Virtue and Vice

Chapter Twelve

I smiled and watched her saunter towards the door. “I’ll be right down.”

I stayed in my seat long after Emma left, pondering on the same thought that had been stumbling around my brain in the last six weeks since I signed my employment papers with TVG or The Vice Group.

The last four years of my college life had seemed like a scene straight out of a movie—excellent grades,  a generous bursary, an awesome part-time job, a great set of friends and three job offers before graduation.

I would’ve never entertained the idea of working at TVG had Burkett not been so encouraging about it. He’d been counseling me since day one and I trusted his opinion. Even without it though, the offer was too good to turn down. Between it, a bank and a marketing firm, it was a no-brainer.

Except of course for the minor detail that Sebastian Vice was now technically my employer.

I groaned and buried my face in the cushioned arm of the sofa. 

Four years and I was still nowhere close to completely letting go.

I did my best.

Once all the paperwork for the pawnshop and the Pendley house was done, I tried hard to push him out of my life. I decided to be practical and use all the stuff he’d sent over to my dorm, telling myself that to build tolerance to the pain of the memories, I had to live with a little dose of Sebastian’s memory daily. This was the convenient excuse I used when I decided to wear the emerald necklace every single day in the last four years.

He never came back to Philadelphia.

I never went back to Cobalt Bay. 

I spent the summers either working at Old Nook or staying with Emma at her family’s beachfront vacation home in South Carolina.

The only time I came anywhere close to my life that fateful summer was when Ty invited me to join him during spring break in DC on his senior year there. I dragged Emma with me who met Ty and fell head over heels in love with him. Thankfully, Ty was just as crazy about her and they’ve been together ever since. 

Emma had decided to move to Cobalt Bay after graduation to work at her uncle’s advertising company and live with Ty who worked for a publishing house in the city. Having no family (Timothy had barely dropped in on me in the last four years), I suddenly feared being without my two closest friends that it made the decision to accept the job offer from TVG easier.

I told myself the same things I just told Emma earlier—that in a company so big, I doubted Sebastian would ever find out I was working for him.

If he ever did find out, well, then no big deal.

It’s been four years and he hadn’t exactly pined after me—not if the constant tabloid articles of him with a different beautiful woman each time were to be proof.

Except for the daisies.

Oh, yes, the daisies.

Each year, on my birthday, a package would arrive—always the same size, the same kind of white wooden frame—and it would be a simple but romantic watercolor of daisies.

It was unsigned but I didn’t have to think too hard to guess that one.

I had been tempted many times to ring him up and ask why he was sending them to me but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t risk hearing his voice or seeing his face—it would be too much.

I hadn’t completely buried the past but a coffin was a coffin, whether it had been nailed shut or not.

If we ever ran into each other again—well, I’ll figure it out then.