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CHRISTABELLE
BACK TO THE REAL WORLD
The moment the elevator doors open inside theCannon Dailybuilding and reveal to me the floor I live and thrive upon, with journalists bustling one way, and shouted voices going another, with the production of a paper underway, and best of all, Dana stopping in front of me with a fresh to-go coffee in offer, I exhale the breath that has been clogged in my throat from the second I tiptoed out of Felix’s bed and into the night.
“Thank god.” I accept the coffee and stalk out of the elevator in three-inch heels and a skirt-suit; the uniform I’ve become accustomed to wearing to work.
This is who I am. This is how I dress.
But jesus, I already miss Felix’s shirts. I miss casual jeans and sneakers.
“I’m glad you’re feeling better, Ms. Cannon.” Dana pivots and bustles behind me to keep up. “I was starting to worry. You’ve never taken so much time off before.”
“Mm.”Tell her I was taken, and initiate a strike on the Malones unlike anything they might expect? Or shut my mouth and leave them out of this?“That cold really wiped me out.” I push through my office door, and skid to a stop when I find someone else sitting at my desk.
Her long, sleek hair resting on her shoulders, and piercing blue eyes watching me the way a hawk watches its prey.
Savannah Towers’ lips glisten in the sunlight pouring in through my windows, curling upward when our eyes meet. “It’s so nice to see you again, Ms. Cannon.” She leans a little to the side and waits for Dana’s eyes. “Go away.”
“Oh. Uh…” Dana looks to me, the poor, sweet lamb lost and unsure what to do. “Ms. Cannon?”
“Wait at your desk while Ms. Towers and I speak. I won’t be long. Then I’ll come find you.”
“O-okay.” She casts one last look to Savannah, the same kind of mistrust and dislike in her gaze that I carry, but then she backs out of the door and hesitantly turns away.
After closing the door behind her, I spin and cross my arms. “What are you doing here, Savannah?”
Screw theMs. Towersbullshit. The manners. The elitism and dramatics.
I stride to my desk, plop my purse down so it lands with a heavy thud, then I meet the woman’s gaze and simply wait, poised and ready to scratch her ugly eyes out if she makes a wrong move. “Get out of my chair.”
Smirking, she doesn’t argue. She pushes up to stand and saunters around to the other side of my desk. “Are you always in a bad mood, Christabelle? Or do you save such dispositions exclusively for after sleeping with Felix Malone?”
She wants to play. To taunt. She wants to throw her weight around and piss me off.
Game on.
“He doesn’t owe you anything, Savannah. I know you think he does. You think he owes you his life, for the life his father destroyed. But the only man culpable for the crimes committed against you is already dead. Felix isn’t his proxy.”
“Isn’t he?” She fingers the heavy gold chain draped around her neck and smiles. “I didn’t ask to bear that man’s child. I didn’t give him my body willingly. And I didn’t ask for the horrific consequences that came after losing that child.”
“Then you should have demanded retribution before the old man caught cancer and died coated in his own shit. Saving punishment for his sons makes no sense.”
“What do you know? You’ve been in Felix’s bed for less than a week. In his home for a matter of days. Met his brother, eaten in his kitchen, and now, what?” She turns back to me and snarls, “You think youknowhim? You don’t know shit!”
“I know Felix Malone would give his life for yours.” I hate that my heart pounds. That my eyes sting. I hate that this woman hates a family so ferociously, she’ll destroy them… just like I fully intended to a week ago.
“I know that he’s a good man, Savannah. I know that he’s not perfect, and that his view of the real world is warped at best. But his existence inside that family wasn’t all roses. He wasn’t?—”
“He lived!” she snaps, throwing her hand toward my window as though to imply he’s right outside. “Hewasn’t violated. He wasn’t a child being fucked by an old man, and suffocating nearly to death because he couldn’t stop crying. The pain! The complete and utter devastation put upon my body. You can’t possibly know what that’s like, Cannon. Not you, living up here in the tallest towers of privilege.”
“Idon’tknow,” I concede. I hate her. I hate her mission. And still, I feel for her. “I can’t possibly know what that feels like. But I do know you need help. Professionally. You need to work through the things that happened to you, and you need to search for healing.”
“Therapy?!” Her face reddens with anger, veins protruding beneath her skin. “You want me to sit in a circle and sing kumbaya, like that’s gonna fix what the Malones did to me? Is that what you’re suggesting?”
I swallow the bile in my throat. The agony I feel for a little girl who had so much more taken from her that day than her body. She lost her innocence. Her autonomy. Her trust. Even though she still lives and breathes and exists, her life was taken just as surely as the mothers of those boys.
“I’m not doing this anymore.” I bring my hand up and press the pad of my thumb against my temple. “That stuff we planned: I’m out.”
