just for a bloody contract | Roman Godfrey au

ch. 24 • enough

On came Daniel's graduation day, near the middle of November. It was already freezing out. The first shower of snow blanketed every patch of grass and every concrete pavement. Letha offered to go with me, since no one else would and Shelley didn't want to attract attention.

"Are you sure you don't want to come, Roman? He is working for your company starting next week."

"Are you kidding me? Go congratulate your stupid boyfriend. I don't care. I'm going to work."

I looked at Letha. She shrugged and shook her head.

"He's not my boyfriend. He's a very good friend. Keep your sour attitude to yourself. I'm not starting off my day this way," I said as I grabbed my keys. "Come on, Letha."

The event was nice. The auditorium was warm. Letha and I met with Daniel after the ceremony and extended our warm wishes to him. He seemed to appreciate it wholeheartedly. As gentlemen do.

Then the two of us decided to go to a soup and salad bar and warm up our stomachs too, Peter joined us. They were such a lovely couple and complemented each other wonderfully. One could only wish.

I came back home alone and found Shelley reading a book in the living room and Roman typing up a storm on his laptop. He seemed to notice my presence almost instantaneously.

"Did you have a fun lunch, stealing my cousin and your special male friend?" Roman asked.

I rolled my eyes at him. Not this again. "Yes, actually I did. We had a very, very good lunch without you. We missed you though, Shell." Shelley looked up and smiled at me.

"Did you tell David about my sister?" Roman looked annoyed.

"His name is Daniel. And no, he doesn't know about Shelley. I had lunch with Letha and Peter, you jealous buffoon," I laughed. "Seems like you didn't go to work."

"What the fuck did you just call me?" Roman looked at me, all offended. "Whatever, I'm out," he said and went upstairs with his laptop.

"What's up with him today?" I asked Shelley.

"He got an email this morning and has been acting weird since. I told him to have chamomile tea. It helps me," Shelley said.

"You really think your brother will calm down with tea?" I laughed. Shelley laughed too and shook her head.

"I'll go see what's up," I said reluctantly and left Shelley to her happy reading.

I went upstairs and went to Roman's room. "Hey. Sorry for calling you a buffoon, if that's what got you all riled up."

Roman took a deep breath. "Look, it's not you. Or that boy. It's work-related."

"Do you care to talk about any of it?" I asked. "Sometimes that helps."

"Well, the last fucking time I did that, you made a deal with the literal devil, besides Olivia. So I'm a little unsure." Boy, was he snarky today.

"You're never going to let that go, huh? Listen, maybe that little agreement can be beneficial to your current little situation now. If this has anything to do with Pryce, I can assure you that I get him to shut up."

"You can't really do that," Roman looked at me with practically no expression on his face.

"I can try," I said, a little unsure.

"That company can't depend on your little 'trying'. As I said before, you don't know shit about business. What could you possibly do?"

At this point, I was getting frustrated. I wanted to just tell Roman about the lab and everything right then and there. But I had to hold my horses and shut up. Instead, I chose to calm myself down and ask gently, "Roman, in one sentence, just tell me what's wrong."

Roman slapped his palms against his thighs and said, "Pryce is blackmailing me and wants more money. There's a board meeting tomorrow, discussing this budget for the new year. And he sent me an email asking me to set aside money for him."

I raised my eyebrows. "Pryce said that?"

"Yes, yes he fucking did. That heartless, miserable son of a fucking bitch," Roman started getting angry again.

"Okay, okay. Calm down. Give him the money," I said.

"What?" Roman looked at me with probably the most confused look on his face. "What did you just say?"

"Give him the money. It'll come back to you. Relax. Just give him the money in front of the board people and the investors tomorrow. And just act like you don't care. You'll get your money back. There won't be any losses. I promise."

"What are you planning to do?" Roman cocked his head to the side and looked at me with suspicion.

"Nothing. That's between Pryce and me," I said and started to walk out.

"Liana!" Roman yelled. "What the fuck are you going to do?"

"I said you'll see" I yelled back and quickly exited Roman's bedroom. He didn't come after me. He knew he was going to have to wait. I still had no idea why I was working this hard to help this anger-infested, temperamental, hot mess of a man, but I was. And I regretted it 60% of the time.