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“Friday,” I remind her. “Email me your address.”
“Friday,” she parrots, her throat splotchy red from both my handling and her response to me.
“I don’t want you to be afraid of me, Quinn. I want to help you.”
She doesn’t ask why, and I don’t offer.
But the answer is…because.
Just because.
“Goodnight, Joshua.”
“Night, Violent Q.”
At least I know she can live up to her nickname.
2
The present…
The tapping of my pen against the table finally irritates my assistant to the point where he darts forward out of his chair and slams his hand down, capturing it beneath his palm. “Quinn, why are you so distracted?”
Frowning, I exhale and collapse back in my chair. “I have a lot on my mind, and a business to run,” I remind him.
Wayne has been my assistant and friend since I hired him three years ago. He and his husband, Luke, have become family to me, yet my secrets are still kept locked away inside the vault of my mind. I’ve told no one about what happened to me all those years ago, nor what I was planning to do to help myself fully heal from it.
“I’ve never seen you this way,” he says. “Is there anything I can help with?”
Smiling over at him, I stand and round the desk, holding out a folder. “You can run your eyes over the marketing proposal for our meeting with Harose Records next week. This is a huge opportunity for our company. I don’t want to mess it up. It’s not often they outsource for marketing.”
Nodding and offering me a tight smile, he takes the folder and gets to his feet, but doesn’t leave. “You’re going to have to trust someone with what’s going on up there some time,” he says, tapping a finger against my forehead. “It’s not healthy to keep it all inside.” His hand drops to my shoulder, squeezing. “I’m here for you whenever you’re ready.”
Placing my palm over his hand, I tilt my head to rest there. “I know, and I love you for it.”
“Love you too.”
When the door closes behind him, I close my eyes, a heavy sigh deflating my chest.
My focus is off today because I can’t stop thinking about the meeting with Joshua tonight. It felt like fate when I saw him at Harose Records a month ago. Old memories had been tormenting me after a fire scare at the office a few months back. Firetrucks arrived followed by a police cruiser. All the hidden demons inside me crept from the darkness, sending me spiraling back to that dirt road. I’d thought I was past the fear, but it slammed into me like a freight train, robbing me of breath when the officer stepped out and asked to speak to me.
No…no…no.
I know the monster who robbed me of so much isn’t every officer. There are good, honest policemen out there, but no matter how much I rationalize this to myself, the uniform, the cruiser…it all brings an overwhelming weight of anxiety I can’t shake.
An alert on my laptop pings, reminding me my therapy session is in an hour, and I laugh out loud. I thought I was past this broken girl feeling, but here I am back in therapy trying to regain control.
“So, he’s the one you’re choosing?” Dr. Angelina Vance asks.
Gripping the armrests of the chair I’ve sat in for an hour once a week for the past eight weeks, I think about Joshua. About the day I went to Harose Records to meet Mr. Hayes about an opportunity he had for my company. A company I built from the ground up and made a success in a very short time.
I sat in the reception area waiting for him, arriving thirty minutes early like always. That’s when I saw him—Joshua—laughing with another man about the band Berlin Scandal. I’d managed to watch them through the leaves of an oversized plant. His laugh was captivating and would draw anyone’s attention. He hasn’t changed since I first saw him years ago at my college graduation. He was there for his little brother, Rocko. I was intrigued to finally see the infamous club owner brother who catered to people’s sexual kinks. My eyes became transfixed on the way his sleeves were rolled up his forearms, a fancy watch decorating his wrist. A crisp shirt, tight in all the right places. A suit jacket held by the collar in his fist. Slacks covering tall, firm legs. And damn, that ass. Blue eyes sparkled with amusement. I felt utterly captivated by him. An ease came over me, allowing me to just breathe and be in the moment.
And then he was walking out, and my impulse to run after him was insane.
That’s when I knew it was meant to be. I hadn’t seen Rocko since graduation, but he was never the same after the night he saw me in the aftermath. He begged me to tell him what happened, who hurt me, but I shut down. Fear, anger, and guilt ate away at the girl I used to be. I became someone new. Someone my once best friend Amy didn’t recognize. We all drifted apart. I don’t even know what they’re doing with their lives now.
