David clapped his hands together. “Break time is over. Let’s get back in there and get this place cleaned out before lunch. Bon Bon, you staying or going? Because if you’re staying, you’re working.”
“Put me to work. I can stay until lunch.”
David threw his arm around her. Father and daughter led the way back inside. Aaron had to keep his envy in check around them, but it was difficult not to feel jealous of their close relationship. Aaron dreamed of having something like that with his dad, but all he got from his father were high expectations and lectures about not living up to them.
Bonnie got suited up. Even in rubber gloves and a dust mask, she was adorable. She picked up a garbage bag and got to work cleaning up the mess in the living room. Lauren wouldn’t have stepped foot in this house, let alone touched someone else’s garbage. Bonnie wasn’t like Lauren, which was why she was the best kind of friend for his sister. Lauren needed people like Bonnie. He would make sure she remembered that.
“YOU CAN’T GO in there,” he heard Riley, Lauren’s assistant, say as he walked into his sister’s office. She wasn’t going to be happy to see him regardless of how he looked, but she would especially be perturbed by the fact that he smelled and was covered in grime. He only had an hour to get this chat over with, so there was no time to go home to shower first.
Lauren sat behind her desk, typing on her laptop. Her eyes lifted, and her neutral expression changed to a scowl instantly. Her gaze returned to her screen.
“Leave,” she said. “I’m never talking to you ever again.”
Aaron loved his sister. He didn’t always like her, but he loved her. He almost sat in the chair across from her before deciding he probably shouldn’t touch anything in his condition. “Good. I don’t want you to talk—I want you to listen.”
She had to be struggling to stay quiet. He could see her clenching her jaw.
“I came to tell you that you were right,” he said. That piqued her interest. She stopped typing and looked at him through narrowed eyes. He knew she was hoping for something she wasn’t going to get. “PBM sandwiches are the bomb.”
Lauren groaned and went back to whatever she was doing on her laptop. Her office was so tastefully decorated, Aaron paused to take it all in. The walls were a soft gray with white trim. The wood floors were also stained gray, with a huge white leopard-print rug covering them. Her blush-pink chair was armless and on wheels. Pink peonies sat in a crystal vase on her desk. Every accessory had been carefully chosen. When he ended this feud between her and Bonnie, he was going to have Lauren help him decorate his house.
“Seriously. They are the best. I see why you loved them when Mrs. Windsor used to make them for you.”
She folded her arms across her chest and changed the subject, a clear sign that he had struck a nerve. “Why do you look and smell like you’ve been sleeping in a garbage dump for the last week? Is that what happens when Daddy cuts you off?”
“I’ve been working at my house. You know, the one you and Dad are trying to keep me from flipping.”
“I’m not trying to do anything to you but get you to leave. You’re gross and I don’t want to talk to you.”
“I don’t care if I smell. I need you to hear me out. You and Bonnie have always been like sisters. I’ve always felt like I grew up with two annoying little sisters, not one.”
“I won’t talk about her with you,” she interrupted. “I told you, she is dead to me, and if you keep this up, you will be, too.”
“You know who’s dead? Mrs. Windsor is. And I know Mrs. Windsor was basically like a second mom to you. I don’t think I have ever seen you cry as hard as you did at her funeral. Your best friend, the woman who welcomed you into her family, would not betray you the way you have convinced yourself she has. You know Bonnie better than anyone. You know that’s not who she is. She’s a good person who goes grocery shopping for her widower dad once a week and makes friends with scary-looking biker dudes while in line for coffee. She has been more worried about how my working with her dad is going to impact my relationship with you than how it could make things worse for her. She does those things because she’s thoughtful and kind. She’s not some minx who knowingly lured Mitch away from you. Mitch probably fell in love with her because she’s clueless about how attractive those qualities are.”
Lauren stood up and slammed her palms on her desk. Her face was flushed red with her anger. “Do not talk about Mitch, and do not tell me Bonnie didn’t know what she was doing! Do you really believe Mitch would leave me for her without some conniving on her part? Theresa was right. Bonnie has been jealous of me our entire friendship. She has always wanted what I have. It’s obvious she finally decided to try to take something that was mine.”
“You’re wrong,” Aaron asserted. So were all her other “friends,” who weren’t half the friend Bonnie had been. Lauren shook her head. “You are so wrong. The saddest part of all this is that you’re the one losing the most because you refuse to admit that maybe, just maybe, someone liked Bonnie more than they liked you.”
“Get. Out,” she said through clenched teeth.
Aaron didn’t have anything else to say anyway, but he did notice this weird feeling in his chest. It had started as soon as he had begun defending Bonnie. Maybe Mitch wasn’t the only one who had fallen under Bonnie’s spell.
CHAPTER NINE
“REMIND ME TO
