Page 184 of Untouchable

Realizing Linda was still standing next to his desk, he said, “I hope so. Thank you.”

He never would have admitted any vulnerability at all to his assistant in the past, so that felt different too.

When she walked out, he stared back at his email, pulling up the one from George Farmer.

It was a crisis. There was always some crisis or another. He just didn’t care anymore.

When his phone rang, he was glad of the distraction, but he paused when he saw who was calling.

Wes.

His friend had tried to call several times in the past couple of weeks, and Caleb hadn’t picked up.

It wasn’t Wes’s fault. None of it was. He’d genuinely been worried and had been trying to help.

But it felt too closely connected to Kelly for Caleb to be able to have a conversation with him yet.

He didn’t have the energy to let it keep ringing this morning though, so he connected the call with a sigh.

“Hello.”

“Hey. Caleb. Thanks for picking up.”

“Yeah. Sorry I haven’t returned your calls. I’ve been…” He wasn’t sure how to describe how he’d been, so he concluded, “busy.”

“Are you pissed?”

Caleb thought for a moment before he answered. “No.”

“Are you… okay?”

Again Caleb had to think before he finally replied, “No.”

“Shit,” Wes muttered. “Did you… Were you able to take care of her?”

His friend had no idea what had happened after he’d sent Caleb the photograph of the company picnic. Caleb hadn’t told him anything. “No. I don’t really think I did.”

“Fuck, so she’s still going to cause trouble for you? I mean, about…” Wes trailed off, obviously hesitant to say it out loud.

Caleb had always been hesitant to say it out loud too. He’d told Wes more than he’d ever told anyone—and only because he’d been drunk one night shortly after it happened. He’d been so torn up about it back then that some of the story had spilled out. Wes didn’t know everything, but he knew enough to know there could be trouble. “No. She’s not. Her mother died last week, so there won’t be retaliation from that direction either. I think it’s just… over.”

“So why did she do this whole thing if she was just going to drop it?”

Caleb knew the answer to that. Kelly had told him herself. “She’s trying to let go. She says…” He couldn’t finish the sentence.

Wes waited for a long moment but then finally prompted, “She says what?”

“She says she fell in love with me. For real.”

He heard Wes’s quick intake of air. “Seriously? Do you think she means it?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, then that’s good, isn’t it?”

Caleb gave a dry little laugh. “Why is it good?”

“Because you love her too, don’t you?”