For Her Son's Sake. Katherine Garbera
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gave him a smile that was at once the sweetest expression and the saddest. He’d have to analyze it later because right now he knew he was missing something really important in it.
“Fair enough,” she said.
“But then we both know that life isn’t fair, don’t we?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said in the quietest of voices.
He realized that she’d been hurt more than he wanted to acknowledge. Part of it no doubt had come from him and his hostile takeover but more of it had come from the personal tragedies in her life. And where she was right now.
He wanted to apologize but he wasn’t truly sorry for anything. If that elevator door hadn’t opened, who knew how much further the embrace would have gone. He hadn’t wanted it to end when it had. He was still on fire for her. But earlier she’d pointed out that he was a man of his word in business and he knew he was going to have to be the same when it came to this area too. He wasn’t going to be able to just go after her like any other woman he was attracted to.
It wasn’t fair to her or to him. And despite what the world had taught him, he was beginning to want life to be fair for her. She deserved it.
“See you at the board meeting,” he said, turning and going back up the stairs to the executive floor. When he got there, he walked through the massive reception area. Everywhere around him were the fruits of his labor. The signs of the success that he’d made from the broken dreams of his grandfather.
Usually this walk made him proud but today it felt a little hollow. When he entered the executive corridor and saw his cousins standing around talking and smiling, he felt left out again. And realized revenge hadn’t brought him what he’d thought it would.
* * *
Emma drove back to Infinity Games’ old headquarters, which now served as the satellite location for the merged company. Even in the middle of the day, the drive from downtown Los Angeles to Malibu wasn’t great. The traffic in this part of the world was ridiculous. By the time she got back, she was ready to call it quits but when she headed up to her office, she found her sisters waiting for her.
Clearly they were here on a mission. She suspected they wanted to help her, and that was touching but also annoying. She was the eldest. The one they turned to for advice and support. She didn’t like seeing them both sitting there looking at her as if she was the fragile one.
“How did we beat you back here?” Cari asked. “You left twenty minutes before we did.”
“Kell and I got stuck in the elevator together. At least I had a chance to talk to him about a new idea,” she said. Then he’d kissed her and made her forget her name.
“Good,” Jessi said. “He can be a dic—dictator but I think he’s fair.”
Fair. If she heard that word again today she was going to pick up the crystal paperweight her grandfather had given her on her twenty-fifth birthday and heave it at the wall.
“Nice,” Cari said. “You usually call him other things.”
“Yeah, I know, Jessie said. “But ever since Allan and I got together he said I couldn’t call Kell Darth-Sucks-A-Lot anymore.”
“Probably a good idea,” Emma said. “Don’t you two have work to do?”
“Why, yes, we do. Are you trying to get rid of us?” Jessi asked.
“Why, yes, I am. I need a few minutes to myself.”
Cari came over and patted her on the back. “We’re not leaving you alone until we’re sure you’re okay. You know you’d do the same if it were either of us in your position.”
“But that’s because I’m the oldest and I know best,” Emma said.
“You don’t. You just know three more years’ worth of stuff than we do,” Jessi said.
Emma had to laugh. She looked at her sisters and acknowledged how happy she was that they were both moving on with their lives. She was glad that the mess that she’d made of Infinity Games hadn’t taken them down with it.
“That’s so true. But I’m okay. I don’t need to discuss any of this today,” she said.
“Why not? I freaked out when Dec came back into my life,” Cari said. “And I tried to deal with it on my own, but I finally realized I needed you and Jessi to help me out. We’re stronger together, Em. We always have been.”
She wanted to lean on her sisters but she had no idea what she would say to them. She had to find a way to keep her job, stay away from Kell and never again kiss him. It was complicated.
She walked passed Cari and Jessi and put her handbag in the bottom drawer of her desk before sitting down and facing them. On her desk was a picture of Sammy smiling up at her with his little toddler face. He was so sweet and precious to her. She couldn’t afford to be anything other than successful in her bid to create a new role for herself at Playtone-Infinity Games.
“You don’t have to worry about me,” she said. “I’ve got a solid idea.”
“What is it?”
“Taking our charity arm and turning it into a foundation with a full-time chairman.”
“Great idea,” Jessi said. “So that’s a job for you but what will the foundation do?”
“I’ve been playing around with a prototype reading app with Sammy,” Emma said. “It’s tailored to his way of learning. I gave Kell a top-line view of what I’m thinking and he said it was worth pursuing.”
“I think it is, too,” Cari said. “Who’s doing the coding?”
Emma had studied computer programming in college so she had a rudimentary knowledge of how to code. “I have. But it’s very basic. I wanted to play with it myself and see if it would fly before I put our staff to work on it.”
“I’ve got two guys coming off a project this week. I could allocate them to you,” Cari said. As head of development it was her job to keep all their staff working.
“I don’t have a budget yet. I need to put something together for the next board meeting and once I get approved I would love to have your staffing help.”
“I’ll get Allan to help you with the budget,” Jessi said.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I am. If he says no, he’ll answer to me,” Jessi said.
Emma felt surrounded by the love of her sisters and realized that even though she’d felt alone and isolated earlier, they were here for her. They had her back and always would.
“Thank you,” she said. “I’m a little too used to handling everything on my own.”
“We know. It’s your own fault because you made it too easy for us to just do our own thing and not really have to help you out. But this merger has been tough on all of us,” Cari said.
“And if we’ve learned anything, it’s that we need each other,” Jessi added. “We got your back, big sis.”
When her sisters left her office, Emma pretended that the only real concern she had was her upcoming presentation to the board. But she was lying to herself. And she knew it. She couldn’t stop thinking about Kell and how his hands had felt on her body. The ache deep inside of her reminded her that she wasn’t going to be able to forget that for a long time.
Sammy sat off to one side of the other kids and looked down at the tablet in his hands at the childcare center on the Infinity Games campus in Malibu. It worried Emma. He wasn’t antisocial, but he only engaged when he wanted to. She’d