I looked him straight in the eye and said, “I’m going to Minnesota, and you can’t stop me. I will not be kept from my career by you!”
His jaw dropped. “By me?! He ran his hands through his hair, causing it to stand on end. “This is not about me holdin’ you back.” Narrowing his eyes, he pointed a finger at my chest and growled with the force of a hurricane. “This is about satisfyin’ your ego.”
“Ego? You think this is about my ego?!”
With an evil glint in his eye, he said, “I absolutely do.”
♥
As furious as I’d ever been, I pressed on my abdomen to ease the pain and jogged back to the car. His ego was five times bigger than mine, and if this situation was ego-driven, his was behind the wheel. I climbed into The Beast and all-wheel-drive spun it out of the lot.
The car was barely parked before I slithered out and staggered into the house.
“Taylor,” I said, stuffing a bounty of clothes into a suitcase. “Pete will pay you when he gets home, okay?”
Smacking right into her on the way to the kitchen, I grabbed up a grocery bag and filled it with bottles and my breast pump. Then, tiptoeing into Audrey’s room, I quietly gathered several outfits and her blanket and stuffed them into her baby bag.
“Miss Susan?”
“Please tell Pete that Audrey and I are taking a little trip…and that that he can go to hell.” I then calmly turned away from her shocked expression and marched back down the hall.
Once packed and loaded, I carefully secured Audrey in her car seat as she slept. I dreaded the day when that peaceful expression would be replaced by one reflecting the heavy weight of adulthood.
“Susan!” Mona said, greeting us with the warmest of smiles. “Come on in out of the cold.” Audrey was wide awake now, her full flirt on.
“Could you hold her for a moment while I run out to the car?”
“Why, I could hold my sweet angel all day long. Yes, I could,” she cooed, blowing raspberries on her little tummy.
Her next expression was one of shock as I dropped all our shit on the carpet and announced, “We’re staying a few days. Hope you don’t mind.” I then marched to the guest bedroom and slammed the door.
♥
Pete waited until after Audrey’s bedtime to show up. I was amazed he’d had the willpower to last that long.
“Ya can’t just take off every time we have a fight.”
“This is only the second time I’ve ever done that, and as you can see, I didn’t go very far.”
“Walk with me down the street.” He kept his voice low and controlled. “I don’t want to wake the baby.” I turned to confirm with Mona, but she had discreetly disappeared.
He knew better than to reach for my hand. A block away, he stopped and turned to me. After taking a deep breath, he spoke. “A very long time ago, I promised I’d never hold ya back from your career or from doin’ what ya wanted, but it’s not just you and me anymore. It’s us—the three of us. I’m sorry about the way I reacted earlier. I was mad and I maybe shouldn’t have said those things in quite the way I did, but the fact is: I meant ’em.”
“Don’t you understand I already feel like a failure? I failed in protecting my district and my people. Clearly, you think I suck at being a mother, and as a wife—”
“You couldn’t help work, I think you’re an amazing mother, and the only woman I could ever imagine bein’ married to is you, darlin’.” He ran his hand down my cheek. “Our lives have changed. You need to accept that and make some concessions.”
Annnd we were off to the races again…
“I’ve made concessions, dammit. I forfeited an incredible opportunity to come back here. What about you? What concessions have you made? When I was transferred to Ohio, did you come find me? No. Did you call or even fucking text me while I was gone? No. You just went on with your life as if nothing had ever happened, leaving me bleeding by the roadside.”
There would always be a kernel of resentment when it came to my stint in Ohio. We’d talked some after I returned, but were so happy simply being in each other’s arms that the subject had been dropped, the past swept under a rug. Well, it had just found its way back out, and the anger it toted surprised even me.
Pain drenched his features like a fierce rain.
“You once accused Ryan of seeing me only when it was convenient for him. Is that what our marriage is about? Is it simply that I’m here? If I take this job, will you make any concessions, or just write me off as a fucking inconvenience?”
He took a step back and threw his hands up like I was some kind of rabid creature. “One, don’t ever compare me to that asshole again, and two, you broke my heart, Susan. Right in half. And then you took the best part with you. Don’t ever think I stayed away because of selfishness or because it was inconvenient. And as far as goin’ on as if nothin’ happened?” He threw his head back and laughed bitterly. “I died the day you left, and I stayed dead until you came back. With the exception of Audrey’s birth, that was the single greatest day of my life.”
“Because I moved back. Because I was in front of you again.”
I truly could not believe we were having this argument. I think in reality it was a deflection from what was really at stake here, from the bigger issue at hand: who was willing to bend and how far.
“I came up!” He shouted.
“What?”
“I came up.” His shoulders dropped and his voice became raspy. “Right after your birthday. I watched you. You must’ve just bought your car because you were practically skippin’. You looked so beautiful in your wool coat and black boots, a big smile on your face. Happy.
“That’s what you kept sayin’ in your messages. It’s what you told Mona, too. But I needed to see it for myself.” He kicked at a small rock. “I guess I was hopin’ it maybe wasn’t true. And after those guys finished hugging all over you, ya followed them home. I knew then that Ohio was your place. That that’s where you belonged. I also knew,” he said, his voice a mere whisper, “that I didn’t stand a chance in hell of getting you back.”
“What guys?” I barely remembered the day I brought Lucy home. I remembered signing papers and then driving her around the beltway… Then it dawned on me. “Ken and Chris? Of course they hugged all over me. They were gay! Did you actually think I’d already found someone else, that I cared so little for you?” Shaking with forgotten anguish and the acrid loss of what could have been, I looked at the sky. I could have had him and kept Ohio. We could have been in a very different place right now. “Why didn’t you—? You could have at least spoken with me. Dammit, that would have been a game-changer!”
“Would it’ve really?”
“I fucking loved you!” I seethed.
“I don’t doubt it. But the fact is: when you left, you weren’t ready to commit—really commit to our relationship. And then when I came up, I realized you had everything you wanted—needed. What I conceded that day was hope. What I forfeited…was my soul.”
Tears spilled down my cheeks as he touched my face.
“You sacrificed a great deal comin’ back here. And you did it for me. I thank God every day for that gift,” he said tenderly.
“Pete, I don’t want to go to Minnesota. It was very painful leaving her for one day. And to do that on a weekly basis—be a weekend mom? I’m not a monster. I’m not,” I said, balling my fists. “But what am I supposed to do?”
“Look, I know you didn’t want to be a mother so soon, and I know it’s been damn hard on you physically and emotionally. Probably more than I can understand. But four weeks ago, my world disappeared—gone like smoke in a gale. I will not lose you again. I won’t.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You died on that operating table. Died.”
I gasped as the horror sank in. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I couldn’t bear to think about it, much less say it out loud.” He was visibly shaking. He pulled me into a tight embr
ace as if could literally hold my body and spirit together.
I rubbed his back, whispering, “I love you,” over and over.
Finally, he stepped back and looked at me, the streetlight’s glow playing on his damp cheeks. His eyes were sad and lost, and his voice ragged and filled with pain. “If moving is what it takes to keep us together, then that’s what we’ll do. I’ll sell my business, and we’ll…go.”
I couldn’t breathe. He was willing to walk away from his life here. He was giving up everything to keep us together. The very high respect I held for this man multiplied tenfold. I touched his face. “You would do this?”
“I’ve known it was coming in one form or another since the day you took leave. I’ve been working through the problem for months now—trying to see it from all sides, but I couldn’t figure out how to solve it.” He smiled weakly. “I just did.”
He pressed his lips against my palm and closed his eyes. “I’m goin’ home now. If ya don’t mind, I need a little while by myself.”
46
On Bended Knees
I wandered downstairs to the horrible sound of Pete singing to Audrey. This time it was “Sweet Child of Mine” by Guns N’ Roses. Honestly, he wasn’t far off the lead singer’s voice.
“You look nice,” Pete said, admiring my form-fitting cashmere dress. I hadn’t regained my figure by a long shot, but my postnatal curves and swells seemed to please him.
“I’ve got to run an errand. I’ll be back in a little while.” I kissed them both and slipped out. Though I wasn’t exactly wearing a suit of armor, I had a dragon to slay.
“Susan!” Jayne exclaimed when I walked through the door. “You look amazing! How’s the baby?”
Mind set to task, I wasn’t interested in chatting, so my answers were glib.
“Mona just left for lunch. She should be back—”
“I’m not here for Mona,” I said, cutting her off.
Her face lit. “Did you bring me pictures?”
“No.”
After a confused look, she said, “So…why are you here?”
“Kirsten.”
“This isn’t the best time.”
“Too bad.”
“She’s in a meeting right now. Shall I—”
I didn’t wait another moment. I just threw open her door. Kirsten was leaning back in her chair, a look of infinite pleasure on her face. Eyes closed, her lips were slack and open slightly as if she’d been panting. She let out a soft moan.
I cleared my throat loudly, and her lids flipped open. Her shocked expression was quickly replaced by an ugly grimace. And that’s when I noticed the thatch of hair poking up from between her legs. It was a color I recognized, and my stomach turned. I stared, stunned and disgusted.
“May I help you?” she asked, without a hint of modesty or shame.
“We need to talk. I’ll wait in the lobby until you’re less…” I wanted to say repugnant, vulgar, vile—honestly, I could go on for days. I finally just mumbled, “Occupied,” and shut the door.
Jayne shrugged apologetically and went back to typing. I wandered into Mona’s office and froze. In a word: landfill. With files strewn across her desk, papers carpeting the floor, and boxes stacked to the ceiling, it looked exactly the way mine had when I was a disorganized service rep. The most striking difference between us, however, was that Mona was a neat freak of OCD proportions. Kirsten was destroying her: slowly skinning her to the bone. My lips curled up like a wolf’s.
The insect’s door opened, and a disheveled and red-faced Gene Daniel stepped out. He refused to meet my eyes as he slinked by. I waited until I heard his engine start before stepping to Jayne’s desk. Mechanically, she punched numbers, listened, and then hung up. “Kirsten will see you now.”
“Thank you.”
My—Kirsten’s office looked nearly the same as when I’d last left it. A giant, red, Louis Vuitton handbag, its cost in the low thousands, took up a full fourth of her desktop. Plugged into black Jimmy Choo heels, her ankles were now crossed, and her head languidly rested against my—her sumptuous leather chair. I dug my nails into my thighs.
“Always a pleasure, Susan. You look less…bloody today.” Her smile dripped venom. I glanced at the area I had soaked red. An admittedly gorgeous oriental rug now covered it.
Without preamble, I said, “I want North Carolina back.”
She laughed coldly. “That would be no.”
“You can’t like it here. It’s not your style.”
“I don’t know… It has its perks.” I thought of Gene and wanted to retch. Ew, ew, and just…ew!
“Power is what you crave. Power and position, and North Carolina offers you neither. No one really wants this state but me.”
“It’s an adequate placeholder for now.”
“I’ve just been given Minnesota. It’s lucrative and metropolitan. It has all the things you want. Things that this place can never hope to give you. Consider it yours.”
“In Frank’s territory? I think not.”
“ComSync has a strong presence here. They take revenue away from our bottom line potential. In Minnesota, INTech has no competition. You’ll have a complete stronghold—all profits are yours.
She shook her head no.
Desperate, I had little to barter with. “I’ll give it to you plus half of North Carolina’s budget.”
“Hmm. Very generous, but no.”
“What can I offer you?” I was mere inches away from writing her a personal check. I was also mere inches from tears.
She laughed wickedly. “Firstborn? Isn’t that what desperate women typically offer?”
“Only on Disney. Come on, Kirsten, I’m giving you a hell of a lot of money and a painless way out of here. Please.”
“Begging. Oh, I like that. I like that a lot.” He voice was sensual and disturbing. She slowly walked around her desk, her fingers evocatively dragging along its polished surface. Less than a foot away from me now, she stared down from her staggering height, her lips twisting into a malicious smile. “I’ll give you everything you want…if you drop to your knees.”
My mind screamed, “No!” The word just didn’t make it to my lips. The faces I loved: Pete’s, Audrey’s, Mona’s, those of the whole town of Havelock; friends and family, my sense of place, the state in which I’d been born and recently fallen back in love with, all flashed before my eyes in rapid succession. I could give it up—walk away from everyone and everything I held dear, except for Pete. For him, I would do anything.
My lips trembled as I met her stormy gray eyes, and I slowly dropped to my knees. “Please,” I whispered.
Closing her eyes, Kirsten inhaled deeply. “God, that’s better than sex.”
My ego annihilated, I muttered, “I’ll contact corporate and make arrangements.”
“Oh shoot, Susan,” she mocked. “I’ve changed my mind.”
“What?!” I gasped, hopping to my feet.
“A woman’s prerogative, hun.”
“No! You promised.”
She tsked, tapping her chin. “I forgot the cross-my-heart-hope-to-die part.”
Rage boiled over my shallow pot, hissing as it reached the fire. “You fucking bitch. Give me back my district!”
“When hell freezes over! I’ll stay here until the entire company falls apart before I give it back to you.”
“Why? Why do you hate me so much?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“No! What have I ever done other than idolize you? I’ve never screwed you over. I’ve never stabbed you in the back!” I seethed. “Why?”
“You exist. You breathe.”
“What does that even mean?”
“That’s just it. You’re an annoyingly naïve, innocent, clueless little lamb, and yet they hand you whatever the fuck you want,” she hissed. “You haven’t had to work for anything in your professional life.”
My jaw dropped. “I’ve worked for everything. I’ve taken on huge loads, sacrificed for my people,
my company—”
“Oh, spare me. You’ve moved up faster than anyone I’ve ever seen. You’ve hopped from one promotion to another. People love you. Bob loves you. Hell, even Frank loves you, and I can promise that never happens. Whatever magic you seem to have, whatever charm fools them into thinking you’re competent, I want it.”
She then bent down, her face so close to mine I could smell the soured coffee on her breath. “I step on people, double-cross, manipulate. I do everything you’re supposed to do in big business. I work all the angles, and yet you continue gaining on me. You don’t know how many people I’ve slept with—the things I’ve done to get where I am. And you…you’ve slept with, what—two, three people in the company? And Ryan, the only damn one who even mattered—a vice-fucking president, for God’s sake—you slept with him for two solid years, and according to our little pillow talks, you never once asked for his help. Not once. Stupid girl! So stupid.
“I’ve been with this company twice as long as you. I should be a vice president by now. I should be your boss,” she snarled. “But here I am: a lowly district manager barely making more than you.”
I had nothing to say. There was nothing I could say. I simply stared at her, shocked.
Botox could no longer contain her emotion, her face contorting with rage. “Get out of my office!”
“Kirsten, please—”
“Get out!”
I turned on my heels and slammed the door. Jayne looked up over her reading glasses. “You okay?”
“I’m sorry you’ve gotten stuck with her again. It’s the last thing I wanted for you.”
“It’s working out fine.” She offered a sly smile and winked. I hoped against hope she was undermining her in every way possible.
I shakily climbed into The Beast. I don’t think I’d ever felt more powerless in my life. Even in the hospital, barely able to move, I’d entertained the illusion that I was somewhat in control. But now? Nothing. There was no moving heaven and earth this time.
Back Where I Belong: A Wonderfully Witty and Completely Absorbing Love Story (Susan Wade Series Book 3) Page 33
