“She will because she knows I’m blackmailing you.” My hand is playing out well enough; I decide to up the ante. “I blackmailed her with it to begin with. It’s how I got her to spend more time with me. If she didn’t, I would send the other Charity packet I have to Tyler—the one where you fucked that bartender the night before your wedding. There’s a flash drive and everything. Anyway, she was perfectly willing to cover your ass and sacrifice her own to save your marriage. I told her I would use that to keep you from sniffing around things that could get you killed.”
“Are you threatening me?” she asks lowly.
“Not with murder, no. I won’t kill you, but my friends might if you keep looking into things you shouldn’t.”
Pissed off, she crosses her arms. “So, what? I’m just supposed to sit back and—”
“And be happy for your friend? Yes. I know there’s some part of you that likes controlling her. I understand that. But that’s not your job anymore. There’s another condition.” I nod at the martini on the table. Even amid her friend’s crisis, she had to order a drink. “I think you have a drinking problem. I think perhaps that’s why you keep accidentally fucking men you really shouldn’t.”
“Wow,” she says, shaking her head, but avoiding my gaze.
“The truth hurts sometimes. Hallie’s with me now and I’m certainly not going to fuck you, so you no longer pose a threat to her happiness in that regard.”
“I didn’t… It wasn’t like that. I’m not a horrible friend, it’s not like I sought to seduce her fucking boyfriend, it just….” She growls with aggravation, pushing her fingers through her hair. “It just fucking happened, okay? Same with the bartender. Sometimes I drink a little too much and I do really fucking stupid shit, but don’t say it like I set out to hurt her because I would never do that.”
“I know. I believe you,” I tell her. “If I didn’t, you’d be gone. But it is a problem, and it’s no longer just affecting your life, it has touched mine. Now it has to be fixed, or you have to be phased out.”
She sighs heavily and rakes her fingers through her hair again. “So, what? You want me to go to rehab or something?”
“If you think you need that much intervention. I would be happy with meetings or counseling as long as you apply yourself and there’s improvement. I don’t have a set condition here, just whatever works. We’ll help you as much as you need it.” I wave over the server because I’m about done here. “Box this up for me, would you?”
The waitress nods and grabs the untouched plate off the table.
I look across the table at Charity as she walks away. “So, do we have a deal? You get help and play nice, I let you stick around?”
“It doesn’t sound like I have a lot of room to bargain, does it?” she asks coldly.
“No, it doesn’t.” I’m much more cheerful. I’m ready to be done with all this so I can go home to my fiancée. “I know that people seldom change, so understand that while I’m giving you this chance to do better, if you start bringing Hallie down in any way, I will have to cut you out of her life.”
She smiles bitterly. “And if you bring her down? Do I get to do the same?”
“I won’t bring Hallie down. I’m only interested in lifting her up.”
The waitress brings back a doggie bag for me. “Thank you,” I tell her. She nods and starts to leave. Before she does, I say, “Hold on.” I grab Charity’s drink and hand it to the waitress. “She’s finished with this. We’ll take the bill.”
___
When the elevator doors open on my gallery, all is right in the world.
Well, almost. It occurs to me as I look at the works of world-renowned artists hanging in my personal gallery, I have an artist living under my roof and I don’t have any of her work displayed in our home. I’ll have to remedy that soon.
I know Hallie is under my roof, but given all that has happened, there’s a niggle of worry about it at the back of my mind. A doubt that whispers maybe she was only biding her time until she knew I would undoubtedly be busy, and she’s run for the hills.
She’s not in the living room or at her desk dreaming up lovelier worlds for children to get lost in. Tension gathers in my shoulders, but I roll it out.
She’s in bed, that’s all.
Still, I walk a bit faster, having to fight the urge to go to my office instead and check the tracker on her phone—but that wouldn’t work anyway, because I have the damn thing locked up in my desk.