by Lily Hayden
“Leaving already?” He asked, taking her arm, forcing her to pause.
“I’m sorry.” She managed a tight, polite smile. “I’ve got a terrible migraine.”
“I’m not feeling too sharp, either.” He said. “I’ll give you a ride.”
He tucked her arm through his and she allowed herself to be led outside. He didn’t comment on the way she was hobbling, and she assumed her grimace of pain was making her migraine story believable. He made light small-talk as they waited for the valet to retrieve his Porsche. He helped her to slip into the passenger seat, chivalrously helping her to tuck the golden fabric into the car. He gunned the engine and she felt the familiar roar soothe her troubled nerves. Aaron fell silent for a while and Shauna felt herself start to relax. The hotel was maybe forty minutes from the office, an hour from her place. She’d be tucked up in the comfort of her bed soon. She craved the peace and the solitude to mull over the events of the last twenty-four hours.
Aaron turned the vehicle onto the freeway and she gazed out of the window, appreciating how the sleek machine churned up the road in the darkness.
“I’ve had an interesting conversation with Sylvie.” He said, breaking the silence.
Shauna’s heart sank. She’d been so taken aback by the revelation that Armand married that she’d barely given thought to the other allegations Sylvie had made. She waited for Aaron to elaborate, but when it became clear that he was waiting for her response, she felt she had no choice but to reply.
“Really?”
She could sense him tense up across the small space between them.
“You know what I’m talking about.” He said, not able to hide the frustration in his voice. “I’m sorry that you’ve been caught up in his games. I hope that you’ve at least had the forewarning to get out while you’re not in too deep.”
She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She could feel the heat rising to her face in embarrassment.
“Shauna?” He turned towards her, the headlights of the car lighting up his profile, and some tiny memory was triggered at the back of her mind by his silhouette.
She frowned, trying to retrieve the fragment of memory, but he reached across, taking her hand in his, forcing her back to the present.
“Sylvie mentioned something about documents.” She said reluctantly, feeling like she was betraying Armand, despite his own lies. “But I really don’t know anything about it, I’m afraid.”
“You’re a smart woman, Shauna.” Aaron said after another long silence. “Rebecca has been signing your praises. What are your plans for the future?”
Shauna felt a pang of relief that he had accepted her response and graciously moved onto another subject, and she answered him, telling him honestly about her love for MLB Designs and her hope to find work at a similar corporation.
“I wish I could offer you something.” He said regretfully. “Your talent is just the kind of thing we need here, but it wouldn’t be fair to ask you to relocate when there’s so much uncertainty at the moment.”
“Uncertainty?” She looked up at him, but his eyes were fixed on the road.
He sighed heavily, rubbing a hand across the stubble of his chin.
“Please don’t repeat this,” He said. “There’s been talk that someone from MLB has been supplying one of our biggest competitors with our own plans. Salvatore Design have beat us to several of the last big client bids. That, and money going missing from company accounts means MLB is not in the greatest position right now.”
He decelerated sharply as he cut across three empty lanes to take an exit before continuing.
“MLB is not a huge business.” He said gravely. “It’s relatively young and local compared to some of our competitors. Every contract counts to us yet plans for a future bid for Parade Shopping Plazas have gone missing. We know Armand is behind this. All we need is a witness. If we don’t land this contract, there will be jobs lost. The alternative is we wait months, probably years, for the external auditors to track the missing money. He’s a clever man though, and I wouldn’t put it past him to cover his trail. We need him gone, one way or another.”
They were driving through lit-up streets now and Shauna could make out the stressed-out look on Aaron’s face. She slumped back into her seat, shocked by the severity of Armand’s alleged behaviour. Aaron pulled to a stop outside the dark office and Shauna looked up surprised. Aaron knew where she lived. Why was he stopping here? Her ankle was still hurting, and she just wanted to go home, take off this dress and try to forget the awful things she had heard. She hadn’t seen the documents. She couldn’t see why they would tell her all this.
Aaron killed the engine and turned to her, and she felt a thick tension settle between them.
“There’s two ways we can do this,” He said seriously. “You can sign a statement for the attention of our CEO saying you saw the documents…”
“But, I didn’t!” Shauna protested quickly.
“Or,” Aaron continued. “You can sign a statement admitting that Armand Landry has sexually harassed you during your internship.”
Shauna felt a wave of nausea rise up inside her.
“Aaron,” She shook her head desperately. “He didn’t…”
Aaron didn’t let her finish. “For all intents and purposes, Shauna, forgive me, but he did. He deliberately took advantage of a shy, young, inexperienced intern. He saw that you were having trouble settling into a new place, which is completely understandable for a quiet, introverted woman like yourself. God knows, I was just like you, believe it or not. If you had known he was married, would you have fallen for his lies?”
She shook her head hurriedly, mortification spreading through her veins like fire.
“Of course not!”
“I mean what I said, Shauna.” Aaron said quietly. “We would be honoured to offer you a position in Rebecca’s team. While the investigations are ongoing, we wouldn’t be able to commit to taking someone new on, but by admitting the truth, as painful as it may be to you, we can ensure the future of this business.”
“I don’t see what difference it would make.” She stuttered, knowing, as much as she would love to work with Rebecca, that she couldn’t lie even if Armand had behaved like an utter bastard.
“With him gone,” Aaron explained. “We’ll have less obstacles to overcome in the hunt for the truth. As well as the security of all our future bids. Please, Shauna. If not for MLB Designs, then for Rebecca and all her hard work.”
Shauna’s protests died on her lips at his plea as she thought of lovely Rebecca and the hundreds of hours she committed to her designs. Aaron was guaranteeing her a job. Her dream job. Armand didn’t deserve her loyalty.
Aaron sensed her hesitation. “Just come inside and let’s talk about it.”
Reluctantly, she allowed him to help her from the vehicle and followed him into the empty building.
Getting Even
Ella’s fingers flew deftly over the keyboard of her laptop, her head nodding along to the heavy bassline of the music blasting through her headphones. She paused, coming to a tricky part of the sales pitch. Figures were not her forte and she wrinkled her forehead in concentration, hoping that would magically draw the exact numbers from her memory vault.
Nothing.
Frustrated, she reached into her tote bag and withdrew her heavy notepad, leafing through the pages to find the precise quantity that she knew she had jotted down in her neat cursive. She found the figure and turned back to the presentation, willing herself to lose herself again in the beat of the music.
It was no good though. An annoying high-pitched noise had slipped through the gap in her concentration. Ella felt her body tense involuntarily as her favourite artist’s latest release was interspersed by the “Oh-my-God’s!” and the “Have y’all heard’s?” of the other people in the room that she had been fixedly doing her best to ignore.
“Ella?”
She heard her own name being called, but she stared ahead, finger
s tapping out. What she really wanted to do was to reach down into her lap to turn the volume up on her phone to drown them out, but she couldn’t pause now without looking rude.
“Ugh.” Now she had tuned into them, their voices were annoyingly clear. “What’s up with her?”
“Macy!” Jessica, maintaining a scrap of professionalism, berated her employee. “Don’t be so rude.”
“You should tell her the same!” Macy responded, a little quieter but just as snarky[A2]. “She’s been moodier than a…”
Ella, thankfully, missed Macy’s metaphor as the next song on her playlist kicked in. She keyed in the final line of text and pushed her chair back noisily, tactfully giving them time to stop any bitching about her before she removed her headphones. She pasted a faux, bright smile onto her face and turned to face her colleagues.
“I’m just going to grab a bite to eat.” She announced, finding Macy’s eyes and holding her gaze. “Anybody want anything?”
There was a chorus of “No, thank you” and, relieved, Ella turned towards the door.
“Actually, sweetie…”
Ella turned back to Sawyer, narrowly veiling her annoyance.
“Could you grab me a double-shot hazelnut soy frappe from across the street?”
“No problem.” She managed from between gritted teeth.
She ignored the bank of elevators, needing to pound the stairs and rid herself of some pent-up aggression. She caught sight of her reflection, mirrored in the tinted windows of the stairwell. Her usually immaculately-styled blonde hair was thrown up in a messy bun on top of her head and her face was devoid of the flawless make-up look she favoured. Thankfully, the Texan sun had tanned her usually fair skin an even golden glow. In fact, her sun-kissed look was the only positive to come out of her summer down south, she thought regretfully, as she pushed open the doors on the ground floor.
Her heart was racing a little from the exertion, and she realised how unfit she had become in a matter of just weeks. Back in college, she’d been devoted to the gym to keep her figure toned and trim, yet between Caleb’s monopolisation of her time, her brief stint dating Jason and the hours she spent sleeping when she wasn’t in work, she had barely managed one run since she’d been here. She could see the pounds she had gained were clinging to her ass and her chest, which was fine by her, but if she wasn’t careful, she’d be leaving Texas fat as well as miserable.
She hadn’t spoken to Caleb since the morning he had shown his true colours. She had blocked him on every platform of communication she could think of, but it was far from a clean break. She knew she had never been in love with him. True, she had been infatuated with the person that she thought he was back in college, but if she was really honest with herself, she’d been over her crush from that first night they’d kissed at graduation. She had known then that he wasn’t right for her, but she had let him manipulate his way into her life. She had been grateful for the company, but she could see clearly now he was controlling her, using her to get over his break-up with Ashley. His aggression had shocked and scared her, but it was her own naivety that was still unsettling her.
She had been unable to see Caleb for what he truly was, just like she had been fooled into thinking Jason Stephens had been a Knight-in-shining-armour. She scoffed at her own thoughts, but deep down, she knew that everything that had happened had seriously shaken her belief in herself. These thoughts led her back to her immediate concern. Work.
She slowed down her hurried pace now she was out on the street. She crossed the road, ignoring the nostalgic twinge that tugged at her chest when she passed the spot where Jason used to wait to pick her up after work. She idled along, gazing into various store-fronts, in no rush to go back into the office. The slower she moved, the louder her thoughts became until she was forced to listen to the nagging voice that had been trying to break through for the last week.
I fucking hate it here.
There. She’d allowed the negative, self-pitying thought to make itself clear through the constant whir and jumble of feelings that had been spinning through her mind for the past few weeks. She silenced them with work, mundane chores and mainly with sleep. She had gone from a healthy routine to basically sleeping every spare hour she had away in a bid to escape her own misery. She had less then four weeks left here, but it may as well have been four years.
Just go home.
It was a gentler, more imploring voice that spoke now, piercing through the negativity of her low mood. She stopped in her tracks, as if considering the thought for the first time. It was tempting. All she needed to do was exchange her flight, sure she’d lose some money, but she could go back to Ohio, stay with her family and look for something in her hometown for the short-term while she decided where she really wanted to live.
She pushed open the doors to the store and joined the growing lunchtime bustle, scanning the menu out of habit, despite knowing she’d stick to her usual order.
Could she do it though? She wondered. It was all well and good wanting to run away from here after everything that had happened, but would she regret it when she was back in her teenage single bedroom with her parents judging everything she said and did? It would be like taking ten steps backward. She had left Ohio as a naïve, obedient girl and found her true self in Chicago. She loved her family dearly, but holidays back home with them had left her feeling restricted and claustrophobic. They treated her like a child and they had some pretty conservative views that she struggled to not argue with. If only Shauna or Taylor were home. She would have loved to stay in New York with Taylor, or even Washington with Shauna’s adorably loving Mom. They had all hoped to head back to Chicago to stay together after their internships, but they were only loose plans. They all knew it would depend on where they could find jobs and what they could afford. She had nowhere enough money to rent somewhere herself in Chicago and if she walked out now, she’d have no reference to show for her summer either. She had no choice, but to grin and bear it.
“Hey.”
A soft voice jerked Ella from her depressing thoughts and she turned to see an attractive dark-haired woman join the queue behind her. The woman was dressed in a red plaid shirt over a band tank-top and a baggy pair of shredded jeans. Her black hair was thick and loose around her pretty face and Ella instantly recognised the cat-like green eyes. Roxy worked at Jason’s bar.
“Hey.” Ella smiled and, for the first time in a week, it was a genuine and warm smile.
She’d met Roxy several times. She was funny, warm and likeable.
“It’s Ella, right?”
Seeing Roxy had immediately reminded Ella of Jason. She’d heard from some of the bar staff that he’d got his scar defending Roxy when a dead-beat drunk had pulled a knife in a bar brawl. The thought triggered a more intimate memory of running her lips along the tender flesh. She felt the familiar ache of longing in her heart that always came with any thoughts of him.
“That’s right.” She replied, pulling her mind back to the present. “How are you?”
“All good.” Roxy smiled politely. “I haven’t seen you for a while. I thought maybe you’d gone back home.”
“I haven’t been out much lately,” Ella replied. “Just busy with work.”
Ella was at the front of the queue now and quickly gave the assistant her order.
“Can I get a name for the frappe?”
“Uh, Sawyer.”
Ella moved to the side to wait for her order and Roxy glanced over her shoulder at her.
“Sawyer?” She frowned. “Is that for Sawyer Patterson?”
Ella nodded her head.
“She’s your friend?” Roxy asked, finishing paying for her own order and moving to Ella’s side.
Ella shrugged. “We work together.”
The expression on Roxy’s cat-like features was that of incredulity. The warm sparkle in her eyes evaporated and Roxy regarded Ella suspiciously.
“You know she’s been hitting on Jason, right?”
&n
bsp; Ella shrugged again. “We’re not together. They can do what they want.”
Roxy’s hard stare softened, but not before Ella had time to appreciate how scary Roxy must be to any rowdy drunks.
“I wondered why he hadn’t been himself.” She said softly, more to herself than to Ella. “He’s a pretty great guy. If you weren’t that into him, well, that’s your loss, but tell your airhead friend to back off.”
“She’s not my friend.” Ella felt a wave of irritation creeping over her. “And for the record, he was hitting on her when he was seeing me, so he’s hardly that great.”
Roxy shook her dark hair emphatically. “Is that what she told you? Honey, she’s been literally harassing him with messages, slutty pictures, turning up at the bar. I’ve seen him turn her down in front of my eyes.”
A tiny bubble of something that felt like hope inflated inside Ella, but before it could fully take form she burst it herself. Hope was a sure-fire way of getting her feelings hurt again.
“He might have grown tired of her by now.” Ella responded, struggling to keep her tone calm.
“He was never into her.” Roxy insisted. “You, on the other hand, he really liked.”
Roxy’s order was called, and she leaned over to take the sandwich from the assistant, before turning back to Ella with an apologetic smile.
“We love Jason.” She said as she turned to leave. “Obviously I’m biased, but I’m telling you that he wouldn’t touch Sawyer. If you don’t believe me, you can ask your friend Chicago and that other little blonde. They were there last Saturday when Jason told her he wasn’t interested. He had tried to be nice about it, but she was wasted and wouldn’t leave him alone. If he hadn’t done it, I was this close to kicking her ass.”
“Chicago?” Ella questioned, utterly confused by the attractive bartender’s rambling.
“That asshole from Chicago? Lives in Houston? Goes out with that skinny blonde? Lacey?”
“Macy.” Ella corrected her automatically, feeling her blood start to heat up as all the pieces of the puzzle began to click together.
“Whatever.” Roxy tossed her bag back onto her shoulder. “See you around, Ella.”
