Chapter 12 - Piper’s Choice
Piper returned to work when Oliver was eight months old.
Not at Ashford Hotels.
She built a small consulting company.
Legitimately this time.
She called it Vale Advisory.
Grant offered money.
She refused anything beyond formal child support.
“I need something that isn’t connected to him,” she told me.
I understood perfectly.
Our relationship remained unusual.
We were not sisters.
We were not best friends.
We were two women who had once been placed on opposite sides of a lie and eventually discovered the person benefiting most from our hostility was the person lying to both of us.
One afternoon, Piper apologized again.
I stopped her.
“You already apologized.”
“I know.”
“Then live differently.”
She stared at me.
“That’s it?”
“That’s harder than apologizing.”
She smiled.
“You really are terrifying.”
“So I’ve been told.”
May you like
Oliver laughed from his high chair.
And for the first time, all three of us laughed together.
