22. Adrian

Chapter 22

Adrian

M ichael's call had ripped me from the stressless bliss I'd been floating in for almost an entire day. Part of me wanted to be angry with him about it, but the other part, the part that had been significantly calm yet ignited in ways I hadn't been in years, could find a single morsel of understanding.

Until I pushed through the door to the private wing of offices and came face to face with Andrew.

Michael stood about ten feet behind him, his fingers rubbing at his temples as he leaned against the far wall of the meeting room. But Andrew, his ginger beard freshly trimmed and the lines in his forehead about half an inch deeper than yesterday, looked seconds from blowing his lid.

"What on earth is so important that you two have pulled me from my home on a fucking Saturday?" I asked, pulling at the slightly too snug collar of my shirt. Goddammit, I must have grabbed the one that was too small for me. That's what I got for rushing and spending five minutes with my tongue down Ava's throat. "I had to leave my goddamn date for this."

"Adrian," Michael started, but Andrew beat him to it.

"You're aware of the conference all day today and tomorrow upstate, correct?" Andrew asked. He stared me down with a level of irritation I'd never seen in him—and I'd seen him furious . He was practically shaking, each part of his body vibrating in his deep maroon suit. "Or were you not paying attention?"

"The Tomorrow's Vision one? Yes. Of course." There was a part of me that wanted to throw the name of it in his face, show him that despite his insistence, I was fully invested and present here. "What about it?"

"It's a disaster," Michael mumbled.

A rock dropped in my stomach.

"We did what we could without getting you involved. But it's gotten to the point where we need to shut it down, now , and you have executive power," he added.

"What the fuck does that mean?" I asked.

Andrew shifted one foot to his left, stepping between me and Michael and blocking my view. "It means that shit wasn't checked out," he said. "It means that somehow, we double booked every ticket, resulting in twice the amount of people and far exceeding safety numbers. It means that security wasn't vetted, and only a quarter of the necessary detail that we needed arrived. It means that we had to shut down ticket scanning because almost every single one was coming back invalid, so it's a free-for-all all, and it's filling up with random passersby."

Dear fucking God.

"How the hell did this happen? Why didn't you contact me sooner?"

" That one," Andrew started, jutting a thumb back at Michael, "refused to bother you. But we've run out of food, we've run out of drinks, and the hotel is insisting we shut it down before both they and we get a hefty fine, or worse, insurance claims."

I opened my mouth to speak, but Andrew cut me off.

"This ship is not fucking tight enough," he continued, spittle flying in the fluorescent lighting. "Do you understand what this will do, Adrian? We have to shut it down. We have to refund everyone. We have to eat the cost of this, both in revenue and reputation . Cedarwood will be furious. We could lose them as a client over this. We could lose multiple clients over this."

My fingers twitched inwards, my hands curling into fists. The temptation to hit him square across the jaw crept up on me, starting low and small and increasing to a high-pitched ringing in my ears by the time he'd finished speaking. "You think I don't know that?" I seethed. "Respectfully, Andrew, I am not the one in charge of final checks."

Michael pushed off the wall behind Andrew, his jaw steeled and his gaze averted. "I should have…"

I shook my head. "You know damn well that isn't your responsibility either."

"You should have been there to oversee it," Andrew snapped, his gaze locked on me. "This is your company. Take the fucking responsibility. Handle this."

Silence, or as much of that as one can get on the forty-fourth floor in downtown Manhattan, settled in around us. It nearly crackled with charge.

None of us wanted to be the one to make that call. None of us wanted to be the reason the conference shut down. None of us wanted to be on the receiving end of the damages, the consequences, the wrath that this would bring.

It would be corporate suicide.

Andrew would never. He was too proud, too pompous, too up-on-his-high-horse to ever come down. And Michael…Michael was my best friend. The second he opened his mouth again, I knew what he was doing. And I couldn't let it happen.

"Shut it down," I said. "Shut it all down. Now. "

————

There wasn't a chance in hell that David Riley wouldn't find out about this in the next hour, and considering his company was one of the few showcasing at the conference I'd just had to obliterate. I figured it would be better coming from me.

Nervously, I fidgeted with the cuff of my sweater as I sat in the back of my car. I didn't love turning up at David's uninvited, even if he was one of my closest friends. But the anxiety of what I'd just done was eating away at me, and it was mixing in a horribly nauseating cocktail with the knowledge that Ava would be there, and I'd have to keep my hands and thoughts to myself.

And I'd have to look David in the fucking eye after everything I'd done to his daughter. Somehow that seemed harder than doing the same thing weeks ago when I'd only slept with her once and everything else was simply a cacophony of debaucherous, debased thoughts that filled my head—now I had to speak to him with her a foot away, close enough to reach out and grab and beg for her to drop to her goddamn knees again. I could do it. It just wouldn't be easy.

But none of this was easy, not now.