Page 36 of Dark Time

She held her hand out, and I took it to shake. “Thank you, Mr. James. I really look forward to hearing from your assistant. Thank you for giving me a chance. I know I’m an older woman, but I promise, you won’t regret it.”

“Shhh, I don’t care about your age, just how well you can do the job. You have a great day now, Michelle. It was a pleasure to meet you.”

“Thank you.” She beamed at me before she left.

I felt good about my decision to hire her, if she accepted, and I had no doubt she would. I sat to speak to the waiter.

“Thank you very much for your help, Tim. There will be a nice tip in it for you.” I gave him a wink, and he took the plates away.

“No problem, Mr. James. Would you like desert?” He was as attentive as ever, and for a moment, I thought about trying to poach him from the restaurant.

“No, but thank you, everything was excellent. I’ll make sure to leave some flyers from the restaurant in the resort if you’ll bring me some with the bill.”

“Thanks, that would be great.” He walked away, happy, As I waited, I glanced down to the entrance and saw none other than Trent Thompson.

For a man who was always jet-setting around the world, he seemed to be awfully focused on Myrtle Beach lately. My blood boiled when I looked at him, and thoughts about how he’d treated Emily flooded in. That didn’t help, but I had to remain calm. I paid for the meals, left a hefty tip, and slid the flyers for the restaurant into my folder.

I would avoid Trent, somehow, and just walk right out of the place.

Tim brought back my slips to sign, and I stood to leave. That was about the time Trent walked past me, and I bumped into him.

“Oh, it’s you again. They’ll let anybody in here, I see.” Trent’s upper lip curled, and something just popped in my head.

“Yeah, scum that disown their sister over nothing is pretty low.” It was out before I could stop it, but I didn’t back down.

“What did you say?” His jaw went hard, and he squinted at me.

“I said, letting in scum that disown their sister over nothing is pretty low. I don’t know how you could have done that to someone as delightful, beautiful, talented and beyond fucking loyal as Emily is. She’s the most kind, caring, compassionate person I’ve ever met, and you and your tired little family kicked her out because she’s dating me? That’s trifling, man.”

“Let me tell you…” Trent started to say, but I held my hand up.

“Believe it or not, Trent, I don’t give a fuck what you have to say. I’ve won, you lost. I have the resort I wanted, and I have the most amazing woman in my life. In fact, having her makes me the winner for life, because she’s brought something to me that you obviously never understood you had. You had an angel in your midst, and you threw her away. Like I said, trifling.”

I could see Trent wanted to swing at me, and I stood there, jaw ready, but he just walked away. Good for him.

Emily

There were moments in your life where everything slowed, became surreal, and you just watched, like a spectator at a theater. As if what was happening was happening to someone else, not you. That was what I was experiencing now as I looked at the name on the envelope.

A week after we’d moved into the new penthouse, I’d received a letter. From my brother Trent. The last one I got nearly tore me apart, and I wondered now what kind of fuckery he was trying to perpetrate. Dylan had told me about his run-in with Trent at lunch, but we hadn’t heard anything and assumed the matter was dropped. Now, I had a letter from him.

I put it down and decided I wouldn’t focus on it for now. I had work to do and later, when Dylan was here, we’d open it together. Not just because I had decided there were to be no more secrets between us, but because I needed his support to open the damn thing. I took a deep breath, finished my coffee, and then rode the elevator down to meet with the designer. She was really fun to be around, and we were ahead of schedule because of the incredible work she and her team were doing.

The resort hadn’t needed a ton of work to get up to standards, but painting the walls, putting in carpet, and then adding the furniture would take a while. Some of the rooms wouldn’t even have furniture for another month or two after we opened, because we had so many to fill. Of course, the suites and the penthouses required more work, and we were about to start on those today.

As it turned out, right now, I just did whatever Dylan needed me to do, and today, that was helping Erica set up the penthouse closest to ours. “Hi, Erica, I’m here.”

“Oh, good! I need to know what you think about these plates. Are they suitable? Dylan and I liked them when we chose them, but I’m not so sure now.”

I inspected the plates, white with swirls of pastel blues, greens, and pinks running over them. They were festive and looked quite expensive. I liked them, though, more than anything, and that made up my mind. “I like them. They’ll be fine.”

“Good. That’s settled then. Alright, let’s decide where the furniture goes, shall we?”

I knew she and Dylan had drawn up plans for each penthouse, but as I’d learned already, plans were made to be broken in this business. Odd walls that stuck out in places prevented a couch from sitting back properly or curtains didn’t quite measure what they should. It was a game of adaptation, and I’d learned to play it well.

Of course, my previous life had taught me that lesson too, but I refused to talk about that right now.

I walked into the bedroom, which had charcoal gray carpet, and looked around. There were two windows in here, and the plan had been drawn up to face the bed toward them. “From what Dylan and I had learned already, the glare from the neon signs everywhere and the streetlights reached even up here. I thought it would be dark up here, but it isn't. I’d put the beds against the other wall, put in blackout curtains, and situate the room like that.”