of the devil. Can I get back to you? I need to have a word with her.”
“Sure thing. Call me back quickly if you can. I don’t have long with my lunch break.”
“I promise I’ll make it short.”
Elena didn’t want to spend too much time talking to her mother, especially after she attempted to set another strange man on her daughter. Dale might have been a nice guy, but Elena wasn’t going to entertain it. If she was honest, she had felt a little guilty checking out a guy’s picture when she was sitting across from Jason.
Which was just odd, seeing as they weren’t anything except boss and employee. Elena had no idea why she felt guilty over it. The flight must have fried her brain while she was in the air.
Ending the call with her sister, Elena answered her mother’s call.
“Hey, Mom.”