PULSE: A Stepbrother Romance (23 page)

“Mr. Davies,” I said, turning back to
him, but this time without a smile. “I’m afraid Mr. Culling has been avoiding
you.”

Lacy gasped. Miguel made a strangled
sound like a pig that had just been stuck in the belly. I continued:

“Your background check came back fine.
Your resume was all in order. Everything was perfect, really—except your
arm.” I slowed my words, taking care not to injure Mr. Davies at all in my
anger toward Miguel, Ross, and the rest of ExecuSpace. “Mr. Culling felt that,
as a salesperson, the arm would keep clients from signing on. He didn’t have
anything concrete to reject your application on, and he knows discrimination
against disabled people who can adequately perform the job at hand is illegal,
so he figured that simply avoiding you would do the trick.

“But now you’re here speaking to me
because he refuses to come out of his office and face you himself, and because
our general manager thinks that an administrative assistant making ten dollars
an hour is better equipped to explain these things to you than, say, a manager.
I apologize on their behalf, Mr. Davies, and on behalf of a company that you
really, really don’t want to work for, anyway. Not if you know what’s good for
you.”

Mr. Davies looked at me for a very long
time. I knew how I looked on the outside—calm, perhaps cold
even—but on the inside, I felt like shit. It wasn’t that I had done
anything wrong. I was upset because in the four years I’d worked here, I’d
failed to change a damn thing about this awful company, and people like Mr.
Davies were going to pay for it. None of this would ever come down on Miguel or
Ross’ shoulders. It was only nice people, hardworking people who would bear the
burden of ExecuSpace’s moral void. And I hated to be the one who had to inflict
it.

“My… arm,” he said at last, and I nodded
slowly. “But it’s not an issue. I can write just fine. Drive, even. I don’t see
what my arm has to do with being a competent salesperson…”

“It doesn’t,” I assured him. “It has
nothing to do with it at all. But Mr. Culling feels that the perception of
ExecuSpace might be marred by someone who doesn’t look like the rest of us do,
and for him, that’s cause enough not to hire you.” I saw the look on his face,
the slump in his shoulders, and added: “I really am sorry, Mr. Davies. But
after a month of being lied to, I thought the truth might—”

“The truth does
nothing
for me, Miss Hearst,” he snarled, a surprising rage blazing
in his eyes. I could see they were watering. They glimmered like hot coals. “A
job is what I need. And even a shitty one for a shitty company would have been
enough for me. But you people don’t give a shit about men like me, do you? All
you see is a withered arm and you think that means I’m trash, that I can just
be tossed into the gutter. You didn’t even have the decency to consider me for
the position, did you? You just saw the arm. That’s all.”

I pursed my lips. This was exactly what
I’d feared. Not only was Mr. Davies upset by the news, but he was taking that
out on me, the nearest available target. I had to swallow the compulsion to
invite him back to Ross’ office and knock on his door until he opened up, but
Miguel would probably just call security and have them haul both Mr. Davies and
myself out.

“I’m sorry,” I repeated. “If you’d like,
I can get you the number for our corporate office in Virginia. There’s a woman
named Patricia who could hear your complaint…”

“That’s enough,” Miguel said, finally
loosening himself from the doorway and practically pushing me out of the way.
“Mr. Davies, I’m Miguel Herrera, the general manager for ExecuSpace.
Unfortunately, you just weren’t a good fit for the criteria we’re looking for
right now. I’m sorry no one’s gotten back to you sooner, but we’ve all been
very busy—”

“Do you think I’m stupid?” Mr. Davies
asked him, his face taut with barely-contained rage. “You must, because as much
as I think your receptionist there could give a rat’s ass about what happens to
me, at least she had the decency to be honest.”

I felt my own knot of anger and tried
not to grimace. “Receptionist” was something of a dirty word amongst personal
and administrative assistants. Even secretaries were higher up the food chain.
A receptionist was a person who did the least amount of work in the industry,
someone who answered a phone and filed a few papers, maybe.
Lacy
was a receptionist—barely. I
didn’t appreciate being compared to her.

But I understood that this wasn’t about
me. This was about Mr. Davies and his embarrassment at the treatment he’d
endured. Though I’d meant for the truth to be helpful to him, I knew that it
couldn’t have been easy to hear, and I tried to accept his hatred gracefully.

Miguel, however, was showing signs of
cracking. I could see his brow lining with deep wrinkles and the muscle in his
jaw was steadily twitching.

“Sir, I assure you, what Miss Hearst has
said is in no way representative of our company’s values or beliefs. She is
obviously
misinformed.”

“Then why?” Mr. Davies demanded, his
voice rising. “Why won’t Mr. Culling return my calls? Why did you decide not to
hire me?”

Miguel sneered. “We’re not under any
legal obligation to disclose that. In fact, our HR department discourages us
from—”

“Fuck your HR department!” Mr. Davies
railed, getting so close to Miguel’s face I could see spittle marring his skin.
“And fuck you!”

Before Miguel could retaliate, Mr.
Davies left, storming off through the doors to the elevator with steps that
shook the office floor.

As the weight of his anger dissipated, I
felt another sensation flooding in. What I had done was, objectively, the right
thing. I’d given a man honestly when no one else would, and I’d stopped being
the whipping girl everyone wanted me to be. I’d stood up for myself and for my
own values. But at what cost?

Miguel turned to me. I raised my chin,
doing my best to look confident, but not smug. I was preparing to defend my
decision when the words I’d been dreading left his mouth.

“Get your things and turn in your key
card. You’re fired.”

Almost without thinking and with shock
softening the blow, I removed my lanyard and threw it at him.

“You can’t fire me. I quit five minutes
ago.”

I grabbed my clutch from the front desk,
turned, and strode out the doors, following Mr. Davies. Miguel was yelling
something at me, but I couldn’t hear him—probably some clichéd movie-villain
line about how I’d “never work in this town again.” He seemed like the type.

The blood rushing in my ears was
deafening, and I could feel my body quaking as I pressed the button for the
elevator car. Equal parts relief and dread seeped into me, but I tried not to
let either one win until I heard Lacy’s shrill voice calling to me over the
baritone roar of Miguel’s furor.

“But Maddy! I don’t know what all you
do! Send me an e-mail with everything once you get home, okay?”

And then I finally let the dam burst. I
laughed.

And as the elevator car finally reached
my floor, and as it descended to the next, and the next, I laughed and laughed
some more.

My laughter died as soon as I hit the
lobby.

It wasn’t until I’d shown myself out
through the revolving door that I realized the tears brimming in my eyes
weren’t the funny ones. They were hot and stinging, tears of rage, desperation,
and utter despair. Soon I realized that I really wasn’t laughing at all
anymore, not even in that hysterical way people do when they feel like they’ve
got nothing else they can do to chase the pain away.

No, I was sobbing. Sobbing so hard it
hurt, so hard my chest felt like it would split in two, so hard I was sure I
could feel my ribs starting to cave and poke at my lungs.

I was standing on the sidewalk of one of
the busiest streets in the city bawling my eyes out in the afternoon rush. Cars
and taxis whizzed by too fast for me to see anything more than the blur of
their movement, but somehow I was certain that the dark eyes inside them were
all on me. Passersby craned their necks to ogle at the crying woman slowly
wandering toward home, fascinated by me like I was some kind of moaning spirit
haunting 47
^th
Street, a jilted bride still searching for her lover
or a desolate mother seeking her long-lost child.

They made the whole thing feel more
dramatic than it was, but for the most part, they all left me alone. That was
fine by me. The last thing I needed at that moment was a stranger’s pity.

I steadied myself for a moment on a
parking meter near one of those pruned-just-so trees cities put up along the
sidewalks to imply they weren’t
completely
destroying the environment. It was every bit as fake as the offices I used to
pretend to work for. I could feel cold sweat making long trails down the lines
in my palms despite the shade, and my chest felt like someone had taken the
muscles and stretching them out paper-thin. I knew what it was. I’d experienced
it before. In fact, panic attacks had become a common occurrence since I’d
started working at ExecuSpace, and even Zoloft couldn’t seem to keep them at
bay. Human beings weren’t meant to work the way ExecuSpace expected them to.
Human beings weren’t meant to endure such constant, debilitating stress.

As I sucked in long, slow breaths, I
tried to entertain myself with happier thoughts.
It’s for the best. Think about your health. Think about your peace of
mind. This job couldn’t have been good for you. Even if it was putting food on
the table, who’s to say that you wouldn’t end up in the hospital for stress a
few months down the line? It’s not like they offered health insurance. You were
one medical disaster away from being destitute, anyway…

It was all true. But the fact remained
that I wasn’t one medical disaster away from financial ruin anymore. Now,
thanks to a rage that had been building for far too long and a mouth that
didn’t know when to seal itself shut, I was already there.

I changed tracks on my train of thought,
trying to get a grip on something solid—a plan, maybe. The damage was
done, and there was no way to undo it, but what I could do now was find a way
to move forward.

I knew the job market. I’d been
searching for a replacement position for months now in secret. I’d only had one
interview, and that position had offered even less in the way of compensation.
Still, I was sure I could find something, but time was a factor, and I had no
safety net.

That particular thought made my vision
blurry and my blood boil. It didn’t have to be like this…

The reason I had no safety net had a
name, and it was
Mother.

My mother, Amanda Hearst, didn’t believe
in being supportive. She believed in “tough love,” as in, “you better not screw
this up, honey, ‘cause you’re on your own.” She had made it clear to me from a
very young age that my mistakes were my own. My successes, however, she
attributed to her stellar parenting.
Classic
mother.

“Those other kids failed because their
parents let them,” she’d tell me, her carmine lips twisted into a smug smirk.
“If it wasn’t for me and how hard I’ve pushed you, you would be just like
them.”

I had comforted myself for a time with
the idea that she was only that hard on me because we were broke. We were the
kind of broke that nobody liked to talk about—lower middle-class, just
poor enough to scrape by, but somehow too wealthy to qualify for any kind of
assistance. My father had walked out on her when I was just a baby, and for
years I told myself that his abandonment and the way the system has spurned her
had made her feel like if she didn’t teach me to rely on myself—and only
on myself—then I would fall to the same fate. She didn’t want that for
me, I always thought. She just chose to show it in a cold and hurtful way.

That illusion had shattered three months
ago when my mother had announced her engagement to Charles Harvey, the
billionaire CEO of Harvey Enterprises. I had no idea what their business
actually entailed, but whatever it was, it brought him more money than God, and
as my mother was oh-so-quick to inform me, I wasn’t entitled to a penny of it.

“I didn’t raise you to be a leech,”
she’d told me when I’d said that it would be nice not to have to worry about
money for a change. I hadn’t meant that I intended on blowing it on some kind
of shopping spree. I’d always wanted to finish my college degree, and work was
getting in the way…

That didn’t matter to her.

Her scowl had sent chills down my spine
and twisted my guts into knots. “You’re not an infant, Madison. You’re an
adult. That means you make your own way in this world.” She’d looked so
devastatingly disappointed as she added, “I thought I’d taught you better than
that.”

In my anger, I’d asked her what,
exactly, I would have to do to be worthy of a little help every now and then.
It felt like she’d punched me right in the face when she answered, “Marry
rich.”

I’d realized then that my mother had
never had my best interests in mind. My father leaving hadn’t made her
protective of me. It had made her protective of herself. It had made her
selfish and cruel, and I hadn’t spoken to her since.

Which was why I couldn’t call her now. I
couldn’t dial her number and say, “Mom, I need help.” She wouldn’t give it. I
doubted if she would even bother to answer the phone.

As usual, I was on my own.

I was still trying to achieve a stiff
upper lip when I let go of the parking meter and set off down the sidewalk in
the direction of home. Unfortunately, the moment I did, I barreled straight
into a man who’d had the misfortune of stepping between me and my downward
spiral.

His chest was so hard under his
button-down shirt that I was sure he’d broken my jaw, but the material of his
blazer was so soft that it felt like I’d landed on a cloud. It was silken,
almost, and as I gently pressed it with my fingers, tilting back my head to
look up at who I’d just assaulted, I felt his breath hitch at my touch.

As the halo of the sun faded behind a
cloud, I got a good look at the stranger’s face. My throat clenched and I
uttered a sound that was half a snort, half a wheeze.

“Preston? Seriously?”

“Maddy,” he said, his stormy blue eyes
glittering as he spoke my name. “Well, this is a surprise…”

I wanted to tell him to fuck off. I
wanted to push him away and sweep past him in a fit of disgust. I wanted to
walk so fast down the sidewalk that I left all memory of him in my wake, a
spoiled brat who got absolutely everything his heart desired while I couldn’t
even manage to convince my own mother to keep me off the streets.

But I couldn’t do any of that. Instead,
to my shame and horror, I buried my face in his expensive blazer and cried.