“Who?”
“Cecily’s mother, darling.”
The world had gone absolutely mad. But Reed did as she ordered.
“Jules?”
“Hello, Dinah,” said Mrs. Dixon.
“Hey Aunt D!” Blair called.
Aunt? This woman was related to Cecily?
“Dinah,” Mr. Dixon said.
“Oh wonderful, the gang’s all here,” Dinah said. “I assume Cecily hasn’t called.”
“She hasn’t,” Mrs. Dixon said.
“Never does when she’s licking her wounds. She’s fine. Well, not fine, but safe.”
Everybody looked at Reed. He felt like an idiot sitting here with his phone on speaker and most of Cecily’s family staring him down. “Look, Ms. McClure—”
“Dinah.”
“Dinah, I don’t know what Cecily told you—”
“Plenty.” There was a wealth of things unsaid in her tone.
No doubt. “She has everything wrong. I’d never, ever hurt her deliberately, and if she’d just talk to me, give me a chance to explain, I can clear all of this up.”
“I suspected there was more to the story than she knew. She was far less inclined to hear it than I. Hence the reconnaissance portion of my mission. So, while your lovely shop keeper here is handing me those books—my publisher has overnighted more, by the way—you tell us your side of things. If, by the end, I’m satisfied that you deserve her instead of to be castrated without anesthesia, we’ll talk about what I can do to help you fix this.” Her pleasant tone held an underlying message that said I take no shit so don’t lie to me.
He’d come prepared to tell Cecily everything. To grovel, as necessary. Looking around at all the expectant faces, Reed realized these were the gatekeepers, and if he stood a chance in hell of getting to talk to her again, he’d have to start with all of them.
He took a breath. “It all started because I hate confrontation…”
Chapter 11
Why hasn’t Dinah contacted me?
The same question had been circling through Cecily’s mind for hours. The sleepless night she’d had in the wake of the book signing was written beneath her eyes. It’d taken all of her considerable skill with cosmetics to mask the exhaustion and mime bright-eyed enthusiasm for her interview at Verdant.
Unfortunately, her distractability wasn’t as easy a thing to cover up. She’d gone through the entire tour in a daze. The only thing she’d successfully absorbed was that Verdant was a competitive workplace that rewarded innovation. That and they had nap rooms. Like Google. It’d taken every shred of self-control she possessed not to beg for the opportunity to crawl into one before facing the panel interview with all five partners. Instead, she’d ducked into the restroom to check her phone one last time.
Still nothing.
What did Dinah’s silence mean? That there was more to the story? That Dinah was on the fence? Or that the news was bad and she didn’t want to deliver it before Cecily’s interview?
Put me out of my misery already!
But Dinah’s telepathy was clearly on the fritz because no answer was forthcoming by the time Cecily had to join the partners in the conference room. She bought herself a little more time to pull herself together by accepting the offer of coffee. But all too soon, she took her seat at the head of a conference table overlooking the vast, glassed-in atrium at Verdant, surrounded by all five partners of the firm.
“Tell us about your time at Helios,” Nina Winslow invited.
Easy peasy.
“It’s one of the most coveted internships in Chicago. The one all the first year grad students hear about almost from day one. Once I got there and began working under Norah Burke, I understood why.” Cecily told them about the various accounts she’d worked on, the contributions she’d made to the team. She waited for the fizz of accomplishment, the rush she’d felt working on those projects, but the whole thing felt like a recitation of someone else’s life. Coming back to corporate marketing was going to be pretty jarring after what she’d been doing in Wishful.