The Summer I Saved You (The Summer #2)(16)

I give him a weak wave. “I guess I’ll see you there.”

He regards me, quietly wrestling with something. “Ride with me. I can’t have you passing out at the wheel.”

“Because I might die or because I might not be able to provide you with some good PR?”

“The PR, obviously,” he says. “Your death would save the company money.”

I laugh and my nerves begin to dissipate. I follow him to his truck, where he’s already opening the passenger door and throwing tools and grout in the back. “Sorry about the mess,” he says. “I’m supposedly renovating the lake house, if I ever get the time.”

It seems ambitious for a guy who already works way too much and has the money to hire someone. And I can’t imagine his wife feels like waiting for a renovation that will take place in Caleb’s nonexistent downtime.

Don’t ask about his wife, Lucie. Don’t—

“Are you hiding her in the attic?” I blurt as he climbs into the car.

The seat belt he’s holding is suspended in mid-air. “What?”

“Your wife.”

His jaw shifts. He clicks the seat belt and turns on the engine. “No. She’s just…away for a while.”

“That sounds like exactly the kind of shady thing a guy would say if his wife was imprisoned in the attic or buried in the yard.”

He raises a brow. “The yard? I work too much. When would I have time to do that much digging?”

I choke on a laugh. “So she must be coming home soon?”

“Yeah,” he says, but there’s more grim resignation in his voice than anything else. “Maybe. I don’t know, to be honest. She’s in rehab.”

I stare at him, open-jawed. When he said she was away, I pictured her fucking around somewhere like the yoga moms at school who take a girls’ trip to Cabo together each winter. Rehab never occurred to me once. “I’m so sorry. Is she almost done?”

He swallows. "I assume so."

“That’s…a very vague answer.”

He turns onto the road, then glances at me. “It’s something I’ve tried to keep quiet, but...about a year ago, Kate went on a bender and cleaned out a TSG corporate account—she was out of her mind on cocaine at the time and apparently owed some dealer a ton of money. That’s why my name has been scrubbed from the website—so that if I’m implicated in anything else she does, it won’t come back on the company. The board agreed not to press charges as long as she went to rehab. So she went, unwillingly.”

Wow. There’s a lot to process in that statement. But one thing stands out most. “She left a year ago? I had no idea people went to rehab that long.”

His nostrils flare. “They don’t. And it hasn’t been a full year. She went in at the end of July, checked herself out in September, and disappeared entirely until a few weeks ago when she checked back in. I haven’t even heard from her. I only know because I got the bill.”

So she’s been gone nearly a year, with no contact, and he’s still waiting. No one—not Jeremy, not my own family—has ever really wanted me at my best, yet here Caleb is, wanting someone who left at her worst and did terrible things to him while she was at it.

“You must miss her,” I say softly.

“It’s…complicated,” he replies as we pull into the restaurant’s parking lot.

Not the response I expected. It’s complicated means…no, he doesn’t miss her. Or perhaps yes, he misses her, but he’s not sure she’s coming back.

And I have no idea why it feels like the answer matters.

I follow him inside, far more focused on Caleb’s personal life than I am the interview, until he curses under his breath.

“Goddammit,” he says. “We’re screwed.”

He’s already marching toward a table nearby before I can ask what’s wrong. I flash the hostess an apologetic smile and race after him, arriving just as the man sitting at the table rises and extends a hand to Caleb. “David Murphy. I’m taking the story over from Anna.”

The way he says it is combative, as if they’re two boxers greeting each other before the fight begins.

“I know who you are,” Caleb replies, mouth pinched. He gestures to me. “This is Lucie Monroe, our new Director of Employee Programs.”

Murphy shakes my hand, but it’s Caleb he’s focused on...in a clearly hostile way. He hits record on his phone before we’re fully seated. “TSG was just nominated for the dubious honor of ‘state’s worst employers,’” he begins. “Do you have any reaction to that?”

I swallow. I had no idea TSG’s reputation was that bad. But what worries me more is that David Murphy has already gone on the attack. I sat quietly through a hundred interviews at Ruth’s house, and none of them began like this. It’s as if he isn’t here for information at all, but simply wants to bury us, and if Caleb answers with one of his rants about employees wanting Frappuccinos, he’ll succeed.

“Obviously, it’s not what any company wants to hear,” Caleb replies smoothly, “but it’s been a wake-up call: employee satisfaction needs to be our first priority. That’s why we’ve hired Lucie. Ultimately, I think the experience will make us stronger.”