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In the space of half an hour, my life had started to crumble, and what should have been an exciting chat about a promotion had turned into a humiliating job loss and resurrection of old wounds. The wind nipped at my cheeks and fingers, threatening to turn flesh into ice, but I didn’t have the focus to fight it. The fuzzy, confused cloud that had settled over me continued until I reached the subway station.
I took the steps two at a time, building speed as the prospect of drinking my last bottle of wine and crying my eyes out grew more appealing by the second. Making it down into the dark tunnel, I pulled the hat from my head and stamped my feet to shake off the snow, only to stumble when I turned around a pillar and walked smack bang into a solid back.
“Oh my God,” I gasped, jolted out of my thoughts. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t—” A powerful wave of disgust flooded me when I lifted my head and came face-to-face with the stranger.
Only he wasn’t a stranger.
Blue eyes so light they were almost gray stared back at me, set shallow into a square face topped by a close-cropped shaved head.
“Well, well, well, it ain’t time for Summer,” drawled the achingly familiar nasal voice of Felix Saunders, my ex-boyfriend.
What the fuck was he doing here?
Felix’s hands landed on my upper arms, helping to steady my footing, but he didn’t let go when I was still.
“What… what are you…howare you…?” I stumbled over my words, trying to work through all the thoughts dislodged by our collision and the shock of seeing him standing before me. The last time I had seen him was when he was dragged away into a police car and arrested for a drunken hit-and-run.
“Oh, how am I here, you mean?” Felix scoffed, and his grip tightened slightly. “And not in prison whereyouput me?”
“I…” Words failed me, and I tried to pull away, but Felix’s grip on my arms tightened further.
“What’s the matter, Summer? Surprised to see me?”
“Of course I am,” I gasped finally. “I never thought I would see you again. What are you even doing here?” The nausea that had faded on the walk from the hotel to the subway surged up once again, and that familiar acrid taste washed over my tongue.
“I’m getting the train, obviously,” Felix remarked, “but I was hoping to run into you. I wanted to see you after the big reveal.”
“What reveal?”
“Your little showcase of the boudoir shoot?” Felix sneered. “I’m sure your boss will have a pretty wank over those.”
“You?!” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, and in a surge of energy I wrenched myself out of his grip. “You sent those? What the fuck is wrong with you?! How did you even know where I worked—you know what, I don’t even care. You’re still just as twisted now as you were back then.”
“Careful,” Felix spat low, “don’tpushme, Summer. I just wanted to talk.”
“Talk?” With the daze gone, the anger of losing my job and the humiliation from those pictures surged up. I threw both my hands forward, shoving Felix furiously toward the track. “We have nothing to say to each other. Do you have any idea how much you’ve royallyfuckedme?”
“Oh, I’m just getting started baby,” Felix laughed and grasped at my flailing fist, only to release me when a sudden surge of people flooded down the staircase and filled the platform.
The train screeched into the station a few seconds later. In a rush, I threw myself onto the train and hurried through a few subway cars, losing myself in the crowd before I took a seat. With a hammering heart and trembling hands, I huddled into my chair and kept my eyes fixed on the doors until they closed. As the train pulled forward, I saw Felix’s square face peering into the cars, so I huddled down further until we were safely away from the station.
Felix was out of prison and back in town.
I couldn’t wrap my head around how he had found me, never mind how he had those pictures to send to my work. Was it some kind of twisted revenge because my testimony sent him to prison? In a flash, my mind was filled with that terrible night. I had been a drunk passenger in Felix’s car as we had crashed into some poor man crossing the road.
Just the thought of the crunch his body had made on the hood caused nausea to swell, and I shifted in my seat, trying to shove those memories away.
After a beat, I pulled out my phone and quickly pulled up a job search engine, anything to distract myself from those memories. What better way than trying to find a new job immediately? I lived paycheck to paycheck, a lull in funds wasn’t an option.
Three stations later, my heart was calmer, and I had scrolled through nearly 100 job listings, each one dampening my spirit a little more, but they were all a decent distraction from the noise in my head. Close to giving up, I almost closed my phone when one job caught my eye.
Someone was looking for an in-house nanny to care for three children. The nanny needed to be capable of traveling over the holiday period. Tapping on the ad, my heart skipped a beat as the paycheck stared back at me in big black letters.
Ten thousand dollarsper dayover a minimum of two and a half weeks with the chance that the trip could be extended into the New Year. Such an amount wasmind-blowing.
It couldn’t be real.
Tapping for more information, I was surprised that the job poster was none other than Luke Ellis, President of Helix. Helix was a security company that covered everything from computer software to in-person safety. It was the primary security provider at the Belancio, so the name was familiar.
