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“Being a dick is why you pay me the big bucks,” I said, taking my paperwork to go look over in my own office.
I had this distinct feeling that Miss Blythe-Meuller was not the kind of woman who was going to play nice herself.
So I had no intentions of doing so either.
TWO
Sloane
“You’re not going to tell me it is going to be alright?” I asked after the redhead with the great skirt and killer heels led me around the building, then up a staircase in the back to a second floor.
“I figure this is likely the worst day of your life,” she said, shrugging a slight shoulder as she punched in a code on the alarm system, then pulled open the door. “I don’t imagine fake platitudes are going to make you feel any better.”
I liked that.
The honesty there.
It helped.
To stay focused. To move forward. To make sure I didn’t harp on it.
Everything I was losing.
Everything I had worked so damn hard for.
“This is the common area,” Jules explained, waving toward the couch, armchairs, coffee table, television, and a lush gray carpet. “There is a small kitchenette,” she went on, clearly the person who had given the spiel many times before. I wondered a bit fleetingly how many women had been in a similar circumstance as me. Having a situation beyond their control get so dangerous that they have to leave everything they know and love behind. “Help yourself to anything in the fridge or cabinets. Coffee. Whatever you might need. And down here are the rooms,” she went on, her heels clicking on the dark floor as she went down a hall with doors flanking either side.
“Is anyone else staying right now?” I asked, having the selfish desire to be alone.
“You lucked out. Or, depending on how you feel, pulled the short straw. There’s no one staying right now.”
“Good,” I agreed with a nod. “Closest to the common room, or furthest?” she asked, waving at the doors, ten in all.
“End,” I decided, figuring it was the furthest away from people if they happened up, the most private.
“Alright. Well, here we go,” she said, leading me to the left. “There is a bed, closet, and a small private bath. I will have someone bring your bags up. Settle in. Try to get some sleep. Gunner will likely be coming for you early in the morning.”
With that, she opened the door for me, then turned and walked away. Professional. Efficient. A bit standoffish. I would have hired her in a heartbeat too.
“Thank you,” I remembered to call before she was too far to hear me.
With that, I let myself into the room, finding it bare, but not completely uncomfortable. The bed was a full-size with a sturdy black wood frame, white bedding, and half a dozen pillows. There was a nightstand with a lamp, a stack of magazines, and the remotes for the TV that was above the dresser across from the bed.
I moved across the floor, pulling open the door to the bathroom, doing so with a swirling sensation in my stomach that I had never felt before, it likely being the product of my recent shower incident.
Incident.
That was a good way to think of it.
An ‘incident’ was easy to compartmentalize, tuck away, convince yourself it wasn’t a big deal.
That was what I needed to do. So I could keep it together. So my mind didn’t keep going back to being in the shower, to being naked, vulnerable, then have a man rip open the door, and plunge something sharp into your abdomen, the pain immediate and searing, whiting out your vision, making your insides revolt, the bile rising up even as you tried to scream.
I shook my head, trying to get the thoughts to settle back in their hiding place. To be dealt with when things were more settled.
I moved my gaze away from the compact shower stall, suddenly understanding why Janet Leigh from Psycho could never shower again after she filmed that movie.
Moving over toward the sink, I took a deep breath, and looked myself in the eye.
You couldn’t see it there.
The despair.
The horror.
The desperation.
The rage.
I had schooled my poker face after getting yelled at on my first job at sixteen when I had humiliated myself by crying in front of everyone around me. I had vowed to myself never to let that happen again, never to let someone see what was going on inside.
I’d gotten good at it over the years.
Not even now, when my entire universe was crumbling at my feet, could you tell I was anything other than in-control. Composed. Confident.
It was all a show, of course.
I was all ashes and ruins inside.
In just under forty-eight hours, a dozen men and women would walk up to a storefront dressed up because that was what I had always demanded, standing there checking their cells, brows furrowed. Because I never made them wait for me. I always showed up before everyone, unlocked the door, got to work.
