“Amateurs.” Lia snorts.
I pull my desk chair up to the coffee table and sit down. “How are you feeling?”
“Good. This chardonnay is delicious.”
“Yeah. Another Kalin special. $495 a bottle.”
“I’ll drink slower.” She chuckles. “So what do you have to tell me that requires a $495 bottle of chardonnay to butter me up?” She smiles at me.
“Lia, the only way the stock transfer can take place is if Kalin tranfers it to a member of his family. As you know, his fiancée died, and he doesn’t have kids. His parents are in Florida, retired. They don’t want to be bothered with any company management responsibilities, and anyone else he has considered he does not trust completely.” I peer at her for a moment and take a sip of wine.
“So why are you in the middle of this?”
My eyes drift down and back up to meet hers.
Lia gazes at me, and her eyes dart to the floor and then back to me, her eyes growing wider as if she’s putting pieces of a puzzle together in her head. Her mouth falls open and her forehead wrinkles. “You’re not saying what I think you’re saying.” She shakes her head slowly, reading my expression.
I take in a deep breath and rub my fingers along my neck. “Lia, Kalin asked me to marry him.”
“He what!” Lia leans in and her neck cords with tendons. Her eyes sweep over my face, as if to check for any clues of insanity. “Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“So the only way he can transfer stock is to a family member, and now he asked you to marry him? I asked you if he was on the up and up. This is a pretty clear sign that he’s not, don’t you think?”
I take a breath and collect my thoughts. “Believe me, I thought about everything. Isn’t he just using me? Why me? Why now? But every point I brought up, he came up with an answer for. Do you remember what you said about knowing if a guy is just using you or knowing if he really wants to be with you?”
“Yeah. None of those fit Kalin now,” she huffs.
“He said if I walk away from him, or he leaves me, I can have the stock. Does that sound like he just wants to use me?”
“He’s a smoothie, Belle. You better make sure a lawyer confirms that.”
“Of course. But it’s more than that. Whenever I look for the dark side of Kalin, or the manipulative side, I find something better. He’s as genuine as they come. Of course he has his dark side. We all do. He hates these executives, but he’s not like them. He’s not like them at all.”
“Belle, he didn’t get to where he is by being an angel. He’s probably shrewder and better at what he does than they are. You would be naive to think otherwise,” Lia insists.
“Maybe you’re right. I don’t know anymore. All I know is that when this happened to you, I told him I wanted out. I mean, I never agreed to it in the first place. But after this, after you, I told him I wanted out.”
“Good. What’d he say?”
“He told me he thought he was just going to lose the company. But when he found me, all his prayers were answered.”
Lia snorts loudly and almost spills her wine. “Oh, he is good, isn’t he?”
“Oh, Lia, I know how corny it sounds.”
“But you believe him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Let me ask you this, sweetie. How do you feel when you’re with him? Money and mansions aside, what do you really feel?”
“That’s just it, Lia. I want to push him away. I wish we could go back to just us, our simple lives. I could walk away. I want to. But whenever he is close, I feel like everything is okay. The rest of this just fades away, and all the heaviness is gone, and then it’s just us together. But then I think about what this has cost us, and about you, and I don’t want any of this anymore. I’m torn up inside, and I don’t know anymore.”
“Oh, sweetheart, don’t you worry about me. If he’s the real deal, you should hold onto him. I’ll tell you what. When we go to the police station tomorrow, we’ll see what’s he’s got to say for himself.”
“That’s all I want right now.”
Tears pool in my eyes and I don’t know why I’m crying.
“What’s wrong, sweetie?” she asks.
“I just hate to see you hurt. I don’t want you in this situation.”
Lia stands up and kneels next to me, clasping my hand. “Sweetheart, you couldn’t have known this. Stop blaming yourself. Okay?”
“Okay.” I sniffle.
“That’s my girl. Now let’s try to figure out what this fiancé of yours is up to,” she says in a playful tone.