Chapter 47

Hailey felt bile rise in her throat when she heard Phil’s proclamation.

“No!” she said. “It’s not over!”

Phil nodded sadly and looked her questioningly when Hailey started to cry.

“Wait!” he said. “Wait! We’re talking about different things. The job is over. That’s why I went in this morning. I had to go because it had to end one way or another today. I wasn’t talking about us. I’m sure you were flattered by having someone pay attention to you. You’re used to attention.”

He smiled at her but even that was filled with sadness.

“I can see you’re dressed a lot more conservatively than the other two,” Phil continued. “Even if you knew you would be paired off with someone you certainly didn’t give him any visual clues that you were available. I’m sure you didn’t do anything to be ashamed of so I’m not worried about it. Well, I guess I’m worried but I understand why you went.”

“I should have called you to let you know,” Hailey pointed out. “I was so mad at you this morning. When Katelyn asked us at breakfast to clear out for the evening, Tiffany made a call to some guy she works with. I’m not sure if she’s sleeping with him or not but it wasn’t from lack of trying. Molly thought one of the guys was cute and she was all over him. The third guy thought I was his for the plucking – so to speak – but I did not encourage him. He got a little touchy while we were in the pool and I pushed him away. I had already had enough when your mom called.”

“And the skinny dipping?” Phil asked.

“Didn’t happen,” Hailey said, shaking her head furiously. “Tiffany and Molly were both getting undressed but I had on my shorts and T-shirt by that time. As soon as it came up in conversation I decided I was going home – well, not home but somewhere else.”

“I want you and everyone else to understand something,” Phil said with a frown. “That apartment is mine. When the tax bill comes due in January it doesn’t come to Hailey Warren or Katelyn Gorman. It comes to Philip Warner. I will not be kicked out of the apartment again. I also will not allow a married man to use my apartment as his love shack. Now I don’t know if Katelyn has misled the guy about who owned the place but I know she didn’t tell him that I was living there.

“I don’t care if you lie to the people you meet. I don’t even care about bringing guys over – well, them. I would care if you did. But no married men – and if you think he’s separated, you’re fooling yourself. If they can’t deal with that – and if they decided to set you up on a date again – things are going to be pretty shitty for them in a hurry.”

“I’ll tell them,” Hailey said.

“No, I’ll tell them,” Phil stated firmly. “I don’t want anyone misinterpreting what I say and I don’t want it soft-sold to them.”

Hailey gulped again and blinked. Phil was obviously angry as hell still.

“What happened with Waterford?” she asked soothingly.

“It’s done,” Phil said. “I failed. I couldn’t save it.”

“God,” Hailey replied. “I am so sorry. I ... it never occurred to me that this could happen. I was sure you were going to pull it off. How? Why?”

Phil shrugged.

“It was too late when I started,” Phil said. “That’s part of it. I wasn’t experienced enough to spot the warning signs. Mom would have noticed in time to make a new plan. I didn’t pick it up until this morning. Today was our last chance. We have $700,000 in debt payments due next week and about $125,000 in cash reserves. We needed the deal to go through today in order to retire the debt and have some funds to switch over to a gaming site and a software development firm. I don’t have enough liquid assets to cover the shortfall. I checked and it’s just not possible. The thing is, Hailey, it would have succeeded if we could have just gotten past next week!

“The games they developed are top-notch. There was one you would have loved. You build a business empire from top to bottom, expand your portfolio and diversify your holdings. It’ll still come out in a few years – probably for PlayStation or Wii. There would have been first-person shooter games; strategy games; role-playing games. We had the server space and the designers to make it really fantastic. And I couldn’t save the corporation. A man who has watched his wife deteriorate, watched his daughter’s life disintegrate now has to watch his second child – the business he bought and kept running in the memory of his dead brother – die, too.”

“Is there nothing left to do?” Hailey asked. She wanted to get up and sit on Phil’s lap. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and hold him to her. She didn’t know where she stood, though. He hadn’t been around much the past week. He’d missed her birthday. But she realized this was the first time she’d asked him about what he’d been doing the previous month.

Their rare conversations had revolved around her telling him about all the things she’d learned and all the things she’d done. She hadn’t really cared about Waterford & Waterford. She hated the company and was jealous of Nikki Bradshaw. A feeling of selfishness was mixed in with the guilt that already existed.

“I shouldn’t have gone today,” Hailey said. “I should have put my foot down with Katelyn. I should have supported you because I knew you were buried in work. Instead I thought of how it affected me. We all did. We all just assumed that you would bring Waterford back from the brink and that you were spending time away because you were mad at us or infatuated with Nikki. We didn’t bother to ask you about what was happening. We didn’t see that you were working yourself too hard. We were looking at things from our perspective and didn’t pay attention to yours.”

“I did the same thing,” Phil said. “I would think about you all the time. I don’t want you to think I didn’t. Those nights when I would come home and snuggle up beside you were the only thing that kept me sane, I think. I wanted you to be proud of me. I wanted to prove it to myself and Mom, sure, but I wanted you to see it, too. I guess I wanted you to see that I was worthy of you.”

“Oh, Phil!” Hailey said. She didn’t care about propriety or worry about where they stood. Her wet butt landed on his lap and she hugged him. “I never thought you weren’t worthy of me!”

“You’re going to be around a lot of movers and shakers,” Phil said. “Now that school’s out, you’re going to be invited to cocktail parties and political fundraisers. The awards dinner circuit starts in a week or two. You’re going to be introduced to guys who are one step away from partnership at law firms or who are 28-year-old vice presidents of major banks. They’re going to be extremely interested in getting to know you. You’re going to have your pick of every single man and half the married men in the city. You could run your finger down the list of the 10 Most Eligible Bachelors in the city and have 10 dates in 10 days.”

“I have an eligible bachelor I’m interested in,” Hailey said. “At least I hope I still have him. You’re going to be just as big as any of those guys.”

“Yeah, at some point, I might be one of them,” Phil said. “I’m not now and it’s going to be a decade or more before I’m even a little fish. You have the chance to get your name out there immediately. You could be a media darling for the next 40 years if you get the foot in the door now. I’m never going to be a guy who goes to those things. If I give money to a politician, it’s going to be in private. I’m not going to glad-hand these bastards. I’m not going to sit at a table with the governor and I’m not going to be the guy who gets his picture taken handing across a big check to a charity.

“That’s the sort of life you want. I can already tell that. This month has taught me that I like working behind the scenes. I was anonymous and that made me dangerous. They didn’t know how I would react. My views on things weren’t known. They feared me initially because I was Elizabeth Barton-Warner’s son. After the initial meeting, they underestimated me because of my age. At some point, you’re going to want to be the center of attention again and I can’t offer that.”

“What makes you think I care about that?” Hailey asked.

“Past deeds are indicative of future actions,” Phil said. “You felt I neglected you so you sought attention elsewhere. A couple of months ago you worried about how fast we were moving or you were bored or you were looking for excitement. I’m not an exciting guy, Hailey. You’re an enticing woman who needs excitement to be happy. You need people to recognize you, to appreciate your achievements.”

“So?” Hailey asked. “So instead of having you handing the check across, I’ll do it. Instead of having you sitting down from the governor, I’ll be there.”

“Which means we go back to what we’ve done the past month,” Phil pointed out. “We go back to living separate lives in the same place. That won’t work either. I wanted to prove to you I could be a success on my own in order to hold on to you as long as I can. I didn’t really understand it would cost me as much as it has.”

Hailey sat on Phil’s lap and stared at nothing. She didn’t know what to say. She wasn’t even sure she knew what to think.

She had to admit to herself that she had enjoyed the limelight over the past few weeks. She had gone to power lunches with her mentor and sat in on meetings with people whose net worth approached a billion dollars.

And Phil had been right about the number of men – some in the early 50s – who had shown an interest in her. The thing was, she hadn’t returned the interest. Even when she was pissed at Phil, she hadn’t considered what they could offer that he couldn’t.

The man at the pool today had been the same way. She wasn’t interested in him, despite the fact he was the son of a fairly popular television personality in the city. She should have been intrigued by all of the men who had approached her. They had money, they had fame; they had visibility.

They just lacked one thing.

“No!” she said firmly. “No! I don’t accept that. I would rather sit on the couch and watch a movie with you than go to the opening of Jack Simmons’ new club with him. I would rather sit here with my cold ass on your lap than go skinny dipping with Jennifer Marquart’s son. I would rather stand in the living room and argue with you than sit down to a fancy dinner with the majority owner of DynaTele. I’ve had the option to do all of those things in the past two weeks and the only things I wanted to do have included you.

“If you’re tired of me, I understand. I’d be tired of putting up with a bubble-head and her idiot friends, too. But I do not accept that we are destined to fail. We will each make concessions. It’s what people do.”

“So you view not going out with other guys as a concession to our relationship?” Phil asked. “I sort of considered it a requirement.”

“You’re putting words into my mouth,” Hailey said. “Stop it. What would you have said if I told you I had an invitation for us to the new club Uptown?”

“I would have reminded you that you are – or were – 18 years old and that you are on probation for underage drinking,” Phil said. “Somehow having your picture in the newspaper going into the club might have affected that.”

“Well, yeah,” Hailey said, smiling ruefully. “OK, let’s say I’m not on probation.”

“I would point out that going to a club when you’re 18 is a good way to land on probation,” Phil said with a slight laugh.

Hailey shook her head in frustration.

“If it was really important to you I probably would have gone – and hated it,” Phil said, giving in before she strangled him.

“You might have hated it,” Hailey corrected. “You were in your element at the club up here.”

“I knew those people and I’m comfortable around them,” Phil pointed out. “Going there with my friends is no different than you and Tiffany going to the mall. If you could get 10 of my friends into the new club, it’s one thing. If it’s me with a bunch of glory hounds and poseurs, it’s another.”

“So you never plan to leave the house in my company?” Hailey asked. “I mean, we really haven’t since the first weekend so it might be a valid question.”

“A walk in the park or a baseball game, sure,” Phil said. “A night of dinner and dancing at a decent restaurant where we can talk, absolutely. Going to a nightclub to hang out with 300 drunks and not being able to even hear you? That’s not my thing and it’s never going to be. That’s what I’m saying, Hailey. You’re skinny dipping and nightclubs. I’m video games and camping. Eventually, you’re going to get tired of me and either dump me or find one of Molly’s friends to give you some excitement.”