Page 58 of Forever Only Once

The door opened to the building, and I muttered to myself, “Speak of the devil.”

“Cross? I saw your truck. You here?”

I had brought the truck because I needed to move a few pieces of equipment around, so I had parked in the back. Apparently, Chris had driven around the building, saw I was here, and parked in the front. Hell.

“I’m in my office.” I locked up my computer as well as all the files just in case, and then walked out the door.

What was I going to say to him? I honestly wasn’t sure. I didn’t have a plan in my head. Maybe I shouldn’t say anything.

But as I looked at Chris’s crisp shirt, his hands that hadn’t seen a piece of wood in months, hadn’t held a sander or varnish or anything having to do with what we did when we had built this place from the ground up, I wondered who the fuck this person was. And how I had let my own desires of making this place work tarnish the memory of what we’d had.

I really wasn’t good at relationships. I had told Hazel that before.

But I clearly wasn’t good at friendships either. Because I had ignored all the warning signs for far too long. And now I had to deal with the consequences. Consequences that had cost me way too much fucking money and time.

“Hey,” Chris said. “I saw you were here. Thought I’d stop by.”

“It’s working hours. Of course, I’m here.”

And you’re not.

Chris’s eyes narrowed. “Anyway, I have a couple of meetings today to figure out exactly what I’m going to do with this huge piece coming up. You know, the great commission?”

The lie? There was no commission. Just Chris wining and dining and trying to use our name to get money. It made no sense in our business. You actually had to create goods in order to get something.

“Anyway, I just wanted to see what you were up to. Anything you’re working on, on the side?”

Like pieces he could sell for me and make a large commission on? That wasn’t going to happen. But it had happened. A couple of pieces that I hadn’t done for a commission but had finished in the past. A couple of years ago, Chris had sold them for us because he’d had the connections. I hadn’t minded because I was working on the next thing, focused on my work. I had thought I had the receipts to know how much I’d made. I had been wrong. Chris had been stealing from me this whole time. And I had been too fucking trusting to actually realize it.

Or, I had actually believed the documentation and hadn’t noticed that it was fabricated. A legit lie.

The man had broken the law, and I hadn’t even noticed.

Who the fuck was I?

“No, I’m good. Working on projects that are already spoken for.”

“Too bad,” he said, and I narrowed my eyes. “Chris, we need to talk.”

He didn’t take a step back, but his eyes narrowed. “So I hear.”

“Excuse me?” I asked, tension running up my spine.

“I hear you went to a lawyer. You can’t even talk to me? No, you keep saying you want to talk, but you’ve got too small of a dick to actually lay it all out there. You want out of this partnership? Fine. I can see that you’ve never thought you could live up to what I can make anyway. But don’t you fucking think you can spread lies about me. That is slander. Libel.”

The two words did not mean the same thing, like Chris was saying, but I wasn’t going to correct his grammar.

Right then, all I wanted to do was punch him in the face. But I’d just told myself that I wasn’t a violent person. I couldn’t do that.

“Really, Chris? That’s the line you’re going with?”

“What? What other lines are there? You want to leave this business because you think you’re too good for me. But I’m the one raking in the big deals. I’m the one making art for celebrities. You’re just whittling in the corner for some mom and pop shop, wondering why the fuck you’re not living the life you should. I tried to throw you a bone, and you did nothing.”

“Throw me a bone? With that meeting? At 59th? Hell, you couldn’t even do that right.”

I let out a breath, trying to calm myself. “I seriously cannot fucking believe you right now. That was your client. And she canceled.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Because she knew she wouldn’t be able to work with you.”