DEFENSE (40 page)

“I can’t spy on Roland for you,” I said. “He’s going to figure it out.”

“Then you’re going to have to figure out how to be smarter than letting him know you’re spying on him,” Dan said. “What do you think he’d do if he knew that you were the one who was really at fault for the wreck, that you’d convinced your friend to take you on that little joyride? I don’t think it’d break him. Losing Mina already broke him, and he never got around to letting anyone fix him after that. But I do think he’d be pretty eager to jettison you as a dead, traitorous weight from this company and evict you from the apartment he paid a security deposit on. And you might pack it all back up and move on, living in your car like you used to do, but maybe I make that call to the police to tell them to be on the lookout for a suicidal girl who just lost her job and the man she was delusional enough to think she loved. You’ll get a one-way ticket back to the funny farm, Beauty. That’s what it’s going to come down to.”

Dan seemed to have it all planned out. I wondered how long it had taken him to hone all of his points so they were razor sharp, inescapable. I was backed into a corner—that much was true. Anything I tried to do to wriggle free from Dan’s plans would end in me running for it and hiding for the rest of my life from police who were looking to get a crazy girl off the streets. There was nothing I could do to escape that.

But Dan had miscalculated in a small but significant way.

I knew something he didn’t know: Telling Roland that I’d caused the wreck that he had taken the blame for all these years, and letting him realize that I had been lying to him through omission of the truth, allowing our relationship to get closer and closer,
would
break him.

It would break Roland to know the truth about me, because Roland had feelings for me.

I would do anything in my power to keep Dan from figuring this out.

If I couldn’t protect myself anymore, at least I could try and protect Roland.

There was no amount of showering that would make me feel clean again, no water hot enough, no soap potent enough, nothing to make me feel like I was normal.

After Dan finally left my building—I’d watched him saunter down the sidewalk until he reached his fancy sports car—I hopped back in the shower, my hair still damp from the one I’d taken the night before to try and wash off the nasty feeling I got from him.

That one hadn’t worked either. And the pizza that eventually showed up to my door did little in the way of comforting me. I ate a single slice before throwing the entire thing away, my appetite hopelessly shot.

The truth of the matter was that my job—which I’d only recently started to get the hang of and enjoy—was going to become a lot more difficult. I would still be analyzing everything that went on and reporting to Roland, but I’d be doing double the work in reporting to Dan, as well. It made me realize that, even though they were family, Roland was smart enough to keep Dan at arm’s length where Shepard Shipments was concerned.

I would be doing all of this, of course, without letting Roland know that there was anything out of the ordinary, or else everything would come crashing down. I couldn’t let him realize the truth about the wreck. Before, when I’d told myself that he’d never know, it had been for purely selfish reasons. I didn’t want to weather his anger or risk the idea that I could lose my job, which had become important to me.

Now, though, I knew it would wound him deeply, perhaps irreparably, if he knew that I’d kept the truth from him about my own involvement. He wouldn’t be able to handle the idea that he’d lost the woman he loved to the girl he would eventually develop feelings for. It was insane. I had trouble understanding it myself, but there it was.

The next morning, I woke up early and tried to complete my daily routine without thinking too much about it. Another shower (still felt dirty), doing my hair and makeup, picking out something to wear (would I remember this outfit as the one I started spying on Roland in?), forcing some food down my throat and into my stomach, and leaving my home, which no longer felt like my sanctuary away from the world.

I was now painfully aware that problems could infiltrate those walls, that trouble had come looking for me here and found me. There was no place I could really be safe anymore. “Safe” was just an illusion people let themselves believe. Nobody was safe.

I bought the paper from the vendor who had grown to trust me once again, walked across that expansive lobby, wondering idly what I might have for lunch when the time came, got into the elevator and thought about visiting a floor of the building I’d never been on…anything to keep me from thinking about what I was about to go in there and do.

I didn’t want to betray Roland’s trust, but that was what I was going to have to start doing to protect him from Dan—and myself.

“There you are!” Sam exclaimed, as the elevator door rolled open.

“Here I am,” I confirmed, plastering a smile on my face before forcing it to relax into something more natural. I had to pull this off. I couldn’t let anyone know there was something wrong. It was the only way this would work, the only way I could protect Roland.

“I probably shouldn’t tell you this,” Sam said, lowering her voice as she tended to do when she was about to pass along office gossip, “but we were all certain that the beast had finally done something to drive you away for good.”

My mouth took off running before I could try to stop it. “You know, I wish everyone would just stop calling him that,” I snapped. “Appearances can be deceiving, and he is a deeply misunderstood man. Nobody understands just why he is the way he is except for him.”

“And you, apparently,” Sam observed, her eyebrows raised almost to her hairline.

I sighed. “Sorry. I think I’m still a little bit under the weather. My patience is thin with myself; I hate being sick. I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”

“You don’t have to apologize to me,” she said, playfully swatting my arm. “But you better get on and get that man his coffee. You know as well as I do just how much he likes things to run behind schedule.”

I walked away, shaking my head at myself. Sam was a nice distraction, but she was a hopeless gossip. I could hear the next piece she’d impart…all about Beauty and how she’d been charmed by the office beast, eager to defend him against his detractors. The last thing I needed on top of everything else I was contending with now was to be the brunt of office gossip.

Sam—or some other early bird—had started the coffee, thankfully, and I snagged the very first cup, pleased with myself. There. That was what I was going to have to start doing. I’d have to find small things to be happy about in order to distract myself from the enormously wrong thing I was being forced to do.

I took a deep breath in front of Roland’s door before knocking and entering, announcing my presence.

“Good morning,” I said, smiling, relieved to find it came much more naturally than it had with Sam. I was surprised to find that it was actually good to see Roland sitting there behind his desk, typing away at his computer. He stopped as I set his newspaper and coffee on the desk.

“I honestly didn’t expect you in today,” he said, his brow furrowing a little with concern. “Are you sure you’re feeling all right? You can go home if you’re not a hundred percent.”

“I’m fine, really,” I assured him, touched that he cared. “And I’m sorry that I didn’t call you to let you know that I wasn’t coming in. I really did oversleep.”

“You don’t have to feel like you have to explain yourself to me,” he said.

“I kind of do,” I said with a small laugh. “You’re my boss, after all.”

Roland sighed. “I just don’t want you to feel weird around me after what I told you…about how I felt.”

“You don’t have to explain yourself either,” I said. “I don’t feel weird. I told you how I felt.”

“But my brother…?”

“I’m not with your brother,” I said quickly. I resisted the urge to slap myself in the forehead. Why had that been so important to tell Roland? At the same time, I knew it was important for me to say it out loud. Maybe I’d thought there’d been a chance with Dan before he’d revealed what he really was to me, but now I was fully rejecting that.

“No?” Roland raised his eyebrows. “But you had plans with him just the other night.”

“During which we agreed that our backgrounds are too different,” I said, smiling and shrugging helplessly even though I felt sick to my stomach. “It was amicable, but we both decided it wasn’t in our best interests to continue to try and pursue anything. I’m glad. I don’t think either of us wants to waste our time.”

“You and I…we’re pretty different, too,” he said.

“Yes, we are.” But our backgrounds were linked in a way neither of us could ever get away from.

“But we’re okay, aren’t we?”

For a man who headed an exciting and growing young company, who lived in a penthouse at the top of a skyscraper, and who had billions of dollars to his name, Roland seemed awfully unsure of himself in that moment. Something in my heart squeezed at this realization, that Roland could possibly feel insecure around me, uncertain of our mutual feelings. And at the same time, I knew it had to be some kind of instinctual misgiving. I was here to betray him—and yet somehow convince him that I was to be trusted. I wanted to grab my hair and scream in consternation. How had things gotten so stupid? Would they ever have a chance at getting back to normal?

I hesitated for several moments too long. What if I just confessed everything right now? What if I told Roland that his brother wasn’t to be trusted—and I wasn’t, either? The situation would unravel and become much less complicated, but life as I knew it would unravel, too. Dan had confirmed one reasonable thing during his shocking visit to my apartment. Roland would fire me if I tried to tell him anything. There wouldn’t be a reason to keep me around, and there wouldn’t be a reason to continue to have feelings for me. I’d take his heart out of his chest and stomp on it right in front of him if I told him the truth, and I needed one good thing in my life right now.

As twisted as it was, couldn’t I have this one man believe in me, believe in his feelings for me? If I didn’t have Roland’s confidence, I had nothing. Not one thing. I didn’t think I could survive without it, and that’s why I smiled at him.

“Of course we’re okay,” I said, tamping down the rise of nausea I felt at my own lie. We weren’t okay in spite of my deepest hopes and desires. My only wish was that Roland never found out just how not okay it was.

“Can I tell you something?” he asked.

“You can tell me anything.” My stomach roiled. Sure, Roland could tell me anything, as long as he didn’t realize it was going to get back around to Dan.

“I’m glad you’re not dating my brother anymore.”

I cocked my head at that, forgetting, for a brief moment, to be guarded or conflicted or guilty. I was genuinely curious.

“I don’t know what kind of impression he gave you, but my brother…doesn’t really have good sense around women,” Roland continued, frowning. “I don’t know what it is about him. Ever since he was in high school, he always got into trouble about girls. I wish there was some way to muzzle and leash him around the female sex—hell, even neuter him.”

I burst into a nervous giggle then clapped my hand over my mouth. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I really, really didn’t mean to laugh.”

“He wasn’t…he didn’t act…untoward…to you, did he?” Roland chose his words delicately, tentative yet again when it came to me, when it came to Dan.

And so what was I supposed to say? Yes, Roland, your brother was a little shit, a monster you couldn’t even imagine, a horrible person whom you should never talk to again, a man who had threatened me and was now blackmailing me to betray you.

I couldn’t do that to him. I couldn’t. I was going to have to hold it together. I was the only person who could get myself through this unscathed.

“Dan just wasn’t for me,” I said simply, working hard to keep the smile on my face.

“I’m happy for that,” Roland said. “I don’t know who Dan would actually be good for. I think she’d scare me, whoever she was.”

That sent me into another burst of nervous laughter, but Roland made it better by joining in.

“I don’t mean to be so personal,” he said. “If it makes you uncomfortable, I won’t talk about Dan.”

“I’m not uncomfortable,” I lied. “You can talk about anything you want to talk about. You’re the boss.”

He snorted at me. “Fucking right,” he said, and I realized that he was joking—actually making a joke. It was a welcome departure from how taciturn he’d been when I first started working here—and a sad testament to just how comfortable he’d grown with me, how little he knew me, how good I was at putting on a poker face and fooling someone into trusting me.

It was a strange day. Roland was jocular all day, every time he called me on the phone he was laughing, or I could tell from his voice that he was smiling. He was in an exceptionally good mood every time I delivered something to him, talking to me more than usual.

Wake up! I wanted to scream at him. Look at me! Look at what I’m preparing to do to you!

Instead, I grinned and bore it, tallying it up to yet another form of punishment I was going to have to endure because of the sins I’d committed.

At the end of the day, I bade Roland farewell, gathered up my belongings like a normal person, and walked out of the office. I didn’t feel like a treasonous bitch if I didn’t dwell on it too much, so that’s what I tried to do—distract myself from the fact I was committing a grievous wrong against someone I was really starting to like, someone who’d believed in me, someone who was finally peeking out from the elaborately unfriendly façade he’d constructed for himself.

No. I couldn’t think about it. If I thought about it, I’d come apart. I had to stay focused. I had to do this.

I focused on counting my steps on the sidewalk outside, on listening to my breaths, counting the inhalations and exhalations, breathing deeper in an effort to drown out any thoughts that indicated that I really might get away with this, really might convince Roland that everything was all right and keep Dan at bay and maybe I had to sacrifice what little was left of my soul, but there it was, maybe this was doable. Then, I looked up to find my car in the parking lot and Dan casually leaning against it, as if he owned it, and I stopped in my tracks.

There wasn’t an opportunity to turn back. He’d already seen me. I had a foolish desire to turn tail and run for it. Would he pursue me? Could I outrun him? Would he risk looking like an ass by chasing me? And what would happen if he managed to catch me?

“I don’t know what you’re thinking, Beauty, but you’d better just come over here.”

Dan held his hands out, his face amused, but those blue eyes were as unflinching as glaciers. Cowed, I approached slowly, stopping several yards away.

“What do you want?” I asked, folding my arms across my chest protectively.

“What do you think I want, Beauty?” He laughed. “I wasn’t joking, you know. I want to know, in detail, what my brother is planning. How he spent his day. What he’s going to be doing tomorrow.”

“Has it ever occurred to you to ask to be more involved at the executive level?” I demanded. “Maybe it’s a waste of time to ask me to be your spy. You’re the vice president of Shepard Shipments. You should know what your brother’s doing with the company.”