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I snap my eyes shut and bite the inside of my cheek until I taste the copper of my blood. But it does the trick and distracts me from the throb in my chest long enough for me to take a breath.
“The package must have already gone up with the—Beth. You okay?” Arnie’s concerned voice brings me back to the present. I open my eyes and grimace at the worry on his normally jovial face.
He glances at the television and then back at me. “What’s got you shook so bad?” His tone is as bewildered as his expression.
“It’s nothing. Just a sad news story. I just need a minute.” I rest my hands on the counter in front of me and give him what I hope is a convincingly embarrassed smile.
He glances down toward the front of the building and grimaces. “Well you might want to wait until you’re on the elevator to take it. Mr. Tremaine has just stepped into the lobby.” If the unmistakable warning in his voice isn’t enough to shakes me out of my emotional spiral, the words certainly are.
I dart a glance over my shoulder and spot Duke Tremaine making his way toward us. “Thank you. And I’m fine, I swear,” I insist when his expression remains doubtful.
But I don’t tarry a second longer. I walk as fast as I can without actually running and step onto the full car with its doors about to close.
On a normal day, I’d avoid the crowd. But the prospect of being on an elevator alone with Duke is worse than all the stops between here and my 38th floor office and the sickening mix of liberally doused colognes, coffee breath, and banal small talk I’ll have to endure.
With a muttered apology, I squeeze past the unyielding bodies until I’m at the back of the elevator and rest my head on the cool metal wall when the doors start to close.
My relief, though, proves premature. At the last minute, the doors bounce open and a chorus of “Good morning, Mr. Tremaine,” break out as Duke snuffs out my small victory and steps onto the same elevator.
It’s not lost on me how the men who didn’t budge to make room for me shuffle and shrink so he can stand without the indignity of another human body pressed against him like the rest of us.
The man directly in front lobs a cursory, insincere “sorry” over his shoulder when he treads on my toes. Being the boss’s barely acknowledged daughter doesn’t have the same gravitas as being his golden child, heir apparent. Normally, I’d be glad to evade their notice.
They never have anything interesting to say, and these elevator rides are the last moments I have to think until I get back into my car at the end of the day.
But today, I’d give anything to escape the memories seeing Carter on television has brought rushing to the surface.
I close my eyes against the ache in my chest as I remember the day he told me loved me and the devastating moment I realized he hadn’t meant it. I grit my teeth against the awful weight of self loathing when I realized how unreliable my own judgement was.
“This is your stop, Clover.” Duke’s voice, closer than it should be, yanks me back to the present and I open my eyes
The car is empty of everyone but the two of us, and he’s moved to stand less than a foot away from me with his back to the open doors, a bemused expression on his face.
Normally, I’d have a snarky retort at the ready, but my energy has been completely drained by that flex of my memory’s muscle.
“Thank you. Excuse me.” I step around him to leave the elevator and stride purposefully to the small kitchen. I say a quick prayer of thanks when I find it empty and grab a bottle of water from the fridge and press it to the back of my overheated neck before I relieve my parched throat.
After so many years of successfully holding them at bay, I’d forgotten the affect just thinking Carter has on me. I used to wake up at night—drenched in sweat, cold, acutely aware of how very alone I was. I was plagued by abject misery watching him move on like I never existed.
I’m not sorry he is in my past,
I don’t long for him.
I loathe him for what he did to me.
But that initial wave of sympathy I felt after seeing the headline about his father, who I know he loved with an idol-like reverence, is a rude reminder that despite everything, I still care about him.
I’ve known enough heartbreak to understand that hate is just the other side of a coin stamped with love. At the telltale prick of tears, I reach for my phone, open my photos to an album titled In Case of Emergency and make my trembling finger press it open.
I watch the video from that night twice and when I’m done, I’m reminded that he’s not worth my tears. Especially not today, when I’m just minutes away from relishing the taste of my hard-earned victory.
I put my phone away, finish my water, and walk to my office.
Duke is leaning against the door with a smug smirk on his stupid face.
“What do you want?”
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were avoiding me,” he drawls and steps aside so I can unlock the door.
