My Fake Wedding Was the Start of Their Real Prison novel · Chapter 20 of 24
Chapter 20: Stay
Six board members waited.
My mother waited.
Caelen looked at the window.
Two months ago I would have looked at him and said whatever I thought he wanted.
Ten years ago I would have looked at Brett.
I looked at the numbers on the page in front of me instead.
"No," I said.
The white-haired man blinked.
"No?"
"Thank you. But no." I put the page down. "Give the West Coast desk to somebody who wants to live there. Somebody good. I'll help you find them."
"And the tower?" my mother said.
"I'll run the tower from here. I'll fly out once a month and buy the teachers lunch." I took a breath. "I want my own desk, in this building. I want a real title, and a team I hire myself. And I want to earn the next thing instead of being handed it."
There was a silence.
"That's three things," said the white-haired man.
"I'm a Lowell," I said. "We read the whole contract."
My mother looked at me over her glasses for a long moment.
"Head of special situations," she said. "Two analysts. You can have the office by the window that nobody's used since your grandfather."
"Done."
"You didn't negotiate."
"It's a very good window."
The board laughed.
Caelen didn't look at me once for the rest of the meeting.
He caught up with me at the elevator.
"You turned down Los Angeles," he said.
"I did."
"You love Los Angeles."
"I loved a man in Los Angeles. It's not the same thing." I pressed the button. "Don't make it about you, Flaherty. I did it for me."
"I know you did."
"You're a perk."
The doors opened.
He followed me in, and the second they closed he backed me against the wall and kissed me.
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