about a week, then I’m flying across the Atlantic. Join me in Paris for a weekend. I’ll pay.”
“You’re on vacation?” I roll my eyes. “It’s not like you’ve been busy.”
“You have no idea, little Abigail.” His smile falls away. “My life for the past couple of years has been hellish.”
I frown because that’s the same amount of time I’ve been gone. “Is everyone okay at home?”
“Everyone is well,” he says with disdain. “Someone took a leave of absence from the company. I had to step up and be the man in charge.”
I’m more intrigued about Wes. What happened to him? Sterling hates the company and having to deal with anything that isn’t art. I want to ask him, but I’d rather have Wes tell me about it, whenever he’s ready.
“Did you wear suits?” I smirk while trying to lighten the atmosphere.
“Hey, I sacrificed my time, not my dignity.”
We laugh, and I stop asking for more. Though my heart wants to know why Weston left the company. Did he get married and go on a long honeymoon? Who is Wes with now, and how can I get over him?
Nine
Abby
When I moved to Brooklyn, Esperanza’s Home gave me a list of therapists in the area who could help me. It took me time to find someone I clicked with. Karen isn’t just amazing, when I feel like I need an extra session during the week, she’ll accommodate me without hesitation. She’s a great listener and helps me work through my thoughts and come up with solutions to whatever is making me anxious or stressing me out.
“Sterling is in town, and he asked me to move back to Colorado,” I drop the bomb before I even greet Karen. “He offered me a job and reminded me that I love to live among trees and not buildings. That’s a valid point, but he can’t just show up at my house with a dog and drop the news that he’s overseen Ahern Inc. for the past couple of years because Wes took a leave of absence.
“Why would he do that?” I slump on the couch. “Asking Sterling questions about Wes felt like opening the door to the forbidden garden.”
“How’s that?” Karen takes a seat.
“Well, I don’t know what’s in there. The only person who knows is Sterling. If I open the door, I have to be brave enough to deal with what’s on the other side.”
I sigh. “What if Wes got married and he took a year off to travel with his new wife?” My heart shrinks.
“A wife?” Karen narrows her gaze. “Why do you assume he’s with someone.”
“Because I can’t stand to think that he left because he was sick and I wasn’t there by his side.” I swallow the tears closing up my throat.
“I take it you’re not ready to confront Wes?”
I shake my head in response. “But that’s not what I wanted to talk about today.”
“You already had a subject in mind,” she asks, watching me.
Honestly, I obsess in between sessions thinking about what I want to tackle during my two-hour time slot. When I arrive, I have a long list of topics: from my mother abandoning me at a young age, to the fact that once she confessed to being abused by a drunken father. I just can’t seem to accept the idea of my grandfather being abusive like her when Grandma described him as the best man in the world.
I’ll never know what happened while Mom was growing up. It’s a subject that has been taking up a lot of my thoughts. It shouldn’t matter, but maybe I’m trying to find a way to excuse my mother’s abuse. She’s dead. Shaun told me that once his father discovered that the house was under my name, Corbin didn’t need Mom anymore. They poisoned her slowly, so she’d suffer. I wish I knew how they got around the autopsy, but it makes sense that they cremated her instead of burying her with Grandma and Grandpa.
Other days, I talk about men in general. How uncomfortable I feel when a man asks me out on a date. I don’t feel like accepting and then explaining what happened to my hands or my body. It’s hard to be accepted as Abigail Lyons, the woman with a dark past. My social fears haven’t disappeared yet. I can make friends. I find people who share my same interests and who I can spend a few hours with chatting about a show, knitting, or discussing the latest book