Page 171 of Under Your Scars

Today is the first time we’ve stepped foot on the Reeves Enterprises property since Christian was shot. We couldn’t bring ourselves to drive around the front of the building, to see the place where Christian’s heart stopped beating. To see the rusty bloodstain on the concrete.

Meridian City has a thing about bloodstained concrete. No matter how much you power wash it, no matter how many times it rains, the stain remains.

Our office was thoroughly cleaned after the investigation, of course, but there’s still an eerie, heavy, unsettling feeling in the air as we sit at our desks. It smells like bleach, and it takes me back to when I woke up after my car accident in Valenti’s private suite. That room smelled like bleach too.

Bleach and my own despair.

Once we settle into our respective desks, the first thing on the agenda is working through the backlog of meetings Christian missed while he was out after he was shot.

He was good about working from home right after we adopted Caroline, but I told him he wasn’t allowed to work while he was healing. He needed to relax if he was going to get better. He’s stubborn, so he’s pushed himself more than he should have to get back to functioning on his own.

Yesterday he raised his arms above his head without whimpering. It’s such a small thing, but for me, it was everything. He still has a long road of recovery ahead of him, but it was solid proof that he was getting better, and this gunshot wasn’t going to come back from the past to haunt us.

“…fifty-eight, fifty-nine,sixtyrequests for meetings with…” I pause for a moment to count again, “forty of them claimingurgentmatters.”

Christian groans and stares up at the ceiling of our office. He’s tossing that spider ring Caroline gave us at the orphanage up above his head. It hits the white ceiling tiles with a small thump each time he throws it.

“I say we start with the oldest requests first and work our way up from there.”

“Sure. Sounds great.”

I huff from my desk across the room. “Are you even listening to me?”

“Yep. I’ll be there.”

I stifle a giggle and take the initiative to set up the meetings myself. I’m only about halfway through coordinating the calendar when Christian stands from his chair and saunters over to me.

“I want to go home,” he whines.

I give him a sympathetic smile. “We need to make a dent in this work or you’re never going to catch up.”

“So?”

“So, as CEO, you need to do CEO things like rescheduling all these meetings.”

“What if I don’t want to?”

I scoff at his indifference. “This is your company.”

“Elena, I don’t care about this stuff anymore. I have a family now. You and Caroline are the only things that matter to me.”

I smirk. “Well if you want to continue buying Caroline everything she looks at, you’re going to have to care about this stuff.”

“Angel, I have enough money stashed away in an offshore bank account that our great-great-great-great grandchildren will never have to work a day in their lives.”

I lean back in my chair, cross my arms over my chest and look up at him. “If you’re implying that you want to step down as CEO, I am vetoing that decision.”

“But if I’m the CEO and you’re going to be my top attorney, who’s going to take care of Caroline?”

I take his hand in mine and squeeze it. “She’s going to start preschool in the fall. We’ll have to pick her up every day in a different colored Range Rover to assert our dominance.”

Christian goes completely stiff, as if he’s only just remembered that his daughter can’t just sit at home and steal cake frosting from the kitchen. “Holy shit, you’re right.”

“She’ll be okay,” I assure him. “I’m sure Meridian Academy will be thrilled to have another Reeves attend their school. They’ll take good care of her.”

“They better,” Christian grumbles. “They’re going to hate me with how much I’m going to micromanage that school. God help them if anyone there so much asbreathesin Caroline’s direction wrong.”

I laugh softly. “Have you ever considered not jumping straight to violence?”