He pulled his pants up and sat in her wingback chair to put on his socks and shoes.
“What do you say?”
“I say no,” he said in his usual blunt way.
“Why not, Edmund? Just for a change?”
“I don’t need a change.”
When he said those words, it did something to Shannon. She flung her long, dark-weaved hair backwards and gave him a harsh stare. It was always all about what he wanted and needed. Never what she wanted or needed. And she was tired of it. “I’m the one who needs a change,” she said. “How about that?”
He looked at her. He wasn’t accustomed to her using that tone with him.
“Today is my birthday, Edmund, and I need a change. What do you say about that?”
He continued to put on his footwear.
She was amazed by his lack of response. “You can’t even wish me ahappy birthday?”
“That’s not why you brought it up.”
“Oh yeah? Why did I bring it up since you’re this expert on me?”
“You brought it up as a cudgel. You’re forty and therefore I’m expected to set my time by your biological clock.” He looked his hard blue eyes at her. “I’m not doing that.”
“We need to make a decision, Edmund.”
“No.Youneed to make a decision. I told you two years ago that I’m not committing to you or anybody else. Our relationship will be exactly what it was two years ago and exactly what it will be two years from now if we choose to continue. It is what it is and it will always be what it is. I told you that two years ago, Shannon. If it no longer works for you, then just say so and I’m out.” Edmund gave her a hard look. “But I’m out for good.”
And that was when he always got her and all his other ladies and Shannon knew it. If she told him to get out of her life, he was going to stay out. She would no longer be on the list, let alone at the head of the list! And he knew it.
She looked at that man as he made his way to the nightstand. Again she wondered why did he have to be so fine?And the older he got, the better he looked to her. Which only made it worse. Because she knew, deep down, just as she knew he knew, she wasn’t giving that up.
“Why do I put up with your ass?” she asked him.
“You don’t put up with my ass,” he said as he put his phone and keys and change back in his pockets. “You put up with my dick.”
They looked at each other. For Edmund, he was just telling the naked truth. For Shannon, she hated herself for loving a selfish, egotistical, uncaring man like him. But she knew it was the naked truth too.
That was why, when he turned to leave, she couldn’t resist. “When will you be back?”
He glanced back at her, but didn’t stop walking. “I’ll call you,” he said.
Which, she knew, meant he’d be back when he got the urge to come back because that was how he rolled and that was how she let him roll. That was the naked truth too.
And he left.
CHAPTER SIX
She still couldn’t believe it. Hard as she worked? All those years of her blood, sweat, and tears, working all times of the day and night for that job, and this was how they repaid her? It just couldn’t be!
She parked her Camry against the curb, grabbed her shoulder bag and phone, and hopped out like a reporter on a mad dash to a big story. Onlyshewas the story this time.
She had to park near the end of the block, but she hurried down that sidewalk in a near sprint. She couldn’t get there fast enough. That text stunned her. She even looked at it again as she hurried. She still couldn’t believe the nerve of those people after all she gave to that organization. Was she being pranked? Was this a big joke? She could not believe it.
And when she made it inside the four-story Dillon Post-Dispatch newspaper building on Branch Street, she was moving even faster.
She ditched that sometimes-working elevator for the stairs, and made it to the fourth floor in seconds, not minutes. And then she sprinted toward his secretary’s desk.
