Tell Me to Stay by Charlotte Byrd

Author:Charlotte Byrd [Byrd, Charlotte]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781632250568
Publisher: Byrd Books, LLC
Published: 2019-09-30T18:30:00+00:00

19

Olive

When I talk too much…

“I don’t think we’re going to work together anymore,” I say.

He doesn’t know much about the offer that Nicholas made to me and I should keep my mouth closed about it but the words just spill out.

Owen just nods and listens, holding me tightly.

I have missed this closeness even though it feels foreign.

We were never close growing up, in fact we fought more than we played.

But now that I’m grown, it’s nice to have someone who is family to care about me.

My vision is blurry along with my memory, and I can’t remember exactly what I told Owen about what happened in Hawaii before.

I know that I tried to cover for him but tonight I don’t.

“So, that’s why you quit your job?” he asks. “Because he was going to pay you a million dollars to work with him?”

I nod.

“And what is it that you're going to do together?”

I shrug my shoulders but keep my head propped against him.

“Olive, answer me.” He shrugs me off.

Suddenly, I realize my mistake.

I have given him ammunition that I should not.

I had confused his caring actions toward me as someone who might just listen to my problems and not try to shove his opinion down my throat.

“I shouldn’t have said anything,” I say, pulling my bathrobe tight.

“How could you be so stupid?” he says, standing up. “How could you agree to something this ridiculous? How could you give up a nice paying job that you worked really hard to get for that?”

I take a deep breath in an effort to calm the anger that feels like it is just below the surface, ready to erupt at any moment.

“What is even on that flash drive?” He demands to know. “What if it’s something top secret? What if it’s something that’s classified? What if you are doing something that can put you away in prison for many years?”

He’s right.

Of course, he’s right.

I should know these things.

I need to know what I’m walking into. It’s one thing to steal jewelry and things like that but it’s a whole other thing to take corporate and government secrets.

Of course, I can’t admit that to him, not now and probably not ever.

I don’t say anything for a while but that doesn’t stop him from going on a rant and I regret that I ever opened up to him in the first place.

Doesn’t he understand that this isn’t pulling us close together?

Doesn’t he understand that this is only making me want to be with Nicholas again?

At least, he’s not here making me choose between my only real family member and the man I love.

There it is.

Love.

That word.

That foreign word that I had never said to anyone before.

Actually, I’ve never even thought it.

My first high school boyfriend? The reason we broke up was that I couldn’t bring myself to say it back to him.

His parents had been married for twenty years and they said it to each other all the time.

That was just the kind of home that he was raised in.

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