Undo - Joe Hutsko (bearly read books TXT) 📗
- Author: Joe Hutsko
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As he stared at the little dots speckling his work, an awfully funny thought entered his mind. A short laugh burst from his lips, and a few passengers in nearby seats glanced curiously his way.
There, on the page, was the cause for William’s amusement. The little orange dots, speckling the paper. Matthew’s onetime soda pop success, now a mere stain on William’s organization chart.
Pop, pop, fizzle, he mused, and sipped his cocktail.
*
Peter stood beneath Hoover Tower on the Stanford Campus, not far from the very place where he had first met Ivy. He had agreed to meet her here, to discuss the terms of her cases against him.
In the time he had to wait for her, he considered his life as it was at this moment. He had long ago gotten over the hurt and anger he had felt from being ousted from Wallaby. He missed Kate, but the work he was doing with Byron went a long way to keeping his mind off his loss of her. Not all the way, but enough to help. Isle was healthy, and Ivy’s lawyers had said that she was deemed stable enough to mother her baby. But it was his baby, too. And had he not felt something for her, that night they were together? To be honest, he was not sure. That night was long past now, lost in mixed up events and complicated circumstances. All that remained of it was the unusual feeling he still carried in his heart, about everything that had been affected by his actions that evening. He knew he was not in love with Ivy. But he loved his baby, their baby, and the three of them formed a kind of family, didn’t they? He had never been part of a real family, and the thought of his daughter going through life without two parents deeply disturbed him. Would Ivy consider marriage?
“No lawyers?”
He spun around…and was stunned by her transformation.
She looked as youthful and vibrant as when they had first met. Her bright white-blond hair was pulled up into a smart bun, and her delicate face was tanned. Her blue eyes sparkled with the iridescence of tropical water.
He wanted to touch her, her belly, the place where Isle had come from. She smiled, and he experienced a stirring for her that was unlike any he had felt before, a connection of some kind, between her and himself and their child. It was all light and strangely uplifting, and he let out a breath and wet his lips and formed in his head the words he would say to her, for at this instant he knew, yes, that he could love her and that they belonged together. That they were a family.
But her smile was changing, right before his eyes. It became a smile that betrayed not her happiness to see him, but her happiness to see him looking at her this way. Looking at her with real attraction. Desire. Her smile was the smile of pure self-satisfaction.
“Amazing, isn’t it,” she said. “What a little time can do?”
“Oh, Ivy,” he said, turning his hands helplessly. “I’m sorry. About all of it.”
“Ha,” she said. “Please. I’ve been in the desert learning how to stop apologizing. Take my advice, save it.”
“But we don’t have to be like this. Can’t we try to be, I don’t know, nice?”
“Um, no. Not now, anyway. This is business, Peter. Maybe in a while, after we close our agreement.”
“But I don’t want you to be angry forever.”
“Sit down,” she said, and he did. She remained standing however, looking down at him. “Poor Peter. Just a lost little boy. Look, I’m not pissed off anymore. Well, not too angry. I’m not sorry, either. What’s done is done. I am definitely not having an easy time of it, coming off the drugs and all. But I will get there. All I want is to see my Isle, and my Isle, and how they’ve grown in your care.” She seated herself on the concrete beside him. “I thought for sure you’d have ten lawyers here with you,” she said.
“Nope,” he said. “Where are yours?”
“Don’t need them for this. They told you what I want.” She withdrew a single folded sheet document from inside her light jacket. “It’s all here. Plain and simple.”
He accepted her pen and the contract, spread the page down on the concrete.
But he didn’t sign it.
Instead he put the pen down, looked her in the eye. “What do you feel?”
“Feel? About this? Excellent.”
“No. I mean about me.”
“You?” She looked away for a second. He could see her expression soften. “I’m not sure.” She met his eyes. “But it’s not anger anymore. Really it isn’t.”
“No, I don’t mean that.”
“Guilt? Nah, I’m done with that.”
“No,” he said. “No, not that.” He looked at her forehead. Unwrinkled and smooth, pure. Eyes so sharp, intense, curious. Cautious. He remembered what it had been like to touch her neck, her breasts. Back to her eyes.
“Is there anything else?” he said. “I don’t know. I mean - love?”
She blinked her eyes closed for a few moments, and when she opened them again they were glistening. But from what emotion he could not tell.
“Peter, just sign it.”
He had not slept all night.
It was not because he missed sleeping in the same bed with Greta. That, of course, had ended. Nor was it because he missed sleeping with Laurence. At almost exactly the same time Wallaby started its merger negotiations with ICP, Laurence had taken a temporary leave of absence to, she said, care for her ill father. It was just as well, considering what had happened to Greta and everything that had followed. Besides, the majority of his speaking engagements had been postponed or canceled, and he spent his time attending meeting after meeting, and putting together piece of the business plan, which consumed most of his waking and sleeping hours. Relentlessly, he studied ICP’s complex corporate structure and product line. Once more his favorite bed partner was paperwork - binders, reports, analyses, and technical documents, a courtship that all led up to today.
Today. The reason he had not been able to sleep all night. He climbed out of the bed and strolled leisurely through the dark house, crossing through the living room. A few months ago, after Greta’s accident, he had moved the sofa and furniture against the wall, among the many stacked boxes that occupied the room.
Today was the most important day of his life. After more than three long and arduous years of cultivation, he was about to harvest his greatest achievement. The merger of ICP and Wallaby. Finally his monumental plan would reach its climax. And afterward he would begin his new plan - But not so fast, he warned himself. One step at a time.
The emerging dawn lit up the kitchen with a dull gray. He opened the refrigerator, considered making breakfast, then decided against it. He had no appetite. Instead he poured himself a glass of milk and gazed out the kitchen window while he sipped, pondering his new and exciting future.
His presence would be required in both New York and California. Maybe he would set up his primary residence in New York, and find something smaller in California, perhaps even in San Francisco. Such a commute would be trivial, for with ICP’s takeover, the issue of highway miles would disappear and he would do his work on his rides between office and residence in the chauffeured limousine he would be entitled to.
A rush of elation coursed through him, and he decided to go for a run. Besides, it was too early to leave, and a run would pass the time until he had to get ready and meet William Harrell at the announcement.
He placed his glass in the sink and left the kitchen, changed into sweats. He needed to be at the hall by nine o’clock. He tied his sneaker and stretched through a few warm-up exercises, then collected his house keys.
Just as he was about to leave, the telephone rang.
He checked his jogging watch and picked up the handset. It was William Harrell. They exchanged greetings, and William asked Matthew if they could meet for breakfast before the announcement.
“I was just going to go out for a run, but sure.”
“Go for your run,” William told him. “I’ll meet you at the Good Earth restaurant at seven-fifteen.”
“Will do,” Matthew said, and asked William what was so pressing that they needed to meet before the event.
But William had already hung up, leaving Matthew do presume that his business partner probably wanted to go over a few last-minute details before the big show.
Although he had no way of knowing it, he had presumed correctly. There was indeed one minor detail left to go over.
*
When she heard him leave the second time, after his run, Greta climbed out of bed.
She too had not slept very well. She was too excited. She stretched and considered climbing onto her exercise cycle for a quick workout. Checking the clock however, she decided to skip it. She would rather use whatever spare time she had to make sure she had not forgotten to pack anything that the shipping company would later send to France.
Standing at the window, she gazed out at the dawning day. Across the lake she could see Jean-Pierre’s cottage. The lights were off. She pictured him in her mind, sleeping peacefully. No more would she sleep alone, she thought to herself, letting go of the curtain.
She took eggs and ham from the refrigerator and set to making herself breakfast. Marie didn’t usually arrive until eight o’clock, and besides, she thought dreamily as she cracked the eggs into a bowl, it was good practice for the big country breakfasts she would make for Jean-Pierre and herself.
While she prepared her eggs, the pictures he had shown her when he returned from France last week flashed through her mind. It had taken him a while, but he had finally found them the ranch of her dreams. How she had missed him! It had been a long and painful two months, she reflected, but today would finally signal the end of her suffering with Matthew.
After what he had done to her, nearly killing her that day they had fought over her bowl, he ended his resistance to her request for a divorce. On the contrary, because of what he had done, her case against him was even stronger, and he had no choice but to agree to her lawyer’s terms. The final papers would be drawn up any day.
She seated herself at the breakfast table. While she ate she checked the list she had been keeping. Everything she wanted shipped was checked on the list. Her clothes were already packed, and their plane tickets were the only unchecked item on the list. Jean-Pierre had taken care of them. Still, she would ask him to show her the tickets when she arrived at his cottage in the limousine. Just to be safe.
She looked at the clock again and saw that it was a good thing she had gotten out of bed early. Somehow she had managed to spend nearly a half hour sitting just there dawdling, daydreaming. The car was due to arrive at eight o’clock sharp, and now she would have to hurry.
She left her dirty dishes for the housekeeper and trotted briskly to her room, noticing outside
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