Chapter 8: Rain

The silver car pulled away with its lights off, as it had at four that morning.

Emmett had his hand on my back and I had mine over it.

"She's got a picture," he said. "It'll be at every board member's inbox by midnight."

"Let her send it."

"Tilda. Your rule."

"The rule was so I wouldn't do something stupid."

The rain had started, cold and thin, and it ran down my neck.

"She's just made it pointless," I said. "Whatever I do now, Gavin has already decided I did it."

He said nothing.

"Come upstairs," I said.

My apartment sat above the bakery, two rooms I had rented the day I opened Rise & Salt.

It still smelled of yeast and clean sheets.

I had not turned on a lamp before Emmett stopped inside the door.

"Before this goes any further," he said, "tell me what's wrong."

"Nothing is wrong."

"You've been angry at me since Friday night. I can feel it."

I turned around in the dark.

"After my father died," I said, "you stood up in that boardroom and voted to make Gavin the CEO."

The rain drummed on the skylight.

"I was twenty-eight days past burying my father," I said.

"My husband told me it was what Dad wanted."

"And the man Dad trusted most raised his hand."

"Yes," Emmett said.

"That's all you've got?"

"I voted for him because Gavin said you wanted it."

He stood very straight, wet to the collar.

"He told me you were too grieved to come, and you'd asked him to speak for you," he said. "I believed him."

"I've regretted it every day for four years."

"That's your wound, not mine."

"Then give me yours," he said. "Whatever you need to say, I'll stand here."

I crossed the room and took hold of the front of his wet shirt.

"I need you to stop being so decent."

"Tell me how."

I kissed him.

It was nothing like the careful hand in the parking lot.

His mouth opened under mine with a sound in his throat.

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