The Other Side of Greed (The Seven Sins #5) - Lily Zante Page 0,51

do I tell her? Where do I start? A piece of me longs to open up and let it all out because I am done with carrying all of this baggage around with me.

“Do you want to get something to eat?” she asks suddenly. “It’s almost noon, and I’ve been here since eight.”

“Since eight? Don’t you have a life, Lewis?”

“Yes, I have a life.” She looks taken aback, as if I’ve hit her with something she wasn’t expecting. I didn’t mean to upset her. Hell. She’s been here since eight in the morning and given the kind of day we had yesterday, my admiration for her just tripled. But I’m feeling contemplative, and not in the mood to talk or go for something to eat. “I can’t.”

Her expression sobers and the light goes out of her eyes, like a flickering candle gasping for its last breath. “Can’t?” I see her brain going into overdrive, maybe she’s wondering if I have other plans. She alluded to it last night when she wondered if I had anything better to do on my Saturday night. “Yeah, I …” I give a gentle kick to a piece of rubble lying on the ground.

“That’s okay, you don’t need to explain. You have things to do. I get it, I really do—”

“My friend was in a car accident. I’ve just come from the hospital.”

Hurt widens her eyes. “Oh, I’m so sorry. Is he okay?”

I stare at the ground, because seeing Emma the way she was, I don’t know. She looked lifeless. Not the Emma I know. “The doctor said it will be a slow recovery. She’s hurt really bad. Really bad.”

“I’m … I’m so sorry, Brad.” When I look up, there is a knowing in her eyes. She’s looking at me a different way. “What happened?”

I tell her what I know, that it was a car accident and that my friend is in a really bad shape. Just talking about it makes me choke up.

This is all my fault.

Mine.

I lower my head. It’s not just Emma’s news that has me feeling lost. Recalling the past from last night and now this, it’s dented my soul. It has crushed me and I no longer feel invincible. I feel less like Brandon Hawks than ever.

“I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to say, or how to be,” I say.

“Brad.” In that moment, she steps forward and places her hands on my arms, as if to console me.

“I can’t come into work for a few days. I have … I have things I need to take care of …”

“You don’t need to explain. Take as much time off as you need.”

Emma held everything together. She was the fortress between me and the managers, the teams and all the people who keep Hawks Enterprises going.

She is irreplaceable.

“Thanks. I appreciate it,” I mutter. In that moment, I feel so broken, so bereft, all I can do is put my arms around her. She stiffens for a split second, before she gives in, and then her arms come around me strong and firm.

I just need to hold something. I just need to have someone hold me.

Chapter Twenty-Four

KYRA

Brad has a girlfriend, and she nearly died. He’s upset and distraught. I wish he’d told me before I’d asked him if he wanted to get something to eat. I feel like a fool. He went home, and I returned to the factory and made myself busy here.

I feel silly for asking him out to lunch and drop my head in my hands, feeling the urge to disappear..

The storeroom is clean and neat, and I’ve made a list of things we need to get for the next food night. I’ve done everything that needed to be done. What I didn’t want to do was go home, where I would have only the four walls and my thoughts.

It’s humiliating.

And now he thinks I made a pass at him. Of course he didn’t want to get something to eat with me.

He has a girlfriend.

And she has been badly injured.

I try to force myself to focus on work and to deal with correspondence and emails. Because I want to erase every shred of emotion and feeling I have about Brad.

It’s been there for a while, creeping up on me like poison ivy. I don’t want to find him attractive, but I do. I don’t want to hear my heart thumping each time he comes close to me, but it does. I don’t want my breath to