The Darkest of Shadows (3 page)

He buzzed me into this office about half an hour after the e-mail came through. “Lilly, can you come in here please?” His voice sounded strained over the intercom.

It was just past 9:30 p.m. when I entered Patrick’s office that night. We had just sold a large corporate venture to a Danish company, and it was due to be handed over the following morning. There were a million last-minute details to work out, which was why Patrick and I and probably a handful of other people were still in the building.

“Yeah?” It was pretty obvious that he wanted to talk to me about the divorce. Instead of sitting behind his desk, where he normally would have been when he was working, he was standing by the window, gazing out at the lights of the city beyond us.

“You saw.” He didn’t elaborate.

“Sorry.” It wasn’t any of my business what he and his wife did, but opening his e-mails was my business, so I didn’t feel any guilt, just sorry that he was having to explain it to me. “I don’t need to know about it,” I told him.

“No.” He shook his head and huffed in quiet amusement. “I want you to know. Ashlan is the only other person I’ve talked to about it, and he’s useless.”

I could only imagine his helpful support. “Yes, he can be a bit like that,” I agreed. I went to stand beside him at the window.

“Claire and I have been on the rocks for a while now,” he admitted. “Probably for longer than I realized. Maybe a year or so. She’s Spanish, and she misses it very much. She’s been spending more and more time back there, taking the kids with her.” Patrick had two boys, Henry and Luke, who were about ten and eight. “She wants to move back there, but I don’t.” He shrugged. “That’s pretty much it. She thinks that I love my job more than her, and I can’t say that she isn’t right.”

He turned to look at me. “I should want to pick them,” he admitted. “I should want to be with them and move to where they are happiest. They are supposed to be my life, but I don’t feel that.” I could see the regret in his eyes. “I love my boys; they are wonderful and special, but I like who I am when I’m in this office. I like what I do. I’m good at what I do. I wouldn’t be a good stay-at-home dad. That I do know.”

I was quiet for a few minutes. “I don’t give relationship advice.” That was as much as I would say on his marriage. “But what I can tell you is that you should never have to change who you are for someone else.” That I knew, that I believed, and I lived it. “You are who you are, and people either accept it and love you for it, or they don’t. But you shouldn’t have to change to make someone else happy.”

His gaze didn’t turn from the lights outside the window. “And that’s what I’d be doing if I left with them,” he said sadly. “I’d be changing who I am, making myself unhappy to make them happy.” He turned sad eyes toward me. “Is that selfish?” he asked.

I don’t do sad. Not well. I struggled to keep myself functioning some days, and I found it difficult to take any more upon myself. But at the same time, I couldn’t walk out on Patrick, not right now.

“It’s no more selfish than her asking you to do it in the first place.”

“So now I’m getting divorced, and my soon-to-be ex-wife is moving to Spain and taking my two children with her.”

“It seems that she is.”

“You don’t mince words, do you, Lilly?” He turned his full attention back to me, but this time it was my turn to gaze out at the lights.

I rocked my head to the side in a shrug. “Not really.”

“You’re also the most private person that I’ve ever met.” I wondered where he was going with this; I had a bad feeling I wouldn’t like it.

“Is that a question?” I asked.

“You hide from everyone.”

That wasn’t a question either, so I chose to remain silent.

“What is your secret?”

That was a question, and it definitely wasn’t going to be answered.

“Lilly?” I’m not sure why I turned back to face him—maybe because he sounded so lost—but I did, and my eyes met his for a long moment. He gently reached out a hand to touch my face, but I jerked back away from him.

“Sorry.” I whispered as I backed up further. “Sorry.”

“No.” Patrick shook his head. “My fault. I’m sorry. It’s just that sometimes you look so unbelievably sad and lonely that I want to hold you and make it all go away.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, and luckily I didn’t have to think of anything. Patrick’s phone started ringing, and with a sigh he turned to answer it. I escaped while I had the chance.

When he came out of his office later, neither of us spoke about the incident. As far as I was concerned, it would be as if it never happened. I did that a lot.

“Michael is bringing up the finalized sale documents with the amendments that the Danes requested,” he said. “Can you fax them off tonight and leave me the originals? Then you can go home.” He turned back to go into his office, then paused. “Oh, and Lilly? Thanks for listening. You’re much better at it than Ash.”

The next day was Saturday, and it was my day off. Patrick hadn’t asked me to work, and I hadn’t volunteered, either. I was sure both of us needed some time apart. Besides, I had promised Sally that I’d meet her and her family in Kensington Gardens for a picnic lunch. I really didn’t feel up to it, but there are a few things in life that normal people can’t understand or forgive, and telling someone like Sally that I didn’t want to meet her husband and baby son would be one of those unforgivable things. I had to work with Sally every day, after all. I would just have to deal with my own issues and get on with it.

I shoved a sandwich in a paper bag, wrapped my iPod in its case around my upper arm, and set out for the park. It was maybe a ten-minute walk, but it wouldn’t take me that long.

I was a runner. It’s sometimes hard for people who don’t run to understand, but running was a release, the only moment when I felt absolutely, totally free. I ran to stay sane—and I was sure that after this lunch, I was going to need some of that feeling, so I dressed in my gym clothes, put my running shoes on, and ran my ass to that park.

Sally gave me an amused once-over when I jogged to a stop beside her at the entrance to the Gardens. Sally lived just out the city and had caught the train in with her family.

“Lilly.” Sally’s voice had a gentle laugh to it as she juggled her precious son in her arms while she tugged on her husband’s arm to get his attention. “Gerard, this is Lillianna Owen. Lilly, this is my husband, Gerard.”

I nodded to him and gave a small smile. “Pleased to meet you.” I didn’t offer to shake his hand. That would be touching.

You’d think it was strange that I loved the underground, but yet I wasn’t a touchy person. I liked my own space, but it seemed like the underground it was another world. It wasn’t voluntary touching, it was do-or-die touching. You held on to whatever you could, or you died. I liked the simplicity of it, the forced, almost animal interaction.

I tried not to see the family walking beside me as we entered the gardens. I tried not to see how Gerard pushed the pram while Sally carried her child. I tried not to see the oneness of the moment and the way they connected. I focused on anything else I could to take my mind away from them.
This was such a bad idea
.

Sally kept up a constant chatter while we walked, seemingly oblivious to the rumpled state of my mind. Gerard finally parked us by the big lake, finding a quiet place just away from the other masses of families that clogged the area.

Sally and Gerard’s son, Liam, was nearly two. He was a solidly built little boy with blond curls, and he delighted in running screaming toward the water, so that his father would have to run and intercept him at the last minute. He loved it, his father loved it, and Sally took a hundred photos of them.

I hated it.

“You don’t have family?” she asked me, as she sat watching Liam chase the birds, his sturdy little legs plowing through the grass, Gerard close behind.

“No.”

“Is something wrong?” she asked cautiously, concern evident in her gaze.

How to answer that without offending her? By now I knew her well enough to know that in addition to being a light, cheerful person, she had more tenacity than anyone else I’d ever met. She was like a little pit bull, and when she got her teeth into a problem, she wouldn’t stop until she had it fixed.

“I like you, Sally,” I told her. “I really do, and I hope that you don’t take offense, because it isn’t meant that way, but I need you to understand that you can’t fix what’s wrong with me. I know that you want to.” We shared a sad smile. “I know it’s part of what makes you special—that you want to fix everything that’s wrong with everyone—but I’m broken in a way that can’t be fixed.”

“And being around my family is making that broken part of you hurt?” she asked with surprising clarity.

“Very much.” I turned away from her understanding gaze.

“I like you too, Lilly,” she told me, after a few silent minutes. “I think that we are going to be good friends, just you and me. We’ll leave the boys to fend for themselves, and we can have our own girly times.”

“I’d like that,” I admitted a little more calmly.

“But for now,” Sally continued, “how about you finish that run you were so eager for this morning? Go.” She shooed me with a wave of her hand. “Go and do what makes you happy, and I’ll see you at work on Monday.”

She didn’t need to tell me twice. I rose, and without another word, I skipped off through the trees toward my favorite running track. It would be a long run today, a long, exhausting, freeing run.

It took me longer than I thought to get over the emotions of Saturday’s lunch. I didn’t attempt to venture out of my apartment on Sunday; being around people would only aggravate me more. I settled on the lounge with one of my favorite books and read the day away while I listened to the sound of the rain falling outside my window.

Sally didn’t mention our lunch on Monday morning, and neither did I; and I noticed that she also refrained from her usual morning commentary of whatever Liam had done to amuse her over the weekend. I was very good at pretending things didn’t happen; it was part of how I survived, how I continued to function alongside the normal people.

“Good morning, beautiful ladies.” Ashlan’s voice echoed from inside his office.

“Morning, Ashlan,” Sally and I echoed back, sharing amusement in our morning routine. Ashlan enjoyed keeping things light and delighted in bellowing his morning welcome to us.

Patrick chose that moment to appear in the office. “Ash, my office,” he called through Ashlan’s open door; then, with a nod of welcome to me, he walked into his office. Ashlan, moving faster than I’d ever seen him, closed the door behind them both.

Sally and I shared a confused look and returned to our own work. Patrick wasn’t usually that fierce in the morning; he normally would have stopped and had a chat with us before closing himself in his office for the first half hour of each day. He always took that time to get himself together, to sort through his e-mails and phone messages before the pressure of the day took over his attention. For him to call Ashlan into his free time was unusual and could only mean that something was wrong.

“Sally, Lilly,” Ashlan interrupted us both when he stuck his head out Patrick’s door about a half hour later. “Could you both come in here, please?”

Crap, this doesn’t sound very good
. I followed Sally into the office and sat down in one of the chairs across from Patrick’s desk. Ashlan resumed his own seat, and Sally took the one remaining.

Patrick looked unwell—sad, tired, and definitely not his usual self. “What’s wrong?” I prompted.

“Harbour Industrial Park,” he said. I knew the place; it was a new major shipping development project we had started, a joint venture with another contractor out of Germany. The site was near Antwerp in Belgium and had a massive budget. It was one of our most promising investments.

“There was an explosion last night, and six of our men were killed.” Patrick’s words left me shocked. “Most of them were our German colleagues, but Lincoln Xavier was also in the accident. He didn’t survive the blast.”

Now that was a name I did know. Lincoln Xavier was Samuel Parsons’s heir apparent. Samuel had never married or never fathered any children, so he willed Cartright and Nagel to his sister’s only child, Lincoln Xavier. My understanding of Lincoln, having never met him personally, was that he was a responsible, sensible, middle-aged man who held a genuine love for the company. He would have made a good General Manager.
Shit
.

I watched, somewhat stunned, as Sally dabbed the tears from her eyes. It would make sense that she would feel more emotion—she was Sally, for a start, but she also probably actually knew Lincoln. Not that I would have cried anyway; I don’t cry. I can’t cry. It was just another thing that had been taken from me.

“They’re flying Lincoln’s body back here for burial, but I need to go over to sort through some things. Damage control. We’re going to cop a lot of flack about this, and I need it quieted down fairly quickly,” Patrick said.

“Ash is going to stay here and cover this end, but I’d like you to come with me, Lilly.” His eyes met mine.