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He was finding himself, figuring out what he wanted. He bought a guitar he couldn’t play, turned our garage into a wood-working shed where he discovered a supposed saw dust allergy, painted canvasses that didn’t sell, tried to be a podcaster, etc., etc., but nothing stuck.
And in the meantime?
The mortgage had to get paid.
So I was grinding. In my mind, I was doing what I was supposed to – holding him down while he figured his shit out, and got it together. I hired corporate lawyers, took on investors, did what I had to do to buildVivid Vixento a place where it didn’t even matter if Kellen had an income.
But that was a mistake.
Because, while the money didn’t matter, itdidmatter that the man I’d fallen in love with, the man I’d taken vows with, was a go-getter. He was handsome, athletic, funny, sure. To anyone who wasn’t deaf and blind, Kellen was sexy. But his drive to be successful, his work ethic, his pursuit of prestige in his chosen field…thosewere the things that set him apart, and really got my motor running. I didn’t need Kellen to be rich, or powerful.
I just needed him todosomething.
But he wouldn’t.
Or maybe couldn’t.
But the longer he “tried to find himself” the less interested I became. I threw myself into work to avoid being at home, and while my marriage withered…Vivid Vixensoared. That wasn’t Kellen’s fault – it was mine.
Maybe I should’ve worked less, spent more time rubbing his shoulders and telling him it would be okay. Spent days on the couch with him, figuring out a new dream to chase. But I wasn’t wired for that, and again… it just wasn’t the type of man I thought Kellen was.
But, I hadn’t seen the pregnant mistress coming either.
Even though Crystal had been preceded by a long line of other women – some, the early ones, were only revealed through the marriage counseling attempt, others, he was blatant with – I somehow still held on to the notion that there was some part of him that still cared for me. Fourteen years of marriage had to meansomething, right?
I shook my head as I climbed out of my car, clutching my brand-new phone and laptop. When it came down to it… no, fourteen years of marriage didn’t mean a goddamn thing.Vivid Vixenwas the love of my life, and I couldn’t even bring myself to feel any sort of real regret over what my focus on it had done to my marriage. Guilt? Maybe.
But now…Vivid Vixenwas all I had.
Inside the building, I made my way past security and up to my office on the third floor. The basement was our warehouse, where we kept merchandise stocked and ready to send out. The first floor was reserved for production, and the fourth floor – the most secure floor, for good reason – housed research and development.
Instead of taking the elevator straight to the third floor, I purposely got off on the second, and ignored lots of curious stares as I made my way past customer service, sales and marketing – I already knew, everybody wanted to see my reaction to the social media lies about the products. But they had their scripts and talking points, handcrafted by thequeenof public relations – Chloe.
With any luck, they were the key to turning this whole thing around.
It was important, I thought, for them to see me looking breezy and unbothered by all of this, which was why I got off on two, and used the tempered glass staircase in the middle of the floor to make my way to the third.
I wanted to make an entrance.
As soon as she saw me, Kim jumped up from her desk, rushing to meet me as I entered the reception area that led to my office.
“Good morning, Mrs. Stuart,” she greeted. “I wasn’t expecting you today. Is that a new laptop?”
“It is,” I nodded, putting the box into her hands. “I need you to set it up for me, without connecting to the company network. You can tether it to the internet from my phone.”
One of Kim’s neatly groomed eyebrows lifted. “Why wouldn’t you want to use the company network?”
“Because it’s hacked. So, I also need you to make sure that R&D stops any type of automatic syncing of research notes, anything like that. Until I’ve gotten someone in here to get it all cleaned up, everything needs to be kept locally.Nointernet connections. Shut it down.”
Kim shook her head. “But we can’t work without the internet. What about customer service, and—”
“Well, obviously notthatdepartment,” I snapped, with more bite than I intended. “I don’t want to shut down operations – everybody should work as usual, except for the fourth floor. I don’t want to give them anything more than they already have.”
“Who isthey?”
I pushed out a sigh. “I don’t know yet. I wish I did. I have a contact with the police who is working on getting someone to look into it, so we should know soon. And I’m sorry for snapping at you.”
“I didn’t take it personally,” Kim said, offering me a sympathetic smile. “I know it’s probably been a rough morning.”
