Page 56 of Safari Murder Party
Fletcher gulped down a breath. When she finally had the wherewithal to look at Waylon, his lips flattened into a firm line. His Adam’s apple bobbed once, then again. A tint of real emotion cracked through his usual veneer. Unwanted sympathy panged through Fletcher’s chest.
“My boss got eaten by lions,” she said again, quieter this time as the gravity of it settled. “But he was your dad. Waylon, I’m—”
“Don’t say sorry.” He shucked off the tote and his backpack. “It’s fucked-up, but my dad would have loved this, and you know it.”
She could have never imagined the horrors he was subjecting them to now, but Dyer Cartwright had always been a man with a mission. He always had the right cards in his hand and knew exactly when to play them.
Stranding his only son on an island with fourteen rabid employees with no time to grieve, no time to process, and forced to play a role in a game he didn’t consent to wasn’t the mark of a loving father. Waylon watched his dad get ripped to shreds by a pride of lions that had been imported solely to hunt for sport. There was nothing un-fucked-up about that.
But that was Dyer. Entertainer extraordinaire. The life—and death—of the party.
“I’m not sorry for him,” she said, daring a step closer. “I’m sorry for you.”
Waylon’s stare hardened. “I don’t need Fletcher Spence to feel sorry for me. I’m used to my dad disappointing me. But you. You shouldn’t even be here.”
Oh.
Days since Waylon Douchebaggery Incidents: 0.
Fletcher shook off whatever residual Midwestern niceties threatened to dismantle her hard-earned career and crossed her arms. “I’m well aware of how you feel about my attendance. Believe me. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to take off this sensory nightmare of a dress, clean every inch of my body, and pretend you aren’t here.”
His hand lashed out, wrapping around her wrist. “Fletcher, stop. I’ve been trying to tell you that you don’t deserve to be here.”
Fletcher blinked. Indignance reared in her chest. Spiked and ugly, like a porcupine wearing jeggings. “Wow. Got it.”
“That’s not—”
“No, I think it is.” Fletcher shook herself loose.
“What I’m trying to say is that you don’t deservethis. Not because you aren’t smart enough or hardworking enough or talented enough, but because you are. Because this job, this company,my dadwas always going to take everything you have and give nothing back.” His gaze met hers, fierce and unyielding. Suddenly, she wasn’t sure if she was hot from the sun or something else. “You deservebetter.”
A sharp laugh carved its way out. “Is that so?”
For once, Waylon’s tough exterior faltered. His brow didn’t furrow so much as it crinkled, scrunched together like a bag of Doritos crammed into the break room trash can. Fletcher didn’t buy it for a second.
“What?” he asked.
He inched closer, but Fletcher waded deeper. Cool water lapped at her ankles, her calves. “Smart? Hardworking? I seem to recall you had a few other choice adjectives for me the first time we met. ‘Pathetic.’ ‘Embarrassing.’ Ring a bell?”
Tears welled in her eyes, and she wasn’t sure how to stop them. Three years they’d been waiting to be shed. When she couldn’t trustherself not to let them fall, she turned her back to Waylon and tried to get a fucking grip.
“You had a few for me, too. ‘Entitled.’ ‘Arrogant,’ ” he said, close enough now for her to feel his presence at her back. Her pulse ratcheted faster as his fingers found the dress’s zipper at the nape of her neck. “I’ve revisited that night in my head so many times I’ve lost count.”
Not a single muscle in her body moved—not even her heart. She was definitely going to need a defibrillator. Just when she thought she glimpsed the pearly gates, the zipper’s descent stalled below her shoulder blades, and Waylon’s hands fell away.
Fletcher worked hard to commit important details to memory—Dyer’s pill regimen, when to schedule deep cleans of the international properties, how to fix the fax machine on the sixtieth floor when it started death-rattling—but she didn’t have to work hard to remember that night. It had been stamped on her prefrontal cortex, forcing her to recall it every time she spotted that unreturnable green dress at the back of her closet.
Not once did she imagine it haunted him the same way.
“I hated doing those events,” he said. “Everyone’s stressed, the expectations are so high, and nobody actually gives a shit about the charity. It’s all for show. And I…Well, I’d been avoiding my dad, knowing I was going to get another mind-numbing lecture about what it means to be a Cartwright and how I wastarnishing the company namebecause I didn’t want to take the CMO job he offered me. And then, this redheaded woman walked in.”
Fletcher’s jaw fastened itself shut, afraid to hear the tremble in her voice if she spoke.
“I could have punched whoever made her cry,” he said.
“You didn’t even know me then.” And the unspoken:You didn’t know how much we’d hate each other.
“I didn’t. I was certain we’d never met. This was not the kind of woman easily forgotten. Once the tears stopped, you had this megawatt smile. Defiant and determined. I knew right then that you were too good for my dad and his precious company. Too eager to prove yourself. Cartwright Media would destroy you.”
