All through the day, it hovered in the back of her mind, as did the thought that she was going to have to step up her efforts to save the bookstore. They no longer had a long grace period ahead of them — if the construction was starting in earnest before Christmas, then they needed to have a campaign up and running by then. It was going to take some effort to get it off the ground, and she had to get movers and shakers involved as soon as possible.
With that in mind she called Gina that afternoon. She reacted as Emmy expected, spitting invective at Eric and ready to pull out all the stops to get the construction work delayed and give Open Book a chance to survive in the coming months.
"I told you Oswell was an asshole," was pretty much the sum of her comments, and Emmy knew Gi would provide support and a shoulder to cry on when they next met. In the meantime, she was one of the most formidable community organizers Emmy knew, and she promised a plan of action by the end of the week.
"Go home, you've been here since way before opening. We can deal with our problems tomorrow,” Nat told her around 6.30pm.
On her way out, Emmy pulled out her phone and dialed Eric, expecting to get his voicemail, and it was something of a shock when he answered the call.
"Emmy."
His voice was neutral. She wondered if Karen had primed him, decided she didn't care and forged on.
"I need to talk to you. About your plans for the building. Can I see you?"
"When?"
"Now, if you have a moment. I think — I hope — there's been a misunderstanding somewhere."
He snorted, a jarring noise in her ear.
"I think we may differ in our interpretation of the word. But if you think it's necessary, come to my office. You already know the address. Thirtieth floor."
She was still trying to decipher his intention when he hung up on her, which didn't bode well.
◆◆◆
Half an hour later, Emmy was standing in front of Eric's office building. She feared the impact of the conversation they were about to have — they'd parted on bad terms the other day, and their relationship was already dead in the water, but this meeting would likely kill any surviving hopes. Somehow, she suspected his candor towards her, what he’d told her about his family and his childhood had made him more vulnerable and more likely to lash out at her now — when he thought she'd betrayed him.
She recalled his face, openly contemptuous as he called her a money-grabbing schemer, his cold voice, the way he’d stalked off without looking back at her, and she steeled herself.
Karen was nowhere to be seen when she walked into the reception at Oswell Properties. Instead, she was escorted to Eric's office by a well-groomed young man in a sharp suit, who was probably one of the ambitious young associates working late.
The corner office she was shown into was almost as large as Eric's living room a few floors above, and the view was identical. Unbidden, memories of her last visit rose to the surface, prompting a fleeting sense of arousal, unwelcome but no less potent for that.
"Good evening," Eric said, rising from his chair as he dismissed the sharp-suited young man with a nod. "Please take a seat."
Her first thought was: he looked terrible. She remembered from that time he'd ambushed her in her bookstore, after going AWOL, how pale and haggard he could look when he was stressed, but this time it was worse. He'd lost weight — which he couldn't very well afford, with his spare frame — and she suspected he'd barely eaten since their fight. Not that she had much, either, but she was pretty sure she didn't look as haunted as he did.
"You look awful," she said bluntly.
"I've had quite a week," he said. "A lot of work to catch up, and a last-minute trip to Shanghai."
"So your assistant told me this morning. Apparently you're about to start the building work over my head, and there will be major disruption in the coming months, so I was coming to ask you whether you'd planned this all the way, or whether it's your petty revenge on me."
She hadn't meant to be quite that confrontational, but her ability to stay cool was compromised by his very presence. Clearly a process which worked both ways, judging by