STORM: A Standalone Romance (42 page)

Well, when he said it like that, it looked really bad.

“The vendor from across the street called from the lobby of this very building, trying to reach me,” Roland continued, his voice gradually getting louder. “Luckily, Myra was there to take the call and talked him down from going to the police. If you must steal, Beauty Hart, do it on your own time and don’t invoke my fucking company to do so!”

His tirade had risen to a roar, and I withered in the face of that level of wrath. Yes, it had been stupid, but…

“I was just trying to do what you asked!” I sassed angrily, defensive as all get out, unwilling to bow completely to his irrational anger. “You were rude to me and this is my first day and all I’ve wanted to do so far was just go back home to my car and go to sleep and forget all of this. I just wanted to please you!”

“Do you think any of this hot fucking mess pleases me?” he shouted, right in my face, that ugly scar virtually throbbing at me.

There was nothing I could do to keep myself in that office, taking that abuse. I turned tail and ran, shoving my way out the door, grabbing my purse at the desk, ignoring traitorous Myra and the stares of all my new coworkers, as I sprinted to the elevator and practically dove to save the doors from closing on me.

Fuck this. Fuck this place. Hot tears sprung to my eyes and a sob leeched out of me as I rode the elevator back down to the lobby. I didn’t need to do this. I could stand up to a lot of things, but blatant disregard wasn’t one of them. I’d been happier stripping to feed my belly, and my professional clothes felt like a clown’s costume. I was going to throw the pantyhose into the first dumpster I came across.

The elevator door opened, and I ran right into Dan, registering belatedly that he had a phone to his ear, his face scrunched into a scowl, in the middle of a sentence.

“…solve all your problems, asshole—Beauty!”

Maybe it was because his was the first familiar face I’d seen since arriving in Seattle. Or maybe it was because Roland had been just so goddamn mean to me.

Either way, and I wasn’t proud of it, I launched myself at Dan and buried my teary face in his chest and cried.

“What’s happened, Beauty?” he asked, soothing hands rubbing my back.

“Daniel? Answer me. Dan!” The voice in his ear, the cellphone still connected to the call. I knew that voice—hoarse, low, demanding. He was talking to Roland. I jerked away.

“Call you back,” Dan said, slipping the phone into his pocket. “Beauty? Are you all right?”

“It’s nothing,” I said, quickly wiping tears and very likely melting mascara from my cheeks. “I’m just…I’m going now.”

“Going now?” He checked his watch. “We’re not even halfway through the workday. Where are you going?”

“Just going,” I said, backing away from him, circling around until I had a clear shot at the exit. “This place isn’t for me—just like college wasn’t, either.”

“Everybody eventually figures out where their place is,” Dan said, turning to face me. “You’re not exempt from that, you know. If your place isn’t here, where is it? It’s not in Houston anymore. You and I both know that.”

I flinched at hearing the name of the city where I grew up, the outskirts of which had been my playground, where Caro and my parents were buried.

“I have to go,” I said, my legs moving faster and faster until I was running again.

“You can’t run forever!” I thought I heard Dan call, but I couldn’t be sure. I was outside in the air, breathing deeply, away from the suffocating atmosphere of Shepard Shipments. I covered my face in my hands, pressing my fingers against my eyes so hard I saw stars.

“Hey, it’s you!”

I looked up to see the vendor from the newspaper kiosk across the street, pointing at me, livid.

“It’s you, the newspaper stealer!” he yelled. “Hey, newspaper stealer! I see you!”

It was past time to get the fuck out of here.

I drove around the city aimlessly, letting the stoplights dictate my path, until I realized I was wasting valuable gas that I’d probably need on the road. I was leaving here. I didn’t need any of this drama, not with the drama that had plagued my life up until this point. How much rancor was I going to have to put up with until everyone just left me alone?

I parked where I could see the water and stared out at the boats drifting in and out of the harbor, ferrying people to God knew where. They probably all had a purpose, every last one of them, and I didn’t. I was living in my car, unable to decide just where I needed to be.

What would happen if I ran down that slip and jumped into the cold sea? I could really disappear, then, just swimming and swimming and swimming out, in a perfectly straight line, bobbing on the waves until I couldn’t swim anymore and just drifted with the tides and currents, face lifted toward the sky, engulfed in nothingness.

Why was I even here? What had I set out to do?

I remembered Dan had piqued my curiosity at the bar. Something hadn’t added up about his story of wanting me to work for his family’s company, and I’d been bound and determined to figure out just what it was. Was that the only thing motivating me? Or was it the troubling fact that he knew much more about me than he should’ve, like the name of my college, when I’d dropped out, and my various movements that made me writhe my way across the country from Texas to Washington state.

I’d wanted to know why he gave a shit about me. I was sure there were many people much more qualified than I was to work at Shepard Shipments. So why had Dan followed my progress across the country? Why had he said that Roland had kept me in his mind after all this time?

As much as I wanted to drift away, to forget and be forgotten, I knew that I’d never figure out what I wanted to know if I simply left Seattle, left Shepard Shipments without trying to ferret out just what they wanted with me.

And if I hated my job, it was that much better. I deserved to hate it, deserved to suffer. This could be just another stage of my penance for what I’d caused on that dark country rode that night.

I heaved a sigh and started the car again, looking longingly toward the horizon, where the sea met the sky. That’s where I really wanted to be, in the place just beyond that, in the nothing place. Maybe, once I investigated Shepard Shipments to my satisfaction, I could go there. Simply sink into that blissful nothing and forget about everything.

Just not today.

No, today I needed to find my way back to the Shepard Shipments building, get my cowed ass back upstairs, and figure out what I needed to do to avoid a train wreck like today tomorrow. I was going to have to suck it up and walk calmly past all of the people I’d run out in front of and pretend like everything was just fine and dandy.

I took a deep breath, cleaned the last of the smeared makeup off my face and went in an entrance that avoided the newspaper vendor. One challenge at a time.

“Um, Ms. Hart? Ms. Beauty Hart?” The lobby receptionist was waving me toward the desk. I approached, my feet heavy with dread. Had I been fired and banned from the building for my emotional outburst? It would serve me right, but in all fairness, Roland had been the one to burst first.

“I’m Beauty Hart,” I said, wishing—not for the first time—that I wasn’t.

“Mr. Shepard sent this down for you,” she said, handing me a manila envelope. “With instructions that you open it immediately.”

I sighed and pried up the prongs fastening the envelope shut. There was a single sheet of paper inside and fastened to it with a paper clip was a credit card. I frowned. What was this supposed to be? Severance?

“Beauty,” the letter began, the writing cramped and hard to read. Did Roland actually right this himself? It was easier to imagine him dictating to Myra. “It’s fucking unacceptable to me that one of the employees of Shepard Shipments is living out of her car. We maintain a sense of pride around here, and if you’re going to continue to work at my company, we’re going to have to work to elevate your situation. Take this card and use it to buy whatever you need. This includes additional clothes, toiletries, an apartment, food, a cellphone, a laptop, and everything else you think might make you a more successful part of this team. There is no cap on the card. It can’t be maxed out. Don’t return until you, at the very least, have a roof over your head.”

His flourishing signature ended the letter, and I took the credit card in my hand and examined it. The name it was registered under was Roland Shepard. Had he literally given me his own credit card? I wasn’t about to fucking take this. No way.

I made a move for the elevators, but the receptionist cleared her throat loudly.

“Ms. Hart?” I turned. “Mr. Shepard also said that you weren’t supposed to go back upstairs until you’d completed the tasks he’d given you.”

“Yes, of course,” I said, plastering a fake smile over my face. “But there’s a small problem that I need to address first. Just part of the instructions that weren’t clear.” That was a lie. I was going to go up there and toss this credit card in his ugly face and tell him just where he could stick it. I didn’t want his charity. I’d refuse it, a billionaire’s violent temper tantrum be damned.

“Ms. Hart, it’s just that…” She trailed off, glancing toward the door. I followed her gaze and noticed two burly security guards approaching.

“It’s just that he said if you tried to go back upstairs without completing the tasks he’d given you, he’d have you thrown out of the building.” Her throat bobbed nervously. “Physically, if need be.”

I was quite sure the security guards had received those same instructions by the way they were eyeing me.

Unwilling to give the Roland Shepard any more satisfaction than my failures had already granted him, I left by my own volition. What was stopping me from withdrawing a ton of money and using it to fund my new life in, say, Canada? That was still a viable option. I could probably live up there for quite a while without working, as long as I had this magical, limitless credit card of Roland’s.

And yet what Dan had said stuck with me—that I’d have to belong to someplace eventually. I didn’t want to belong anywhere; I didn’t deserve to. I wanted to live in my car. It sucked, but it was supposed to. I wasn’t supposed to be happy when other people were dead because of my stupid mistake.

Yet, it was so difficult to live on the road, never being quite sure what I would eat next, or if I could get the money to eat, going hungry for days on end—once, for an entire week.

I stood there, outside the building, vacillating back and forth on what to do. I wanted to be here; I wanted to figure out why Shepard Shipments wanted me so badly; and yet, I longed for the road, to be anonymous, for people to know my name but nothing else about me.

The Shepards knew too much.

The niggling fact remained that I didn’t want to have enough money to be comfortable, to have this credit card at my disposal. I’d done a horrible thing, and I didn’t deserve comfort when I’d sent four people to their graves. I didn’t deserve to be helped by anyone if I’d been so irresponsible before.

And there was the fact that Roland’s letter that accompanied the credit card had been so fucking pompous. The fact that I lived out of my car affected company pride? That was bullshit.

I took the card and topped off the tank—that was my first move—as I decided just what I’d do. The open road called me, the need to be punished at the forefront of my mind.

But I still stayed, driving the streets of this beautiful city, the sun trying to peek between the clouds ever so often, the hills, the ferries. Houston had been nothing like this—more of an urban sprawl—but something about Seattle enchanted me.

Maybe it was the thought that things could be different in Seattle. That I could let people know me. That I’d reached the end of my penance in my journey across the country…

No. There wasn’t a point you could reach in your life when you made peace with causing four people to die. There was probably even a special place in hell for people like me.

I’d pulled off to the side of the street, in a spare parking spot, to stare off into space and ponder my situation. Could I really stay in Seattle, at least for as long as it took me to figure out Shepard Shipments? I didn’t dare to try to be happy, but working as the assistant to Roland Shepard would probably ensure that would never happen.

It dawned on me…maybe Roland could be my new punishment? He was acerbic, egotistical, and downright mean. I could accept that abuse and continue to suffer for the sins of my past. Would that be enough?

I turned my head to gaze at the building I stopped in front of, and my eyes widened. A sign was just beyond my passenger’s side window that read: “Apartments for rent.” Was this some kind of gentle nod from the universe to tell me that staying in Seattle would be the right thing to do? Did the universe even still take interest in people as terrible as me?

I made a decision right then and there. No more hemming and hawing. I was going to stay in Seattle; I was going to continue to bear the brunt of Roland’s anger; and I was going to get to the bottom of my suspicions about Shepard Shipments’ interest in me. It definitely couldn’t be that I was a promising employee. I’d proved myself an idiot today, and yet, here I was, holding a company credit card, considering taking out a lease on an apartment, and surprisingly not fired—even when I back-talked the president of the company.

I’d have fired myself for that.

Instead, I went to an ATM, took out an exorbitant amount of cash, signed up for a cellphone, called the number on the sign, and agreed to meet the landlord at the building in an hour.

An hour. What else could I do in an hour?

I bought the laptop, went furniture shopping, rounded out my wardrobe, and purchased some new toiletries.

When I returned to the apartment building, my trunk packed with more possessions than it ever had been, the landlord was already there.

“Beauty Hart, hello!” he gushed. “So nice to meet you.”

He took my hand in his and shook it emphatically.

“Thanks for meeting me,” I said. “I’m interested in renting an apartment in this building.”

“Done looking around?” he asked, sounding eager.

“More like never got started,” I answered, shrugging. “I liked the looks of this building, and I just moved into the city for a new job.”

“Perfect!” he exclaimed. “Well, let me show you around your new home!”

The apartment was just what I needed—and then some. It had a beautiful view, wood floors, and ample closet space. The kitchen had brand new modern appliances, and I eyed the stove with something cross between trepidation and excitement. I hadn’t cooked in years, and I’d have to buy all new dishes and pots and pans and utensils. It seemed almost overwhelming to consider…until I remembered Roland’s credit card.

“So, what do you think?” the landlord asked after I’d drifted around the space several more times, imagining what couch would go where, whether I’d splurge on a queen bed or stick with what I was more used to—a twin. Would a queen feel too big? I’d been so used to sleeping in my car that I thought a queen might be a waste of space on me. I’d probably just curl up to sleep and not move a muscle all night long.

“Do you need some more time to consider your options?” he asked. “I would completely understand if you did. Moving in to a new place is a big step, and one that can be overwhelming. Take a day to think about it, if you want. It’s all the same to me. You should be happy and feel completely at home in a place before you sign a lease.”

“No, I’m taking it,” I said, unable to smother a big grin. “I don’t understand why, but it somehow already feels like home.”

The most difficult part of the decision was deciding on a term for the lease agreement. Did I only want to be here month to month? Six months? A whole year? Two years? The wanderlust inside of me—or perhaps just the part of me that was used to being on the road, always moving around, never getting attached to one place—balked at the longer lease term. But finally, I was able to close my eyes and sign a one-year lease. I didn’t know how long it would take me to discover the truth of the Shepards. If it took less than a year, well, maybe I wouldn’t mind continuing to live here.

The rest of the day was spent setting up my utilities, securing other services like Internet and gas, and buying furniture and décor and having it rush delivered that evening to my new home. If Roland had said that money wasn’t an object, I supposed he could afford it.

I sat in a new armchair, fiddling with my laptop as I directed movers where to put my new furniture. On a whim, I opened up my Shepard Shipments email account Myra had given me access to early today and fired off a message at Roland.

I’m typing this from a new laptop that you bought, sitting on a new chair, which you also bought, inside a new apartment, which you have footed the bill for as well. You are probably going to have to dock my pay for a solid year before you recoup all these expenses from me. The new place feels a little too big after my cozy car, but I think it’s going to turn out just fine. Thank you.

I hesitated a few moments before sending it. The last thing I wanted to do was to give the impression that I was some entitled gold digger. The fact that Roland had given me his credit card to try and straighten out my life had been a kind gesture. I wanted to make sure he knew I was grateful.