“And what about that invite?” Leo balanced his emptied glass on the perfect crease of one black trouser leg. “The venue? You gonna put a stop to that?” Leo frowned in a playfully curious manner when Grae responded to his question with a slow smile.
* * *
Tielle was halfway to the midmorning breakfast meeting she had only ten more minutes to get to when she realized she’d forgotten the presentation she’d prepared for the counseling center that was scouting Turner Estates for an upcoming summer retreat. Her brain had been so mushy by the time she’d left the office the day before that she had totally forgotten it. It was what she got for spending such late nights at the office instead of going home like a regular woman.
Her thoughts drifted as she edited her silent realization. All the regular women she knew had reasons to go home—family, a husband or special man... Until little over a year ago, she’d had that. She could say that losing Grae had hit her out of nowhere, but that wasn’t true.
She’d seen their issues turning into more serious problems down the road. She’d done nothing to stop them, but he’d given her every chance to, hadn’t he?
He’d given you his...ultimatum—
Tielle shook off the thoughts. She didn’t need them that day, not when business called so strongly. Mind refocused on the presentation, Tielle barely shut the door before she parked the car in the grand horseshoe drive before the main house.
Dashing inside, she was taking the various corridors toward the administrative offices when her mobile hummed. She fished the phone from her bag, answering as she rounded another corridor.
“Good morning, this is Tielle.”
“Well, Tielle, I must say it’s good to hear you sounding so chipper.”
The trail Tielle blazed to her office came to an abrupt stop on the blocky heels of her chic boots. “Faro,” she said, hearing her ex-brother-in-law chuckle over the surprise in her voice.
“Sorry for jumping the gun and not waiting on you to return my call, sweetness, but you know I’ve never been the patient sort.”
“I remember.” Slowly, Tielle put her feet in motion, resuming the journey to her office. “And I haven’t made a decision about your event. but I’m leaning toward a ‘no.’ I don’t think it’s a good idea, and you know—” she turned his words around on him “—half your family can’t even stand me.”
“But your place is the best, Tielle.”
“Lots of places are just as good.”
“I need the group in high spirits and they have such...happy memories of your place.”
Tielle forced more life into her feet, lest she settle to the floor right there in the middle of the corridor. Faro’s mention of “happy times” at Turner Estates promised to do just that.
“Listen, Faro, I appreciate the nudge and the business, but I really can’t spare time to talk about this now. I, um—I’m on my way to a meeting.” She sighed, pulling steel into her voice. “Now would you rather a slow yes or a fast no?”
Tielle listened for a response, only hearing Faro take his turn at sighing. Her thumb hovered over the end button on the mobile, prepared to shut down the call.
“Guess I have to wait. This means a lot to me, Tielle.” His authoritative voice drifted through the line then.
“The wait won’t be long.” Tielle rolled her eyes, silently criticizing her need to offer reassurance, especially to Faro Clegg. “But I’m swamped right now, so it won’t be today.”
“Yes, yes of course, Tielle, and thank you. I hope you’ll accept my apologies for my impatience and insensitivity.”
Once again, Tielle’s steps slowed. “Insensitivity?”
“Wasn’t it today? Or sometime this week that you signed the papers to divorce Grae?” Faro’s voice sounded heavier, stressed. “I’ll always hold myself to blame for that, Ti.”
“Thanks, um, I really do need to be going.” The present topic was one Tielle was certainly in no state to discuss, and especially not with the man on the other end of her line. “I appreciate your concern...” She quickened her pace en route to the office.
“Certainly, Tielle, I’ll let you get on with your day.”
Tielle pressed the end button without further ceremony. She rushed past the beveled glass doors leading into Turner Estates’s administrative wing. The hem of the blue-gray dress she wore flipped with more intensity with the somewhat frantic nature of her pace. Faro’s call had her more agitated than she wanted to admit.
“Morning!” She tossed a blanket greeting over the room, not bothering to make eye contact with her staff or any waiting visitors.
“I only need to grab the rest of the counseling center presentation,” she told Laura on her way past where the woman stood speaking with her assistant, Marisol Estes.
Tielle slammed her office door, effectively silencing what Laura was calling out to her just then.
Finding the storyboard mock-ups where she’d expected them was enough to improve Tielle’s mood a bit from Faro’s unexpected call...and the apology that followed. She was giving the presentation a final thumb-through when a single knock sounded on the door.
“Sorry, Laura. I just needed to grab this. I’m already crazy late...” Eyes still focused on the portfolio, Tielle opened the door, waiting for Laura to walk in with conversation.
There was only silence, which eventually drew her gaze. The portfolio slipped from her fingers when she discovered that the knock hadn’t come from her colleague but her husband.
Ex.
Graedon Clegg filled the doorway with shoulders that threatened to brush the frame.
“Spare a little time for me, Tel,” he said.
He didn’t give her the option to accept or decline. Of course he wouldn’t. Any man who had to angle sideways to clear a doorway didn’t wait for permission to enter any room. When he knelt before her instead of entering, though, Tielle jumped as if she’d been scorched.
Grae bent to retrieve the portfolio Tielle had dropped. He offered her the folder, smiling so slightly that it may’ve been missed when she didn’t reach to take it.
Grae hung on to the portfolio, using it as an added excuse to move deeper into the office. There, he set the presentation on the desk and took a seat on its edge.
“Close the door.”
He was asking if she would close the door. Again, there was rarely another answer besides yes when Graedon Clegg asked a question. Tielle had always considered it an annoying habit. That was before time in her husband’s—ex-husband’s—presence had clued her into the fact that it was purposefully done. He asked questions in such a manner that to respond in the negative seemed strange.
Close the door. Spare a little time for me, Tel.
Tielle closed the door, leaning back against it in hopes that her stance would seem easy as opposed to wilting.
“You’re a little early, aren’t you?” She forced herself to speak with the same ease she was hoping to perpetuate in her stance.
“Meaning?” He smiled at her query.
“I haven’t even given an answer yet.”
“Answer.” He frowned. “Answer for what?”
Tielle pushed