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I think you might be wrong on this one.
“Stop. I need to focus. Not on whatever the hell is happening with Elise, or even with Lydia. I didn’t like the sound of the guy who brought her to the party, but again. Not. My. Problem. Whatismy problem is finalizing things with the consortium.”
Those people aren’t for you.
“I agree. None of them belong in the world.”
What about Jacob?
The ex-boyfriend who broke my heart. Who came back to town. Who kissed me at that nightmare of a party.
Said he still loved me.
Said he’d never stopped.
It hurt to hear it. I was desperate for his love when my parents died, but I couldn’t tell him what was happening with us. I couldn’t tell him about the shitty motel or the equally shitty apartment. I couldn’t tell him that Mason was dying in front of me. I was fifteen and grieving and ashamed, and I knew he wouldn’t understand. I never gave him the chance to understand.
And then I started going into the alleys.
I’d never have been able to explain that. Not to someone like Jacob Chambers, who lived a charmed existence, who had never worried about money for a single moment in his life. Not to anyone else.
“I don’t want to talk about Jacob. I don’t want to talk about any of that. And trust me, you don’t want to hear it.”
I would listen, you know.
“You are nobody. You’re a voice in my head. You’re probably a sign that I’m losing it. But I can’t afford to do that, so I’m going to work.”
In the office parking garage, I lean against the headrest and press my knuckles to my chest. When Jacob kissed me at that party, I should have leaned into it. I should have used him for my own purposes like everyone else I’ve kissed and fucked in the last fifteen years.
That’s how I use sex. Not to feel good.
I use it to get what I want. Information. Revenge.
Jesus, I was a fool, chasing Elise out of that room. Confessing things to her like I could ever stay. Like I could ever belong to her.
That’s not how this ends.
I get out of the SUV and disappear into work. I’m barely present for the role I’m playing. A charming, demanding boss who expects the best from everyone he hires. It’s more than a little ironic that these people are going to be fucked over when I take the consortium down.
For your signature, Mr. Hill.My secretary smiles at me. I smile back.
Lunch today?My CFO sticks her head in the door just before noon, expression hopeful.We could talk plans for next quarter.
I eat lunch with her at a place down the street, tasting none of the food.
It’s someone’s birthday.
Happy birthday. Here’s to many more.
I don’t eat any cake.
At four, I call the headquarters of the Chambers family company and talk my way to a secretary who’s sympathetic when I tell her that I got a new phone and all my contacts were deleted and could she please give me Jacob’s cell number? I’m not surewhen I’ll see him next, and we’d been talking about a business deal.
I’m not texting him because I want him back.
I don’t.
But Jacob is entering the consortium, too. He’s the only person who’s mentioned aninitiation.It was brief. We didn’t talk more about it. Now we have to. I’m not going to be taken by surprise by some ceremony orchestrated by Bettencourt.
