Roxanne's Redemption (2 page)

* * * *

“Would you like to have dinner with me tonight?”

Roxanne looked up from her computer to the speaker
.
H
er breath caught in her throat when she saw Daniel. She sighed. Why wo
uld
n’t he just leave her alone? After his third week on the job Daniel had asked her out and she had refused
, even though
she had stopped question
ing
the attraction that crackled between them whenever they were alone
.
After their initial meeting,
she
had been
a little disoriented for a while before she accepted the fact that she was attracted to him
,
but that wasn’t what had made her refuse his dinner offer. People talk and
, although
Roxanne didn't let a lot of things bother her
,
she had no inten
t
ion of being involved with the boss now that she was working so hard to get a promotion.

Maybe if I accept this once he
won’t
ask again if the dinner didn't go well.

She smiled at the thought. “Al
l
right
,
I’ll have dinner with you.”

He smiled and her heart did a flip
.
I
t made him look
boyish
and
,
aside from worrying about what her colleagues w
ould
say
,
she was glad that she was the reason for that smile.

Daniel picked her up
later that evening
and took her to a
newly open
ed
Italian restaurant
.
Roxanne was a little
taken aback when she found out that they ha
d
two things in common
,
Italian food
and
a shared taste in
pop
music
.
H
e also made her smile a lot
.
Still, that wasn’t enough to start a relationship
, she told herself,
but the more he spoke
,
the more she wanted to see where things would end up if they got together.

“So,” he began and Roxanne waited to see what he would say next.

“So, what?” she asked.

“How about going out with me again and see where things end up?”

Roxanne hesitated for a minute before answering. It wouldn’t be reasonable to sho
o
t down his idea when not even two minutes ago she was thinking the same thing. “Okay.”

*
*
*
*

Roxanne couldn’t believe how fast time flew. It was a little over
three
months since Daniel started working at the New York branch and she had never been happier.
After
their third date around two months ago
,
things started moving faster than Roxanne had anticipated
.
I
t had lasted longer than she thought and
,
as
more time pass
ed
,
Roxanne’s feelings started to grow from friendship to love
.
I
t had
frightened
her until Daniel had told her he loved her and wanted her to move in with him.

Last night he had proposed to her over
a
candle
-
lit dinner
.
Roxanne could still remember some of the looks that were sent her way from other patrons at the restaurant after she had squealed and flung herself at him
as she
accepted
.
Now
,
after leaving work earlier she had booked a wedding planner and stop
ped
to look at a few wedding dress
es.
I
t was
a little
early to
do all those things but she was running on too much adrenaline to just sit
in
one place and not do anything
.
Her thoughts turned to
the guest list
which made her stomach churn.
His mother was responsible for the guest list and Daniel had mentioned some of the people his mother moved in the same circle with and most of them were important people.
Seeing how
ecstatic
h
is mother was to learn that he was finally getting married
after she told him to
do
so around half a dozen times in the past
Roxanne couldn’t help but
to bear
with his mother as she invited whomever she wanted.

Roxanne
wiped
away
the tears running down her cheeks as she thought about not having her parents at her wedding
.
Someone once told her
the pain would lessen, but it never did
.
J
ust
thinking about them
rekindle
d
the
ache
she
had
felt ever since
she’d learn
ed
of their deaths
,
and it didn't matter that they’
d
been dead for a few years now.
That was one of the reasons she
had
decided to find a man to love her like her father
had
loved her mother
and
settle down
.
S
he wasn’t getting any younger and
being
engage
d
in countless
never-lasting relationships
wasn’t helping
.

In six months
she and Daniel
would get married
and
start their
live
s
together
. She pulled
the car
into the parki
ng
lot and took the elevator to their floor.
S
he
entered the apartment
and headed straight for the bedroom to check on Daniel
.
H
e
had been
sick
that
morning when she woke up and she wanted to know if he was recovering. Roxanne was almost at the door when she heard grunts and groans coming from the
room beyond
. Briefly
,
she wondered what he was dreaming about
that could make
him sound like he’d been running a marathon.
She thought she’d
wake
him before his dream
got
wors
e
and opened the door
, only to stop and stare
,
her eyes wide and
her
mouth hanging open at the sight that greeted her.

Of all the scenes that
had
run
through her mind
when she
hear
d
those sounds, seeing her fiancé with another woman in their bed wasn’t one of them. Tears welled in her eyes, her knees felt weak, her head spun
,
and her heart felt like it was being ripped out of her chest.
She didn't know what alerted
them
, but
they both looked over their shoulder
s
simultaneously and froze when they saw her
.
The woman scrambled off the bed and picked up her clothes as she ran from the room, in
such
a haste
that
she
almost knocked Roxanne over.

It took
Roxanne
a few minutes to be sure that she could move without falling as she gradually
made her way
with
wobbling knees
to the closet
.
She dragged out her suitcase and began to fling clothes haphazardly into it.
As she grabbed garments off
hangers
,
she felt rather than saw Daniel move closer to her
.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“I'm leaving,
”
she said unsteadily.

“Why?”

“How long?”
she asked
instead of answering the ridiculous question
.

When he didn't answer immediately, Roxanne raised her eyes
, which began filling anew with tears
as she
look
ed
at him
.

He sighed w
e
arily before answering, “
A
month.”

A
cry of anguish
left her mouth before she could stop it. “Why
,
Daniel
?
I thought you
were happy with me.”

“I am happy and that's why I can promise you that it will never happen again, Roxanne.
Please let’s
just talk about this
.
I’ll even let you sleep with another man as revenge, just please don't go.
”

Roxanne zipped up her suitcase and stood it up before turning to face him. She opened up his hand and
held it for a second in both of hers. Just a
s he began to smile, she slipped her engagement ring off
and placed it in his palm.
“If you thought I would do something like that, then you don't know me as well as you think. Goodbye, Daniel.” Without waiting for a reply, she left him standing in the middle of their
—
now
his
—
bedroom as she promised
herself
never to let another man in
to
her life.

Chapter
Two

Three months
later

Roxanne woke up
to
the sound of
the
alarm and groaned. If today wasn’t her first day at
her new job
,
she would
ha
ve called in sick
.
Five
day
s after leaving
Daniel’s apartment
,
she
had
moved back to California and
,
with the money from her savings and her parents’ life insurance payout, plus the money she
had
got
ten
when she sold their house
,
she was able to buy a house
.
She loved everything about her house, from the huge bedrooms and bathrooms with double sinks to the kitchen with an island in the middle and a little breakfast nook in the corner, the three-car garage, laundry room, the living room with the large fire place, and lastly the big backyard with a pool.

What she spent on the house didn't do much damage to her account and she could
ha
ve survived on that, but
sitting at
home with nothing to do
other
than think
ing
of
Daniel’s betrayal was getting tedious
,
and
her friends
Ava, Kira, and Lexi kept telling her to move on and forget him.
So, that’s why the following week she
had gone
to an interview with
Ferguson Graphics
. Two weeks later
,
they
called and told her she got the job.

*
*
*
*

Roxanne pulled into
the parking lot of
Ferguson
Graphics,
and went into the building.

“Hold that door
,
please,” she called out to
the person
inside the elevator.
T
he doors opened
and she stepped inside.

“Thank you,
”
she said.