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At a business dinner, my fiancé kept drinking in place of my best friend.
"Evelyn Simmons's stomach is bad, she can't drink. If you want to drink, drink with Lucretia Cobb."
Evelyn gave Caspar Rodriguez a little push. "But Lucy's had plenty too."
"She's not like you. She's tough, she can hold her liquor." The bottomless drinker Caspar was describing had drunk herself into a perforated stomach at a client dinner last month, and now shook with pain the moment liquor touched her lips.
He knew that. He just didn't care.
"It's getting late. I'll take Evelyn home first." Caspar stood and looked at me. "I'll leave this to you. Make sure our client's well taken care of."
He draped Evelyn's coat over her shoulders like it was second nature, and picked up her bag.
Evelyn, who hadn't touched a drop, needed to be driven home. I'd downed the better part of a bottle and still had to handle everyone else.
My stomach hurt too much to speak. I watched the two of them leave.
"Director Cobb, when are Mr. Rodriguez and Director Simmons going to make it official? We're all waiting to drink at the wedding."
I froze. My relationship with Caspar had never been made public. In front of others, he never showed me the slightest affection.
He and I really did look like nothing more than boss and subordinate.
While he and Evelyn had crossed that line long ago.
I smiled. "Soon. We'll let you all know when the time comes."
It was time for me to exit.
……
By the time the client was settled, it was past midnight. Rain came down hard, and I crouched at the curb, throwing up until my stomach seized.
A pair of leather shoes came into view. The rain stopped falling on me, blocked by his umbrella, and then a cup of hangover remedy was held out to me.
"As long as you turn around, I'll always be here."
A gentle voice, an aching tenderness in it.
I took the remedy and drank it down in one go. "You don't have to wait anymore. Tomorrow I'm officially breaking up with Caspar. I'll go with you."
The man who always said he'd never met me at the right time had appeared again.
I wanted to tell him the time was right now.
"Let me take you home."
I shook my head. "A hotel."
That home, now with Evelyn in it, I didn't want to go back to.
A year ago, Evelyn had moved into the home Caspar and I were meant to marry into, because her own place was being renovated.
A year later, her place still wasn't done.
It was raining tonight, with thunder.
She was afraid of thunder. There was no question Caspar would be in her room, keeping her company.
I had watched my grandfather struck dead by lightning in a downpour. Thunder terrified me down to the bone.
He knew that. He just cared more about Evelyn now.
He said Evelyn was a guest, and as the host I should be more accommodating.
I'd been drinking, yet I was perfectly clear-headed, and I sat in the hotel through the whole night.
No message from anyone. No one wondering why I hadn't gone home.
Early the next morning, the moment I got to the office, my assistant Morgan Lawrence came over to me. "Director Cobb, Mr. Rodriguez wants you to come see him. He's in a really bad mood."
Good timing. There were two things I needed to see him about too.
One, to resign.
The other, to break up.
