“Which he will claim are doctored.”At least they weretalking.
“I can hire someone to prove they’re not,” she returned.“Wehave an investigative firm on retainer.Ruby is one of the best hackers working.She can prove it.”
“But that will take time and money—the two things yourfathers hired me to take care of.If you had waited and talked to legal, wewould have told you to let us send someone in.We could have built a case overthe course of a few months.Maybe less since it seems he was bad at hiding it.We could have collected statements and evidence that would make severing tiesto Gladen easy.We could have avoided the lawsuit he has to file now or he notonly loses his reputation, but a lot of money.”
She went quiet for a moment and then let her head fall backon a groan.“I lost my temper.He was an asshole.”
“He is always an asshole.”He’d only met Gladen a few times,but he knew the type.And now that he knew how incredibly glorious OliviaBarnes-Fleetwood was, he worried why she lost her temper.“Did he try somethingwith you?”
“He always tries something.This time he was moreaggressive.”Her head came back up, and there was a weariness there that madehim want to pull her into his arms.“I was angry and that was when I found theproof that he was forging his records and not using the organic methods werequire.I only recently found out he’s been bribing USDA inspectors.”
“Why didn’t you tell your fathers?”
“Would you run to mommy or deal with the situationyourself?”
“If my mother were alive and had any power at all, I wouldtotally run to her.And ask her to bake me cookies.That’s what I miss.I meanobviously her love, but the lack of baked goods was depressing.No one thinksto bake for the foster kids.”
“I would tell you that making me feel sorry for you doesn’twork.”She frowned.“But it kind of does.I wasn’t laughing at how you grew up.I was laughing at the irony.The full circle-ness of it all.I’m here todayalive and screwing shit up because two kids met in foster care and becamehalves of a whole and then found my mom.”
“A gorgeous redhead.”He now could see the resemblancebetween her and Abby Barnes-Fleetwood.Lexi was a lovely woman, but she musthave taken after her father.Olivia was all her momma.
Her smile turned real.“She likes to think so.”
“Olivia, I was frustrated.I was nervous about meeting you.I was upset that Red left.I shouldn’t have said what I said.”
“Do you honestly believe I’ve never heard those wordsbefore?I’m a woman who works in a clearly male-dominated field.I’ve heard itall.The reason I don’t run to Daddy when I have problems is because the minuteI do I look weak, and weakness isn’t allowed for a woman.Believe me, sometimesI wish I had Lexi’s talent.Almost everyone in her world is a woman.Oh, she’lltell you there are some men in publishing, but for the most part it sounds likeheaven.”
“If I had thought about it for two seconds, I would haveknown why you have to be so aggressive.”
“Would you call it aggression if I was a man?Or would youuse the word assertive?”
He kept stepping into it.“Assertive.I’m sorry.”
“Most men would.Hell, most women would, too.”
“That doesn’t make it right.”
“No, it doesn’t.The good news is most of the ranches wework with are great.Obviously, we don’t have any trouble with O’Malley Ranchor the G in Colorado.Except the McNamara boys hit on me.They hit on anythingwith breasts, so I don’t take it personally.But some of the new ranches areproblems.Sadly, it’s mostly ranches I brought in.I think they thought I wouldbe easy to manipulate.I prove them wrong.”
He bet she did.“This is why I want to look at ourcontracts.There might be ways to set on paper how we expect our partners toact.”
She waved him off.“Some of these ranches are run byold-school men.I don’t think it will work, but I’m willing to discuss it.Ican handle most of them.And I am sorry about the Gladen account.I didn’t dealwith it the way I should have.I think my brothers getting married and settlingdown has made me think too much.”
“About getting older?Yeah, I think about that a lot, too.Ithink about what kind of future I can have when I come with a best friend.”
There was the faint smile she seemed to get when she foundsomething amusing.“You need to find the right woman.Stick around this companyand you probably will.Or I can take you to Bliss and introduce you around.It’s a whole town of threesomes.Happy threesomes.I thought I found mythreesome there when I was eight.”
“You did?You found a couple of brothers?”
“Twins.You met one of them last night.”
“Bobby.”It hit him.Bobby had been clear about hissexuality.Not in an overwhelming way.Just statements that were truth.“Uhm,he doesn’t seem to…”
“Like girls.Women.”She chuckled.“No, he doesn’t.But hisparents are very religious and protective, in a weird way, so he’s trying toease them in.The whole leaving his small town for college nearly wreckedthem.”
“Is his brother gay, too?”
“Will?No.Will is getting married in a couple of months.Nice woman.The truth is Will and I got along fine, but I loved…love Bobby.Itmorphed from an eight-year-old’s crush to this friendship that’s formed one ofthe pillars of my life.I’m happy for him, but watching all my friends fall inlove and start their lives has been hard when it’s not there for me.”