Chapter 314 The scum came back

Chapter 314 The scum came back
Cassie had been curious from the moment Evelyn walked through that door with a man on her arm and a blush she couldn't quite get under control, but Evelyn, sweet, careful, always ten steps ahead of everyone else at work and somehow completely undone by a room full of people who loved her, had been too nervous to open her mouth.

The fear of being read wrong, of having her story land sideways before she'd had a chance to shape it properly, had been sitting all over her face since she walked in, and Cassie had seen it and waited, because that was what you did with people who needed a beat to gather themselves.

What she hadn't anticipated was the man himself stepping in.

"My name is Marvin." His voice was even, unhurried, carrying the particular quiet confidence of someone who had made peace with the version of himself he was presenting.

Cassie remembered immediately at the mention of the name but before she could utter a word, Marvin explained further, confirming what she had at the tip of her tongue but did not let out.

"We used to date. But she never really had time for me back then, and eventually we went our separate ways."

He paused for just a moment, his eyes moving briefly to Evelyn beside him with something in them that was too settled and too warm to be anything other than the real thing.

"Recently, she helped me through the hardest thing I've been through in a long time. And after that, we found our way back to each other."

The room absorbed it.

Cassie's jaw came open. Just slightly. Just enough. She snapped it back into place almost immediately, but not before the understanding hit her fully, the whole picture of why Evelyn had been so reluctant to bring this up, why the blush had been sitting so high on her cheeks all evening, why she'd been holding that man's arm like he might disappear if she loosened her grip.

This was layered, having history and weight and the specific tenderness of something that had been lost and then, against reasonable odds, recovered.

No wonder she hadn't said a word.

"Okay, everyone, drink," Cassie said, lifting her own glass and letting the warmth in her voice do what it was meant to do, which was take the pressure off the moment and let the room breathe again.

The instruction landed exactly right, people reached for their glasses, conversation bloomed back up around the edges, and the atmosphere loosened into something easy and unhurried.

Cassie turned back to Evelyn with quieter eyes, leaning in just slightly so the words carried the weight she intended without broadcasting them across the room.

She thought, briefly but clearly, of what Evelyn had told her once, the confession about her obsession with Franklin, the months she'd spent tangled up in something that was never going to be what she needed it to be.

She thought about how far Evelyn had come from that version of herself.

"I hope that this time," Cassie said carefully, not unkindly, "you'll be good to him."

She was glad to have formed this group called family because Evelyn worked for her, and any mishaps with her relationship, would greatly affect her performance.

Now, catching up on each other’s lives gave Cassie the chance to offer needed advise, as well as learn from her peers as well.

Evelyn's smile came up slowly, the way a sunrise does. It was gradual and then suddenly there, filling everything. "This time," she said, with a steadiness that sounded like a promise she'd already made to herself long before tonight, "I'll be at my very best."

Cassie believed her. She also noticed, with no small amount of amusement, that Marvin had been smiling like an absolute fool from the moment Evelyn made that promise and hadn't stopped once.

The expression on his face was the specific brand of helpless, unguarded happiness that a man wears when he has gotten something back that he thought was gone for good and still hasn't entirely convinced himself it's real.

Cassie let herself enjoy that for exactly one second before she turned her attention across the room. "Alright, Gigi," she said, easy as anything, "what have you got for us?"

Giselle nearly choked. The martini glass paused halfway to her lips and she looked up with wide eyes, clearly not having braced herself for an early mention.

She recovered quickly, setting the glass down with a composure that was only slightly theatrical and drawing herself up just enough to signal that she was, in fact, going to say what needed to be said.

"The scum came back," she announced, with the flat, unhurried delivery of a woman reading a weather report she finds personally offensive.

"After all his failed attempts to get at my money went nowhere, he has apparently had a revelation."

She picked up the martini again and took a considered sip. "Now he claims I'm the only woman he's ever loved. Says he wants me back."

Author's note:

Sorry for the chapter mix ups. It's difficult to make the corrections so I changed the chapter titles to the correct sequence. Hopefully, it will be visible tommorrow. So sorry for the inconvenience.