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I closed and locked my office door, went to the phone, and dialed Joanna’s number, my fingers automatically finding the right digits. I was very much a product of my generation, and therefore hardly knew anyone’s phone number by heart, thanks to my constant usage of speed-dial. But considering how many times I had called Joanna over the past two days, I had learned her number by heart. It may have just been my imagination, but I thought I could even distinguish between the sounds of the rings; when I listened to the rings of calls she wasn’t going to answer, there was a hollow tone to them that other rings didn’t have.
“Come on, Jo, pick up,” I pleaded, but already knowing it was useless after the fourth ring. The phone chirped, delivering me to her voicemail for the billionth time. I had a feeling that I was just a couple messages away from completely filling up her inbox.
“Joanna, please. Just call me back. We can work this out. I’ll talk to Tobias. He’ll get over it. He has to. I’m not going to just give up because he caught us. Come on, Joanna! Answer me! Just pick up—” but I was cut off by the beep, which had also happened to me for the billionth time.
I leaned back in my seat, wondering again how I had managed to get myself into such an unfortunate predicament. In one night, I had lost my best friend and the girl of my dreams. It just didn’t make sense.
I sat in my seat, so disappointed with myself that I started getting a pounding headache. I rested my head on my desk, tired, angry, frustrated, and sickened all at once.
I wasn’t sure how much time passed, but I eventually realized I couldn’t spend the entire day hiding in my office in despair, especially while there was still a lot of work to be done. After all, I had just harassed a couple of employees. What message would I be sending if I spent an entire day being useless and unproductive?
Furthermore, I didn’t need another reason for Tobias to be upset with me, that was for sure.
An uncomfortable feeling washed over me again, knowing that too many people already thought I had only landed my role at the firm for being Tobias’s best friend. I had never cared much about the rumors, believing them to be nonsense. Now, however, if I lost my best friend status, how could I be certain that my job wouldn’t be the next thing to get lost?
I wanted to believe that I was important to the firm, but I couldn’t be naïve enough to think that Joanna couldn’t easily take over my job if necessary. And where would that leave me?
Out of a best friend. Out of a woman. Out of work…
At the end of the day, I wasn’t irreplaceable.
I shuddered, and turned on my computer. The times of taking anything for granted was far behind me now.
Trying to ignore my pounding headache, I began to pull up the latest numbers. Yet they only sent a pang through my chest, for I knew that they would be a lot easier to make sense of if Joanna beside me, checking over them also. We’d made a good team.
“Dammit,” I said and sighed.
CHAPTER 22
Joanna
I knew Anderson had been trying to call me, but I just couldn’t muster the energy to speak with him. After leaving the gala, I’d turned off my phone and went straight back to Tobias’s, hating that I didn’t have anywhere else to go. When I got back to Tobias’s big empty mansion, it was almost too much for me to bear, thinking back to the utter disappointment and disgust that had been on his face when he’d caught me with Anderson.
I shuddered just thinking about it, for never in my life had my brother looked at me that way. It was a look that I hoped to never to receive from him ever again.
I had contemplated packing my things and staying at a hotel, but before I had a chance to act on it, my stomach heaved with nausea again.
I spent the rest of the night and the following morning vomiting. I could only presume the fancy food provided at the gala hadn’t agreed with me at all. Clinging to the toilet bowl, I wished I had just opted to stay home that night entirely. Perhaps the whole Lauren fiasco had been foreshadowing that the night had been doomed.
It had been late when Tobias made it home from the event. I had just cleaned myself up from another bout of vomiting when I heard him tinkering around in the kitchen. I halfway wanted to hide from him indefinitely, but doing so made me feel too much like a child, as if I was refusing to come out of my room after upsetting my parents. So I forced myself to go downstairs to greet him.
When I reached the kitchen, he was facing the refrigerator, throwing back a drink of some kind.
“How did your speech go?” I asked, my voice cutting through the icy silence permeating the house.
Tobias turned around, slammed his cup onto the kitchen counter, and walked passed me without saying a word.
I started to feel sick all over again, but felt grateful that he hadn’t kicked me out of his house, at least…
Taking the hint that he didn’t want to talk, I headed back to my room, where I remained for the rest of the night, fighting intense bouts of na
usea every time I thought of Tobias and Anderson and what I could possibly do to remedy our situation.
*
The night of the gala, I went to bed, hoping and praying that I would feel better when I woke the following morning. But the sickness persisted, and even got worse in the morning. I had wanted to ask Tobias about the dinner that had been served and whether he was feeling all right afterwards. But he continued avoiding me like the plague and was out of the house before I could even think about trying to have a heart-to-heart conversation with him about what had happened.
Anderson continued to call and text me, but I resisted responding to him. As much as I hated ignoring him, I felt that talking to him would only make things worse. I needed to get things right with my brother first, because deep down, I agreed that Anderson and I had been disrespectful to him in hiding our relationship.
