STORM: A Standalone Romance (47 page)

“But you vanished. You left school. I told my brother to do whatever it took to track you down, hire whoever he needed to hire to find you and make sure you were seen after. He said you wouldn’t take a handout, that in order for us to help you, we’d have to hire you. And then Myra announced her retirement, and I decided that I wanted to keep you close. To try and do the right thing.”

Bile rose in my throat. He thought he was doing the right thing by hiring me, by giving me an opportunity I would’ve never had otherwise because I was too depressed, to horrified at myself to seek it out. I didn’t deserve this position. That was a truth I more than understood now. There were no skills that qualified me to work at Shepard Shipments. There hadn’t been a friendship with a business professor at my university. This was a pity hire, a way that Roland could throw money at me to ease his conscious.

And he had no idea just who he was giving money to. I’d bought all those things with his credit card to furnish my new life here in Seattle, and he had no idea he’d been buying things for the individual responsible for his torture.

It was too much. I couldn’t do this. I had to leave immediately; I had to get in my car and leave everything behind. He couldn’t know. He couldn’t know that it was my fault. He would hate me. He would hate me so much, and I just couldn’t do it.

“I have to go,” I mumbled, standing up suddenly, eager to flee. That’s when all that bourbon reared its ugly face and showed its true colors after going down so easily. I swooned and almost passed out on principle before my stomach upended itself and I started gagging.

There was a strong hand on my waist, another on my neck, and I was staring at the contents of a garbage can…and soon, the contents of my stomach. I heaved and retched every last drop of that bourbon into the trash can, belatedly upset at the waste of such obviously good liquor, at the waste of my life.

If I could go back and change everything, I’d keep myself from ever being born. I’d been a grenade that exploded, harming so many people beyond those I’d killed upon impact.

If I couldn’t change the fact that I’d been born, then I wanted to die.

“You’re not going to die,” Roland said, a smile in his voice, and I realized I’d voiced my despair aloud. “You’ve just had a little too much to drink. You’re going to vomit yourself empty, then you’re going to have some crackers and water, and then you might vomit again, but you’ll go to sleep.”

The thought of crackers made me gag again, but I managed to wet my mouth and rid myself of the acidic taste of my own stupidity.

“I’m going home now,” I said, Roland helping me to stand.

“You’re going to sleep it off,” he corrected. “You think I’d let you anywhere near a car after what I just told you?”

“Taxi,” I offered.

“Absolutely not. In your state?”

I was out of options. I just didn’t want to be conscious anymore. I couldn’t look at Roland; I couldn’t take his misplaced kindness and charity. I squeezed my eyes shut. It would be too much mercy if I never had to open them again.

I woke up comfortable, safe, and with no idea why I deserved either of those things, or where I was. Whatever I was on was soft, and it smelled rich, good—like a new car.

I opened my eyes, blinking slowly, fully expecting the morning’s light to blind me like a spotlight illuminating my life’s mistakes, but the room was dim, a golden light from across the space reducing everything to a comfortable glow.

That’s when I figured out I was lying on the leather sofa in Roland Shepard’s office, sleeping off a nasty drunken night. I had to get out of here.

My mouth tasted like something had died inside of it, and I located a glass of water I’d barely touched the previous night, chugging it in one breath. A quick dash across the office and a peek out of one of the heavily curtained windows told me that it was early morning. The sun was barely up, and people were only just now getting up and moving.

That meant I had even less time than I thought.

I found my shoes placed neatly beside the couch—had Roland taken them off for me last night? I didn’t know how I felt about that, and I didn’t have the time to think about it as I hopped into them, prayed that no one was outside in the main office this early, and left.

Luck was with me as I grabbed my purse and my phone. It was still early, only just now after seven. I would have plenty of time to make my escape.

A fuzzy-headed dash across the office, well aware of what this looked like, still wearing the rumpled clothes I worked in, charging out of the president’s office.

But luck—and a very confused lobby receptionist—were in my favor as I fled, the morning traffic only just starting to pick up. I careened toward my apartment, wincing as the hangover started to squeeze my head tighter and tighter in its vice.

Such was my distraction—parking, running into my home, wriggling out of yesterday’s clothes, and swallowing two aspirin before ducking my head beneath the kitchen sink to gulp some water to help usher the pills on their way to numbing my pain. It wasn’t until I was in the shower, hurriedly washing the smell of bourbon and vomit out of my hair that it all hit me.

Roland had been there when my parents and Caro died. He’d lost someone he’d loved, too—a fiancée. Mina. And that’s where he’d gotten that terrible scar—and the terrible temper to go along with it.

The enormity of the situation made me sit down suddenly in the middle of the tub, the hot water raining down on my head.

What was I doing here? I needed to leave town. I had to get out of here before Roland figured out the entire truth. How could he not know? The fact boggled me, but one thing remained: I couldn’t let him know that I was the one to blame for everything.

I only had time to blow dry my hair to dampness if I was going to be on time to start the new workday, so I pulled it back into a tight bun to hide the fact that I hadn’t had enough time to prepare. A sweep of some mascara made me look more awake, and I smeared on some concealer to hide the dark circles under my eyes.

Jumping into some wide-leg trousers and a nice blouse, I pondered eating something and shuddered. At least I’d save some time in my abbreviated morning routine by avoiding food.

It was better to be like this—rushing around, my brain occupied only on the next task at hand—rather than rolling the situation over and over again in my head. I just had to always keep my next move in mind in order to avoid dwelling on what I’d caused, on the fact that I’d mortally wounded yet another person. The cycle wouldn’t stop. Just when I thought I might be ready to move forward, some other facet of that terrible night arrived to rear its ugly head and make sure I knew that there was no going forward from what I did.

People like me didn’t deserve closure. And I could never forgive myself.

No. I parked my car in the company lot, shook my head quickly, and pulled myself out of that destructive loop of thought. What did I have to do? What was the next task?

Get out of the car. Lock the car. Walk to the vendor. Pay for a Times. Walk into the building. Smile at the lobby receptionist, who is just as confused seeing me now as she was seeing me an hour ago. Ride the elevator up to my floor. Walk across the office. Smile at everyone who makes eye contact. Put my purse at my desk. Go to the break room. Make sure the coffee’s fresh before pouring it in a clean mug. Walk the coffee and the paper back across to Roland’s office.

Stand in front of the door and dread going in.

No. I had to go in. This was the next task, the way I started every day, officially, here at the office. Roland needed the coffee and paper, and that’s what I had to do.

I lifted my hand to open the door and hesitated. I could appreciate that this was difficult and awkward, but this was the next task on the list. I had to give Roland his coffee and paper. Then I’d go collect the box of files for digitizing, check the agenda for the day, get some coffee for myself, and start checking off more and more tasks.

I had to open the door.

Aware that I probably looked like an idiot just standing there, motionless, in front of a closed door, I finally physically forced myself to enter. I couldn’t quite stretch my mouth into a friendly smile; I didn’t know if that was even what Roland expected out of me; and I just urged myself forward.

I set the newspaper down on the desk and was putting the coffee down next to it before I realized the desk was empty. I straightened, able to breathe a little easier, and looked around. Unless he was hiding, Roland wasn’t in here. Where could he be? In the time that I’d worked here, he had never neglected to be in his office when I came in to deliver his paper and coffee. Sure, he was usually here to offer a sharp criticism or tell me to do something else, but not having him in here today upset the balance of everything.

Or maybe it was last night’s conversation that had upset the balance of everything.

I tiptoed across the thick carpet to inspect the scene. I’d only been in here hours earlier, panicking and scrambling to escape, but there were no signs of my transgressions. Sniff as I might, there was no telltale whiffs of stale vomit. The crystal snifter of bourbon had been refilled and replaced on its tray on a side table, and the pair of heavy cut glasses had been emptied and cleaned, gleaming in the dull light.

And there was the leather couch I’d passed out cold on, its pillows carefully arranged as if in an effort to erase what had happened.

Had Roland cleaned all of this up as soon as I’d run away?

I shook my head and frowned. That was improbable, at best. Stupid, even. He was a billionaire. There was probably a housekeeping army contained in this building, waiting at the ready to mop up mistakes, slipping in and out of the shadows, remaining unseen.

I didn’t know whether I was more relieved or more disappointed that I hadn’t had to face Roland yet today. Being disappointed didn’t make sense to me at all. I didn’t want to see him. I wouldn’t know what to say. He thought he was the wrong one in that horrible situation, the one who ruined everything, but he had no idea that I was actually that person.

For an ugly moment, I considered believing his truth. What if he hadn’t been there that night with his fiancée, stuck on the side of the road? My parents wouldn’t have had a reason to pull off, wouldn’t have had any business being there when Caro and I came spinning around that curve in the road.

Could I live with myself by accepting Roland’s version of events?

No. Absolutely not. I couldn’t. It didn’t matter that he and his fiancée had blown a tire. It didn’t matter that my parents, being the caring people they were, had stopped to help out a pair of strangers.

What mattered was that I’d drunkenly urged my drunk best friend to take me on a drunken joyride through the countryside, thinking that I was beyond consequences, thinking selfishly that I never wanted the night to end.

That last part was true, at least. For me, that night never had ended. It haunted me from place to place, kept me awake in my bed, kept me from living normally because that kind of comfort wasn’t something monsters like me deserved.

I couldn’t let Roland’s truth be my own truth. And I didn’t know how long I could keep the whole truth from him. He deserved to know, but I was too afraid to tell him.

My chest tightened as I walked out of his office. Had he decided not to be there because he thought I would hate him? It wrenched my heart. I didn’t hate him. I hated myself. I wished I wasn’t such a coward. I should’ve been able to tell him last night that none of this was his fault, but I hadn’t been able to scrape up the courage.

I began my mindless digitization, checking my email for Roland’s agenda. My heart twisted further. There wasn’t an agenda. I was rudderless on a day when I required direction, required distraction, and required motivation to run away from my frightening thoughts.

This wasn’t his fault. It was my fault.

I wanted to tell him, and yet, I couldn’t. I wanted to hide from him for the rest of my life; I wanted to never enter that office again; I hoped the phone would stay silent forever.

But that phone was going to ring, and I was going to have to answer it. I didn’t know if things were going to be the same between Roland and me. I didn’t know if they should be the same.

It was obvious that he trusted me, that he felt that he needed to tell me what he knew as the truth of our apparently shared past. But I hadn’t told him everything that I knew about that crash. I had no idea if he knew I was involved, but I suspected he didn’t.

It was a lot to wrap my mind around.

But that phone was going to ring. And I was going to have to face him.

“Doing anything for lunch?”

I nearly jumped out of my skin as Sam leaned over my desk, smiling.

“You scared the crap out of me,” I said, covering my heart with my hand.

“You weren’t even doing anything,” she laughed. “You were just staring off into space. Concentrating hard?”

“I guess I was,” I said. What I’d really been thinking about wasn’t the kind of fodder I’d use for conversations when you were just getting to know a coworker.

“Well, you’re probably famished,” she said, then grinned deviously. “Don’t you know that you need to put something greasy down on top of that hangover?”

I winced. “That obvious?” I thought I’d done all I could at home, but there really hadn’t been that much time to scrape off yesterday’s makeup and put on today’s before sprinting back to the office.

“Allow me to introduce you to the cafeteria’s cheeseburgers and fries,” she said, hooking arms with me as I stood up. My stomach gurgled dangerously, that precarious place between nausea and true hunger. Hot junk food would either save me or end me, and at this point, I was willing to take the risk.

The cafeteria was on the lobby level, and acted as, more or less, the watering hole of the entire building. We didn’t have to eat lunch there, but it was convenient, reasonably priced, and good. With my first bite of burger, I decided that I’d been hungrier than I was sick, and with my second bite, I even started to feel human.

Sam chattered on and on about office gossip. I figured she was a lot more connected than I was to the rest of the employees there. I was usually too busy trying not to screw up to keep track of who was sleeping with whom and other little juicy tidbits she loved to fill my head with.

There was a lull in the mostly one-sided conversation as I pondered getting a second burger. Would that undo all the good work the first had done?

“So, everyone’s been talking about how much more pleasant the beast has been to work around,” Sam said, sipping on her smoothie with a wicked twinkle in her eyes.

I frowned. If anyone knew just why he acted the way he did—and looked the way he did—they wouldn’t call him “the beast”. They never even gave him a chance, never willed themselves to look past that scar.

“What’d you do?” she teased. “Myra was never able to get him to come around. Did you kiss the toad and turn him into a prince?”

“Oh my God!” I said, covering my flushing face with my hands. “Seriously, Sam?”

“No harm in asking, is there?” she remarked, her round eyes shining with false innocence. “Unless there’s something to hide, that is.”

“There’s nothing to hide!” I squawked. What a lie that was. There was plenty to hide—just not the kind of secrets Sam thought she was after.

“The lady doth protest too much,” Sam said, arching her eyebrows.

“There’s literally nothing to protest,” I said. “You would understand, if you had to work for him like I do, why I can’t even fathom joking about this.”

“All right, all right,” she laughed, holding her hands up in surrender. “There’s no need to be so touchy about it. I didn’t know you were still so stressed out working for him.”

“My hangover can’t deal with this right now,” I said, which was at least partly true.

“You poor thing,” Sam commiserated, patting my hand. “I hope you had fun last night to make the pain today worth it.”

Did I have fun last night? Absolutely not. I’d probably never be able to drink bourbon again after that performance, forever tainted with my new knowledge about Roland.

Our break rolled to a close, but I couldn’t keep my mind tuned in to Sam’s prattle. It wasn’t the way to go about making friends in this place, but I just couldn’t focus—not when I was thinking about Roland, about what he’d told me, about what I knew.