I laced my Chucks beneath a gown, feeling like a knock-off Cinderella. The same floor-length dress I wore at the masquerade, because I refused to make another for a soft opening, which was really just an excuse to throw a party.
Ida Marie popped her head into the office. “We need an extra set of hands down there. Mr. Prescott never attends the soft openings, and no one can find Delilah, so we’re short some mouths to talk to the press.”
Talking to the press appealed to me as much as ingesting a banana stolen from a porn set. I considered forgoing the event entirely. Nash wouldn’t care.
Nash.
Every time I tried to push him out of my mind, he popped back in. If I was a storm, he was hail, and he came down harder, faster, and did more damage.
Ceiling: Funny. That’s how I feel about you.
“I’ll be there in a sec,” I promised, adjusting the slit of my dress.
She rifled through Cayden’s drawer and handed me a safety pin. “Hannah downed two cocktails. She’s tipsy and getting loose-lipped. You can take her spot in front of the centerpiece. Have you seen it yet?”
“No.” I latched the ripped seam together with the pin, hiding it beneath the fabric. “Why is Hannah pissed?”
“You didn’t hear? Chantilly has been ranting all morning. Prescott Hotels pulled out of the Singapore deal.”
“What?!” I squeezed the pin too hard. It pricked my thumb and drew a bead of blood, but I ignored it.
“Delilah sent Chantilly a memo, informing her that Nash would leave for Singapore for two months. Then, all of a sudden, they both returned from Singapore, and Delilah told Chantilly they’re no longer building a hotel there.”
I swallowed, reading between the lines. Two months gone? Did Nash give up Singapore for me? The timeline made sense if you excluded the part where I’d seen Delilah a day before Nash. He arrived with that note, left me reeling, and mentioned shit was about to go down.
Straightening, I marched to the elevator, hoping to catch Nash in the lobby. I’d checked the penthouse earlier, but he’d already left. I didn’t want this conversation to happen through the phone either.
Ida Marie followed me. “You should see the centerpiece. Not even that. You should read the placard. It’s insane. The press has been all over it. Technically, we probably don’t need to talk to them. They’re hungry to learn more about the centerpiece, which none of us know anything about.”
I tuned her out the second my feet hit the lobby, careening to a halt. Shock bloomed from my toes to my head.
The centerpiece.
A waterfall stretched the seven-story height. Shards of metal cascaded down from the ceiling. When I peered closer, I noticed the pieces had been welded from car parts, including his old Honda and the used junker I’d sold Virginia’s Birkin to buy. She had Hank drive it to the junkyard. Nash must have kept it.
Rising from the water, the shape of a tiger emerged. Almost like a bird with raised arms, painted the same color of the starless sky. It stood on a bed of geode crystals. The rock shells had been cracked open. Thousands of crystals spilled out in blue and gray waves of all sizes.
The sight wrecked me.
“Excuse me, ma’am.” A reporter shoved her way up to me, regarding my name tag. “Do you work here? Do you know who the Little Tiger is? Who is she to Mr. Prescott?”
I struggled to avert my eyes from the statue. “I’m sorry?”
“From the placard.”
That caught my attention. It stood at the base of the centerpiece, mounted to the floor. A monument of its own. I could barely see it through the crowd.
Giving the reporter my back, I asked Ida Marie, “When was the placard placed?”
“Umm…” She cocked her head and tapped her lip. “The day we went to pick up the couches for the lobby.”
Before our fight. Before Virginia’s wedding. Before that night in the pool. Before everything.
I didn’t fully understand why it mattered, but it did. Maybe because I knew it wasn’t an apology. Whatever he’d etched onto the placard would be a revelation before the apology was ever needed.
Shoving my way through the masses, I stood in front of the placard, words engraved into thick stone.
“Moira”
by artist Anders Bentley
Dear Little Tiger,
You wear black and white, but you are a rainbow.
It’s the first thing I noticed about you after I really noticed you. The realizations spiraled from there. I noticed all your fucking minutiae (I bet that word gets you wet), without ever realizing it.
Your damn pride cripples you, but it also proves you’re the most determined person I’ve ever met. You are somehow both fire and the water that extinguishes it. You fixate on words, but your actions are what gut me.
I want to do all the things I’ve never done with you—and all the things I’ve already done again, because fuck, I know they’d be better with you.
When everyone else saw the angry kid with the busted lip and the bruised knuckles, you simply watched me. When my employees saw crass behavior, you saw my humor and returned it. When I didn’t see myself, you still did.
I hope you’re looking at the centerpiece. I hope you’re staring at the geodes, the cascading waterfall, and the tiger. I hope you’re overwhelmed by it. I hope it fucking shatters a piece of you when you stare at it. I don’t hope you want to fuck the shit out of it, but for the sake of this analogy, let’s say I do.
Because that’s what it’s like for me when I stare at you.
In case it’s not blatantly obvious by now, I fucking love you.
NASH/BEN/YOURS
Nash’s version of a love note.
Littered with profanities, yet still charming.
And on display for photographers, press, and guests to fawn over.
All of North Carolina, who idolized him, would see this.
Ceiling: He didn’t break your heart. He cracked it open. Remember?
“Like a geode,” I whispered, shaken by the realization. “Geodes need to shatter for their beauty to be seen.”
Around me, the room shifted. Nash appeared near the alcove of elevators, flanked by Brandon Vu, Delilah, and a few more people. Shock slowed my breathing before panic took over and turned my heartbeats into a pop song.
Blood coated Nash’s fist and smeared beneath Brandon’s nose. They’d been in a fight, and now he was being led outside, accompanied by his lawyer and what was probably more agents.
Oh, Nash.
What have you done?
Nash
I WAS A SNITCH.
A rat.
Officially, no better than Rosco.
But sending Virginia, Eric Cartwright, and Sir Balty to prison fucking fueled me. Biting back a smug smile, I signed the contract where Francine, Chantilly’s lawyer friend, told me to. No jail time. Not even the full five-million-dollar fine.
Truthfully, I’d rather be up here, making deals with the S.E.C., than down there.
Soft openings.
I hated them. I’d avoided every one for the past four years. They dowsed me with memories I refused to remember. Each body-slamming into me harder than the next.
“Nash? Your dad had a heart attack. He fell off the building at the construction site. They called the ambulance. You don’t look so well. I can drive you there.”
“Are you the family? Mr. Prescott died before he arrived. I’m so sorry for your loss. We have a grieving room to your left and a chapel down the hall. Please, feel free to use either. If one of you can identify the body…”
“I’m going to remove this sheet, and it will be a shocking sight. All you have to do is nod your head yes or no. Is this Hank Prescott?”
The day Dad died, I’d attended a soft opening for Felton Hotels near Eastridge. I shadowed their C.E.O., knowing I’d buy the hotel and eventually merge it into the Prescott Hotels empire.
The day had begun with a round of drinks and celebrations and ended with me staring at my father’s dead body, because no way in hell would I put Reed or Ma through that.
I hadn’t been to a soft opening since.
“We have to drive you out to the office to write a statement and answer some questions.” Brandon slid his seat back and nodded to one of his two coworkers. “It will probably take the rest of the day. I know you have a party going on. Is there a rear entrance?”
“Not yet accessible. Doesn’t matter.” My head jerked to the other two agents. “Tell Thing One and Thing Two to take off the windbreakers.” I stood after Brandon, the picture of serenity. “Hey, Brandon?”
He turned back to me.
I swung. Once. But it was enough. Blood spilled from his nose, dripped to his white button-down, and splattered onto the fresh carpet. Delilah didn’t react. To her credit, neither did Francine. One agent moved for me, but Brandon held up a hand.
“It’s fine,” he spit out and clutched his upper cartilage. “I deserved it.”
Damn straight.
It was one thing to bother me. An entirely different one to harass Emery.
I also realized he’d only said that because an assault charge would fuck up my credibility as a key witness and, thereby, ruin his career-making case.
Brandon rubbed at the blood with his hand, smearing it. I didn’t offer to show him to the restroom or bother to apologize. Frankly, I’d do it again, but jail time didn’t appeal to me. Plus, I needed to see my girl.
I handed the documents to Brandon, who shot me a glare before shoving them into his briefcase. We left for the elevators together. He led me through the lobby with blood on his face. To an outsider, it looked like a weird group of people walking.
Not even a perp walk.
I wore no cuffs. They wore nothing to identify themselves as agents. The confidentiality clause Francine had placed came into effect as soon as I’d signed the document. Delilah and Francine flanked me with Brandon and his merry band of agents before and behind me.
The colossal centerpiece had drawn a crowd. Within it, I spotted Emery. She stared at me with panicked eyes. Frozen. My fists clenched and unclenched. Dried blood cracked all over them.
I ran my fingers through my hair. Once.
We held eye contact until Brandon flung the door open. A row of black SUVs lined the front of the hotel. We headed to the one in the middle. He clutched the handle at the same time Emery sprinted out.
“Wait!”
Panic engulfed her face. She chased after us, giving me less than a second to react before she jumped on me and kissed me hard. The slit on her dress tore. I covered it with my palm, trying not to laugh at how Emery this situation was.
(Of course, she was a verb, adjective, and noun.)
Still clinging to me, Emery faced Brandon. “Please, just give us five minutes.”
Why the fuck was she asking him?
He offered her a shrug and stepped to the side with his agents, Delilah, and Francine. I ignored the crowd and focused on Emery. She loved words so much, but it looked like she had none for me.
“I read your placard,” she finally whispered, threading her fingers together behind my neck. “You say I fixate on words, and you’re right. Yet, I’m here, wondering why I can’t put my feelings into words, thinking that love is too inadequate a description, and I realized it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because I’m not alone. I don’t need words to keep me company. Falling in love with you is like diving blindly into a book, not knowing it’s destined to be my favorite. Whatever’s more than love, I feel it for you. I am only ever going to be in love with you.”
I popped a brow up, tightening my grip on her. “You more than love me.”
“Yes. I don’t care if you have,” she glanced at Brandon and lowered her voice, “you-know-what that can exonerate Dad, and you didn’t tell me. Maybe it’s fucked up, but I don’t care about anything but us. I’m sorry I never said this sooner. I love you. I’ll wait for you. However long it takes.”
“However long what takes?” The puzzle pieces clicked together. I set her down, so she wouldn’t fall with my laughter. Only she could make me crack up on the same day I signed a plea bargain. “I’m not going to jail, Little Tiger. I’m a witness. I made a deal.”
Brandon piped in. “Confidentially.”
“Brandon, seek help for your obsession with hearing your own voice.” I angled us away, shielding her with my body. “I made a deal with the S.E.C. I’ll serve as a witness against Balthazar, Eric, and Virginia. Your dad will be absolved. I’m not going to jail. I promise.”
The girl with all the words—speechless again. My ego could get used to this.
I tugged at her dress, using it to reel her to me. “Come back to me?”
“Always.”
