The Other Side of Greed by Lily Zante

Chapter Forty-Eight

KYRA

We don’t talk about it back at work, and Fredrich and Simona know me well enough not to ask me any questions. I do what I do best. Push it all to the recesses of my brain in an attempt to deal with it later. I get busy. I plan ahead.

Brad telling me about his real intentions for coming to Redhill has forced me to look back on our time together. I’ve analyzed every little thing he said to me about the business, and it hurts, thinking about every moment with him hurts.

Simona senses that something is up. Fredrich too, judging by the number of times he’s lifted his head and looked my way as if he’s about to say something, and then looked away again.

“When is the next Greenways Committee meeting?” I ask, while hunting around my desk for my planner.

“They haven’t given us a date yet.” Simona eyes me over the rim of her teacup. “Why?”

“I’m just curious.” I don’t have the heart to tell them about what Brad did. Or, should I say, what Brandon did. How can I switch from Brad to Brandon? I won’t need to. He’s out of my life and I won’t have to utter his name ever again.

And we will fight back. Whatever he had planned, however it was he wanted to get his dirty little paws on Greenways, it’s not going to happen.

Fredrich sits back in his chair, arms crossed over the back of his head. “I was digging up information on Hawks Enterprises.”

I type away on my keyboard. These pesky emails won’t reply by themselves. “Yeah?” I pretend to busy myself in reading something.

“The guy is loaded. LOADED.”

Simona sniffs. “I could see that. The car, the watch. He seemed like a different man. I don’t understand why he came here, and why he lied about who he was.”

They have the same confused look that I did when things didn't add up. It's been a shock to me, but at least I knew about the rich parents who adopted him. At least I'd seen his condo. I was prepared.

Simona and Fredrich weren't. This must be so confusing for them, as well as a cold hard shock.

“Do you think his was one of the companies which were interested in Greenways?” Fredrich asks.

I stop typing. “I’d put nothing past that man. Nothing.” My words shotgun out, dipped in venom. They both stare at me in silence.

“Did I miss something?” Fredrich asks. “Something that happened while I was away nursing my poor little arm?”

Simona’s gaze heats my cheeks. She’s probably trying to figure out when it began. I couldn’t tell her when, because I don’t know myself. “We have to make sure we’re at the next meeting,” I say, before getting back to my typing.

“Why are you so bothered about the next meeting?” Fredrich asks. “Shouldn’t we be trying to decide what to do about Simona’s birthday dinner? She shouldn’t have to suffer.”

“Don’t worry about me.” Simona waves her hand dismissively.

“Fredrich’s right. Of course we have to celebrate your birthday. We’ll have to pick another date.”

“There’s no rush. You settle yourself first. Let’s get things back to normal,” she says.

Speaking of getting back to normal. “He won’t be back,” I announce. They stare at me dumbfounded. “Brad. He’s not coming back.”

“You mean Brandon,” Fredrich clarifies.

“Whatever.” I don’t want to spend another moment thinking about that man. Not a second.

“I don’t understand why—” Simona starts to speak, but falls silent. As it was with me, I now see the cogs of her brain trying to make sense of everything. Of why a billionaire’s son would ever consider joining a company like Redhill, on the pretense of working for free to do some good.

The way she’s looking at me, I can tell that she has questions, but thankfully, she won’t ask me, which is just as well.

I suck in a deep breath. “I don’t want to talk about what happened. I don’t want to dwell on it. Brad’s gone, and that’s the end of it.”

BRANDON

“She never wants to see me again.”

Emma lets out a slow breath. She’s walking around on crutches, listening to me tell my story of woe.

“I told you it wouldn’t end well.”

Yeah. She did. She never approved of any of this. She warned me, but I blazed on ahead the way I do when I have set my sights on something.

But it’s not sympathy I want, or I-told-you-sos. It’s the need to let it off my chest and to tell someone, so I’m at Emma’s place. Kyra refuses to answer my calls or texts. She asked to be left alone, and as much as it pains me to do that, it will make her hate me even more if I don’t comply.

What I did was wrong and dishonest. I didn’t cheat on her, but I shouldn’t, in all honesty, expect her to forgive and forget.

Without Emma in my professional life, and no Kyra in my life at all, I’ve reached a low point, someplace I never thought I would be. It’s not hunger that is slowly killing me, it’s not neglect, it’s losing someone I had finally come to care about.

That’s what’s killing me.

“What will it take to have you come back to work for me? You can pick your hours. You can pick your salary. You can work as few or as many days as you want but I need you back, Emma, whenever you’re good and ready.”

Her eyes tell me all I need to know. “I don’t want to come back, Brandon.”

“I’m a changed man,” I throw back, in case my morals are the things that are keeping her at bay. “I’m not going to be doing any more of that stuff. No more stepping over people in the name of making more money.”

“You’ve finally realized that you have enough?” She stops walking around, her hands on her crutches as she waits for my answer.

“I’ve learned a lot. I have plans going forward.”

She groans, before slowly settling herself down into a chair. I rush over, but she shakes her head. “I’ve got this.” When she has sat down, she leans the crutches against the armrest. “Plans? I don’t have the stomach to hear your plans, Brandon.”

“They’re good plans. Things you’ll be pleased about.”

“I’ve been making plans, too,” she announces.

“Oh?”

I can see it in her eyes. Her mind is made up and I’ll never be able to convince her. She’s not coming back. She’s leaving me to fend for myself. I’ll get by. If not with this temporary PA, then with another one, and another one, and another one, until I find someone like Emma.

It wasn’t just for her professional skills, but her sense of right and wrong and also her common sense. She grounded me, and that’s what I will miss.

Like I miss Kyra. She started to heal the hole in my heart—the one that leaving Kane left behind.

It’s not too late.

I can fix things. I can find Kane. And I can win Kyra back.