Chapter 13

The only warningI get that Trinity has shown up is a frantic message from Kendra.

Hey, boss. There's someone here who says she needs to see you, but she doesn't have an appointment.

Do you want me to send her away?

The message is immediately followed by the sound of Kendra ordering someone to stop.

I don't have a chance to respond to the first message before Trinity has thrown open the office door and stormed in. Kendra and Trinity both talk at the same time.

"I'm so sorry. She just barged in," Kendra says.

"You need to explain what's going on. Right now." Trinity has her hands propped on her hips as she glares down at me.

I look to Kendra and say, "It's fine. I have time to meet with Ms. Lewis."

Kendra glares at Trinity, before giving a huff of indignation and walking out.

Trinity is dressed all in black today, black miniskirt, black tights, black on black t-shirt with Darth Vadar's helmet, and of course, the omnipresent Doc Martens. Her mood clearly matches her color scheme.

If teenage me had submitted a list of dream-girl attributes to a Genie, she would have popped into existence looking like this. Adorable and charming in her anger and indignation.

Pretty sure I just lost my feminist ally card for even thinking that.

I gesture toward the chair. "Have a seat."

She doesn't sit. "I want answers."

"About what?" I can make a guess, but there's a lot I can't legally talk about. And possibly even more that I'll avoid just because I can.

Trinity steps closer, her glare narrowing. "So you're going to play dumb?"

"Why don't you ask whatever questions you have and I'll answer what I can."

"I signed your stupid NDA. Shouldn't you be able to talk to me now?"

"The NDA allows Savannah to talk to you and insures you won't share what she tells you with a third party."

"What third party? You? So what, I'm never supposed to talk to you again? Is that it?" Her voice rises with her emotions.

She sounds distressed by the thought of us never speaking again. Which I suppose is good sign, since I feel like I'd rather gut myself than never talk to her again. I know I don't get to have her. I know I've made the entire situation unfuckingbelievably complicated. I know she probably doesn't want to talk to me. Despite all that, the idea of not ever talking to her again is like a knife to the gut.

Not that I can admit that out loud. Instead, I say, "Specifically the NDA is meant to prevent you from discussing Ian with a third party from the media. But it would also apply to anyone you might make casual conversation with. Someone who might in turn share what you told them to the media."

"Why on earth would I want to talk to someone in the media about Ian?"

I can't decide if it's cute that she doesn't understand why Ian needs this kind of protection. Either it's cute or naive or it's just a sign of how fucked up my own life is.

"For the money. Obviously."

"For the … Is that what you think of me? That I'd try to sell some story about your boss to the media? Is that why you ghosted me?"

"I didn't ghost you," I try to remind her. When I walked out of my apartment that Sunday morning, the ball was in her court. "I left you a note."

"Oh, sure." She finally sits down. Sprawling into the chair with the same, petulant annoyance I'm used to from her. She crosses her arms over her chest and huffs. She's adorable, even when she's glaring at me like she wants to vivisect me. "Because you had a ‘work' emergency."

"I left you my number." I state it like the fact it is, doing my lawyerly best to remove my emotional reaction from the statement. My unrealistic hopes. "I expected you to text me."

"Right. So you could pay for an Uber and you wouldn't have to risk running into me later when your ‘work emergency' was over."

"Stop putting the word work in air quotes."

"Why?"

"Because it was a real work emergency. Not something I made up to avoid you."

"Sure. Because that's believable." She arches an eyebrow. "So, if it was a real emergency, tell me about it."

Yeah, how exactly am I supposed to answer that? Does she really think I made up the work emergency? That it was just a line I used to sneak out? No wonder she's so fucking pissed.

Of course, that doesn't change anything. "I can't discuss my clients with you."

"Yeah. That's what I thought."

"I have a fiduciary obligation to?—"

"You're an infuriating man to have a fight with."

"Yes, I'm aware."

"So, what? Ian is your boss?"

"Again, I can't?—"

"He must be your boss. Otherwise, why would the NDA have come from you?"

"Obviously, you're free to draw your own conclusions."

Just like obviously, it's not the answer I wish I could give her. I wish I could tell her everything.

That I could map out for her every interaction we've had over the past six months and how each of them affected me. How I made one questionable mistake after another, so that now our lives are weirdly intertwined and my loyalties are twisted into a knot. But I can't tell her all that. Not just because of my fiduciary obligation to my client, but because I have no idea how she'd respond.

"But you're the one who hired Savannah?"

"Yes."

"Why did you hire her?"

"Has she talked to you about her job?"

"Yes. And, no she hasn't violated her NDA or anything."

"I wasn't suggesting she had." It's more that I'm trying to get Trinity to make guesses on her own, though, honestly I'm not sure what the point would be.

As far as I can tell, Ian has it bad for Savannah. And I have no idea if Savannah returns that interest or not. And it's not my business either way. My only concern is protecting Ian. And I don't know how I can do that and come clean with Trinity.

"I know all the things that she could tell me when she was first hired. That she needed to live on location and that she couldn't talk about her boss. Since you had me sign my NDA, I know who her boss is. That's it."

"Well there you go. Now you know why she was hired. Ian needed someone on site to cook for him."

Trinity leans forward abruptly. Propping her elbows on her knees and studying me with a disconcerting focus. Like she's trying to peel back all the layers of my lawyer speak to reveal the meaning underneath. I've never felt more vulnerable. I want to pour out my soul to this woman. To share every secret I've ever had.

Which just proves how dangerous she is to me and all the reasons I need her to walk away. I have no idea if I'll ever be strong enough to walk away myself.

"But that doesn't answer my question," she says softly, pleadingly. "Why hire her? Why Savannah? Out of all the private chefs in Austin, why hire my sister?"

"You don't think she's qualified?" I shoot back, because the real answer would terrify her. God knows, it terrifies me.

"Obviously, my sister is qualified. If anything she's overqualified. She ran the kitchen at one of the most popular restaurants in Austin. And she's an amazing chef."

"Then I don't see what the problem is. Your sister was hired to do a job that she is qualified to do and she's going to be well paid for it."

"Don't be an idiot. My problem isn't how much she's being paid." She drops her fingers to her knee and starts drumming them like she's puzzling through something. "It's a question of timeline."

"In what way?"

"I can read a calendar. You and I got stuck in the elevator in early May. I complained to you about how my sister is in massive debt and her life is ruined because lawyers suck and two weeks later, she gets hired by you to work as a professional chef for an exorbitant amount of money, and if she lasts a year, she'll get a huge bonus. All of her financial problems disappear." She kisses the tips of her fingers and blows. "Just like that."

I don't say anything in response. She continues to drum her fingers against her knee, glaring me down like she thinks she's going to break me. When she doesn't, she throws up her hands in frustration. "So, that's it? You're not gonna say anything else? You have no explanation for how you met and hired my sister?"

"Is it so hard to believe that I heard about your sister and just wanted to right a wrong? Her lawyer was borderline incompetent. He should have been disbarred. Instead, I found a way to improve her prospects."

She blinks, clearly waiting for me to say more. Her lips part as she sucks in air through them before swallowing.

"And that's it? That's all it was for you? An act of charity?"

"No. I wouldn't call it that." Charity doesn't even begin to describe the need I felt to do something, anything, to help Trinity after that elevator ride.

Not that it started in the elevator ride. It started the moment we met.

Before that maybe. The moment that alarm went off on the door of the memory care center and I looked up to see her walk in. Chaos and energy and joy and snickerdoodles. Everything good and perfect in the world.

And, yes, I know that's bullshit. No one is perfect. I know that.

But I also know that some of us are better than others. Some people fuck up everything. Other people make everything just a little bit better.

And the first time I saw her, that's what I felt. Like she was there to make everything a little better. A little more chaotic. A little louder. A little dirtier. And not just the fun way. Just a little more everything.

So, no. I didn't do any of this out of charity.

I did it out of a desperate, senseless need to spend a little more time with her. To make her life a little better in any small way that I could. I did these small things because it kept me from doing the big things. The big things like dropping to my knees and begging her to marry me. Like abandoning everything else in my life and pledging allegiance to her and her alone.

I see that now. I understand what I didn't understand then. If I let her, this woman could have me wrapped around her finger in no time at all. I could lose myself in her.

But I can't do that. I can't do it to Ian, who depends on me to be level-headed. I can't do it to the other people and the other clients who depend on me.

And all of that is beside the point, because it's not like Trinity has even asked that of me.

Yes, we slept together. We had one night of phenomenal sex. Sex that she walked away from the next morning.

Maybe she walked away because she legitimately thought I was blowing her off. Or maybe she walked away because it simply didn't mean as much to her as it did to me.

Fuck, that's a hard pill to swallow, but if I'm going to choke it down, I'd rather do it now than after I've screwed up my friendship with Ian.

"If you wouldn't call it charity," she says, bringing my attention back to the moment. "Then what would you call it?"

"I did what I thought was best for my client. Your sister happened to benefit. That's not charity."

She opens her mouth like she's going to say something else, but then snaps it closed, rolling in her lips to seal in whatever she was about to say.

She stands, and I think she's going to walk out without saying anything else, but she doesn't. She pauses at the door to glance back at me.

"You really are a frustrating man to argue with."

God.

Her voice when she says it … the way it cracks, like she's holding back tears. It guts me.

"Yes," I say in reply. "I've been told that before."

But by the time I choke the phrase out, she's gone.