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There is no way I’m going to let Rufus be embarrassed there tonight. I pull out my phone and text my roommate.
Any chance you could give me a makeover this afternoon?
Chapter2
Rufus
After composing myself,I stalk into the front office space where Clover sits.
I circle her desk, expecting her to return any moment, but when I tap her keyboard to turn her monitor on and see what faraway vacation spot she’s set as today’s screensaver, I realize it’s not on.
And the files are all put away.
I yank open the drawer where she keeps her purse and want to howl in frustration when I realize it’s gone. She’s gone.You gave her the afternoon off, you idiot.Sure, but I also asked her to say goodbye when she left.
And then Andrew’s obnoxious visit made it so that I missed her departure.
The flood of desperate yearning that pours through my chest is downright embarrassing. This is how I feel every Friday now, filled with a frustrated ache that could only be soothed by the woman of my dreams not being my employee.
Which would mean firing her so I can love her, and that’s obviously a nonstarter.
So I have to satisfy myself with the smallest but most precious moments. When we start a project. Finish a project. When she arrives in the morning, her cheeks pink from rushing, and she skids to a stop in front of my desk. The slower way she slides in to say goodbye at the end of every day.
But not today.
You told her to leave.
I didn’t really want her to go, though.
Fuck.
Slowly, I drag myself back to my desk. BNSE started as an eco-friendly, producer-driven import/export company inspired by a backpacking trip Andrew and I took through Central America a lifetime ago. When we were young idealists.
Now we have massive teams that do the work we once did, and we spend most of our time setting the vision for the business. Adding more divisions, acquiring firms who can improve our bottom line. Or we did, until Clover came to work for me. She has no idea she inspired me to dive back into proof-of-concept research. I should tell her, but I don’t want to confess how far I had drifted from where I wanted to be in this company.
And I don’t want her to know how divided Andrew and I are now that I’ve gone back to my roots.
It’s for the best that she left before he and I fought. My whole body is still tense from the confrontation, and in a few hours, I need to meet up with him and make excuses for why my fiancée can’t join us at the last minute.
My life is a mess, a disaster of my own making, and it cannot continue like this. It’s time for a real change. It’s time for me to come clean with Andrew and tell him how unhappy I am.
***
I’mthe first to arrive at the restaurant. Of course I am. I order a drink at the bar, then take it out to the terrace that overlooks the city.
I savor each sip of the top shelf whiskey as if it were my last, which it very well could be, at least in this setting, with this ease.
This might be the last meal Andrew and I have as business partners. Itshould bethe last meal like this, because we have grown apart and life is to short to live a lie.
From this point on, I only want to be honest with him.
I want out.
I made mistakes, chief among them lying about having a fiancée. But underneath that lie and all the other fudged answers about agreeing to the BNSE expansions lies a truth I can no longer deny—I want something simpler.
“Mr. Newton Smith, the other guests have arrived,” one of the restaurant staff quietly murmurs from the doorway to the terrace. I swallow the last of my drink and turn to follow, bracing myself for that first, annoying glimpse of Andrew gripping his fiancée Heather a little too tightly to his side like she’s a virility badge of honor.
He’s always been like that with women, and I find it exhausting.
