His Secretary: Undone and Unveiled (The Complete Series Collection)

by Melanie Marchande

  I hate it.

  My first day, I get home and suddenly realize what a sty I’m living in. A month’s worth of the shitty local newspaper scattered across my kitchen table, junk mail everywhere, empty bottles of God knows what. I haven’t had an adrenaline rush in ages, so I find myself cleaning. I flip on the TV and let the financial news drone on in the background while I gather up the recycling.

  As I walk to the bin in the kitchen, something on one of the newspapers catches my eye.

  Animal shelter says “guardian angel” responsible for saving location; furry tenants

  The eye-rolling headline notwithstanding, I have to wonder.

  I flip to the human interest section. Sure enough, it’s a picture of Shelly cuddling a very photogenic polydactyl cat with striking green eyes, taking up half the page.

  My heart squeezes painfully in my chest.

  ….the donor, who insists on remaining anonymous, has promised Masterson his ongoing support for her shelter, and its mission. “He really is a guardian angel,” she says. “I’ve always believed that the universe will provide when you’re at your most desperate, but until now I didn’t realize just how true that was.”

  The universe, hell.

  Guardian fucking angel? Not likely.

  I’m laughing and I’m crying and I’m laughing some more.

  And he never said a word to me. Why would he? He didn’t know. It’s not his job to update me on every charity he decides to support.

  But the anonymity is different. That means he’s not supporting them as Risinger Industries, he’s just supporting them as himself. Like he actually cares.

  My heartbeat comes back. And with it, a pain in my chest that I wonder if I’ll ever live completely without.

  When I show up at the shelter, with its shiny new coat of paint and expanded kennel area, Shelly hugs me and cries.

  “I thought you might be back,” she sniffles. “I was hoping. After we ran into each other…”

  She pauses, looking at me. It seems like there’s a thousand things she’s not saying.

  “I’m just so glad you’re here,” she says, finally.

  I puzzle over this while I supervise the open play time for the dogs, throwing balls and sticks and sitting down on the bench with the elderly beagle who just wants to cuddle all day. I know he’s going to have a hard time finding a home, and I try not to think about it as I stroke his ears.

  The one nice thing about this new, terminally boring job is that it leaves me plenty of time and energy to volunteer again. It feels strange, like a time machine has taken me back five years and dropped me in a place where I no longer really fit in. Nothing else has changed much, but I have.

  I start spending weekends, evenings, and even some early mornings at the shelter. When I mention it offhandedly to my new boss, he offers me a flexible schedule to help out with my charitable endeavors. He loves animals, you see.

  I feel like I’m on a different fucking planet.

  When Shelly walks into the room, the whole atmosphere changes. Every single dog’s head perks up, and they’re all looking at her, waiting for instructions.

  “Sit,” she says, quietly, and they all do.

  The woman is terrifying, and I love her.

  “Meg, are you all right?” She comes over and lays her hand on my shoulder. “You seem like you’re a million miles away, sometimes.”

  Is it that obvious? I feel my ears start to burn. “I’m sorry. I’ll try to focus better. I’m just…”

  “No, no, no. You’re not doing anything wrong.” She sits down beside me. “I’m just worried about you, that’s all. If you ever want to talk, I’m here.”

  “I know.” Sighing, I look down at my hands in my lap. They’re just sitting there, inert, like they don’t know what to do. It feels like everything takes a special effort. Breathing. Thinking. Every muscle in my body is particularly heavy and sluggish. “I got myself into kind of a mess at my old job. I’m glad I left. Not that it was my choice. But I think it was the right one, even if it seemed horrible at the time.”

  “That job was definitely not good for you.” Shelly nods. “I could see it draining the life out of you, every time we ran into each other. But you don’t look any happier now, Meg. You still look like you’re carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders. Have you really left that place behind?”

  Of course I haven’t. But how can I explain that, without confessing that I slept with my boss? I don’t want Shelly to know that about me. It seems so juvenile, so ridiculous. I’m going to come across like the delusional one - unable to accept that a guy who’s so spectacularly out of my league doesn’t want to settle down and have babies with the likes of me. No matter how much he likes the sex, I never should have mistaken it for love.

  It wasn’t a mistake, though. I know it wasn’t. He felt something and he ran the fuck away from it. If that’s how he’s going to be, then I don’t want him in my life.

  “It’s hard to let go of the fantasy of somebody that you have in your head, you know?” I say, finally. It doesn’t make any sense out of context, but with Shelly that seldom matters. “Even if you know they’re really not like that. It’s like we just see bits and pieces, and our brains fill in the rest with whatever we want to be there.”

  She’s nodding. Once again, it seems like there’s something she’s not saying, and I can’t imagine what. Shelly seldom finds a reason to bite her tongue.

  “Well, whatever’s going on, I know you’re gonna be okay.” She squeezes my shoulder. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

  I promise her that I will, but I can’t imagine how anyone could help me at this point.

  For some reason, my TV keeps ending up back on the financial channel. It’s all stuff I needed to know when I was working for Adrian, but it’s almost entirely irrelevant to my life now. All the same, I stay informed. Whenever there’s nothing better on, I learn about all the latest mergers and acquisitions and wild speculation.

  I’m just used to it, I suppose. It’s like a lullaby at this point, or Seinfeld reruns for anyone who grew up in the 90s. It’s nice to know there’s at least one thing in the world that hasn’t changed.

  But Jim Cramer is really letting the spittle fly tonight. Something must have happened. I didn’t hear any air raid sirens, so it can’t be all that important, but I turn my attention to the screen all the same, while I gather up my dishes.

  “…so with this unprecedented move, what do you anticipate for the future?” one of the other talking heads is asking.

  “You know, John - obviously we’ve seen things like this happen before, big upsets like this, but ultimately I think this’ll be a blip. Of course it’ll depend on the impression the new CEO leaves. But there’s no sign the company’s been mismanaged before now. Ultimately I think people are going to forget the name Adrian Risinger.”

  I don’t drop the glass I’m holding, but thinking back on it, I’m not sure how the hell I managed that.

  “It’s a little early for a midlife crisis,” someone else is saying. “There’s going to be suggestions - in fact, we’re already seeing implications that he might have stepped down because of some corruption or an issue he otherwise doesn’t want to deal with. And that’s going to be swirling through everyone’s head when the markets open tomorrow.”

  With numb fingers, I type his name into the search on my phone. Five or six news stories pop up immediately. There’s a video. I don’t want to hit play, but I do.

  “I’ve already commented on this…I’ve said everything I’m going to say. It has nothing to do with Risinger Industries. I see a prosperous future for them without me. This was never the right position for me, and I was never the right man for the job. My only regret is that it took me so long to realize it.”

  I sit down, mostly because my knees have stopped working.

  He lived for that company. It’s all he has. All he’s ever had. And now he’s just…walking away?

  Pa
nic is clawing at the inside of my throat, and I realize this whole time I’ve been scared for him. I don’t know how he can live without me, and how’s that for hubris? All along I’ve been writing him off as the arrogant one, but I’ve grown to believe myself indispensable to him.

  Clearly, I’m not.

  Being Adrian’s secretary was my whole identity. For five long years, it was all I had. I didn’t want to believe that I let it seep into me so deeply, but I have. Adrian will be fine without me. He’ll be fine without the company. In fact, he’ll probably go back to writing. He’s a man of many talents, unlike me. Unless dealing with an impossible people is a talent. It doesn’t seem to be coming in particularly handy now.

  Heartache keeps me awake that night, and I wish I could just forget about it. His life and mine are no longer intertwined. In fact, I have no plans to speak to him ever again.

  And yet.

  And yet.

  When Shelly asks me if there’s any possible way I can make it in a little early on a Wednesday, I actually run it by my boss, and he says of course I can. There’s a truck coming with a massive load of donations and they need all the help they can get to unpack and organize it.

  I’m ready to spend a few hours embroiled in backbreaking labor, if it’ll help me forget all the things I need to forget.

  Even though I leave not too long after lunch, I’m still one of the last volunteers in the group. It’s a good turnout - Shelly always has a knack for getting people to roll up their sleeves.

  Walking up behind the little crowd, I see something that makes my heart slam into my ribcage.

  It’s not him. It’s not him. IT CAN’T BE HIM.

  Even knowing what I know, this is not the sort of thing Adrian would turn out for. Hands-on work? He’s more of a “write a check and forget about it” kind of guy. But if that’s not the back of his head, incongruously sticking out of a strangely familiar looking tee-shirt, then I will swallow my shoe.

  I just stare. I’ve never seen him in jeans before. I’ve never seen him casual before. I haven’t seen him at all in so long, after seeing him every weekday and way too many weekends for half a decade, and I think my heart might explode.

  “Adrian?” I half-whisper.

  He turns around.

  There’s that classic just saw a ghost look in his eyes, but I can’t stop staring at his mouth, his jaw, because he’s finally let that stubborn stubble grow out, nothing crazy, less than half an inch of carefully-groomed beard. It’s just a shade darker than the hair on his head, with more mottled golden-red mixed in. It suits him.

  His shirt says: KEEP AUSTIN WEIRD

  “Shelly told me you wouldn’t be here,” he says, softly.

  “Shelly lied,” says the woman herself, appearing from behind a pile of boxes, dusting off her hands. “You two need to have a long conversation. Meghan, please give him a chance. You can have my office. Adrian, go. Tell her what you told me. So help me God, I don’t care how much money you donate, I’ll drag you there by your ear if you give me any sass.”

  I’m staring at her. No wonder it was so urgent for me to work today. “What the hell is going on?”

  She just shrugs. “I put the pieces together. I remembered you said you were working for his company, so when he shows up all of a sudden, I had a feeling there was a connection. It didn’t take much prying to get the whole sob story out of him, I’ll tell you. Something about holding a kitten just makes a man want to confess all his sins. I’m not saying you have to forgive him, but I can’t keep watching you two pine away for each other. Work it out somehow, for all of our sakes.”

  I can’t look at Adrian, don’t want to, now, but he touches my arm.

  “I think we’d better go,” he says, with a hint of an apprehensive smile on his lips. “She scares me.”

  Numbly, with a ringing in my ears, I follow him. He sits down on the edge of her desk, maybe because he doesn’t want to mirror the way we always used to speak to each other, and otherwise I would have instinctively sat down in the visitor’s chair, while he reclined behind the desk.

  “I regret almost everything I’ve ever said to you,” he says, his voice quiet and gruff. “But nothing as much as when I lied about the emails. I was trying to protect you, but…”

  “You took advantage of my trust,” I hiss. “How is that okay?”

  “It’s obviously not,” he says, looking irritated already. “Did I say it was okay? Have I ever so much as implied that anything I’ve ever done in my life is ‘okay?’ It is what it is, Meghan. And I thought you liked me for who I was. I thought you…” He stops, sighing. “The way you looked at me that night, when I sent your mother packing, I swore you loved me.”

  “Maybe I did.” My voice is shaking, and I barely recognize the sound. “For a minute there. When I forgot who you really were.”

  He rests his head in his hands for a minute, finally raking his fingers through his hair and looking up again. “Do you just want an apology, Meg? Is that why you’re here? Or do you still feel something? Does it seem like you’re sleep-walking through your life now? Did your heart leap out of your chest, the first time you heard my name since you came to my house? Do you dream about me? Do you wake up moaning my name?” His tone grows softer, and I hate him for trying to evoke all the passion he knows I can’t resist or control. “Because I do. I did. That’s how it is for me, Meg. I can’t forget you. Not that I expected to. But I thought it would be easier to cut and run.”

  “So what is this?” I’m breathing faster, and I don’t know if it’s anger or excitement or some fucked-up combination of both. “You give a bunch of money to save the puppies, and show up here all grunge-rock to actually get your hands dirty, and you think that’s gonna make everything better?” I’m starting to get shrill, but I can’t help myself. I might actually be losing my mind.

  He’s exasperated. At least that’s a familiar emotion. “I swear to God, I didn’t know. Shelly will tell you. I begged her a thousand times, before I came here, every time, to make sure you were nowhere near the place. I didn’t want you to find out. Specifically because I didn’t want you to think that.”

  “So why are you here, then?” I want to know.

  “Better than drinking myself to death on the kitchen floor,” he says. “Which seems to be where I’m headed, otherwise.”

  “I don’t feel sorry for you,” I tell him, because I actually do. God damn it.

  Adrian sighs. “Good. You didn’t answer my question.”

  “What?” I’ve completely lost track of what the hell he’s talking about.

  “Do you still care?” he asks me. “Even a little?”

  Tears spring to my eyes instantly. How can I keep playing it cool when he’s standing in front of me, looking like that?

  “Of course!” I almost shout. “After my mom left, I…” My voice trails off to a whisper, now. “…I didn’t think it was possible to feel that way about anyone.”

  Pain crosses his face. He closes the distance between us, grabbing my arms gently and holding me still while he talks. It’s such a subtle gesture of dominance, and I probably shouldn’t love it, but I do. I still do.

  “Leaving that night was the worst thing I’ve ever done in my life,” he says. “And believe me, that’s saying something.”

  I have to chuckle slightly. “I don’t believe you.”

  “Believe me,” he says. “I know I broke your heart that night. And I knew that would happen. I was fucking selfish. I’ve been selfish my whole life, Meg, which I’m sure you know. But the important thing is that I know. I’ve always known, but now it’s different. I’ve felt the full consequences of my actions for the first time in my life, and if you don’t think it’s humiliating to admit that…it doesn’t matter. This isn’t about me - that’s the point. My whole life, everything’s always been dispensable. Replaceable. Do you know how many cars I crashed before I even turned sixteen?” He lets out a little bewildered laugh. “And I never hurt someone so badly th
ey wouldn’t come back, if I waved my wallet in front of them. My parents always told me to be more careful, but I didn’t know the meaning of the word.”

  He licks his lips a tiny bit, looking down at me, and I feel a rush of arousal I haven’t felt in months. It’s too much, having him spill so much of his heart, his hands touching me, and so help me, I just want him.

  But I know I have to hear what he’s saying. I blink, trying to re-focus on his words.

  “Until you, I didn’t know,” he says. “I’ll always regret what I said to you, what I did. I was reckless with the one thing that really mattered.”

  I stare at him, trying to make sense of the storm inside. “What else did you lie about?”

  “Let’s see.” His eyes search my face. “I lied when I said I didn’t think it was a good idea for us to keep on sleeping together. I lied when I said it was a mistake, that night when I made your mother disown you. I know I should feel sorry, but I fucking don’t. I hope she never speaks to you again. It kills me that it’ll hurt you, but I know she’s bad for you.” A ghost of a smile. “Even worse than me, if that’s possible.”

  “You weren’t bad for me,” I sob, unable to hold it back anymore. “Somehow, I don’t know how, you were exactly what I needed. When we were together, and I don’t just mean fucking - I mean just together, as people, when you didn’t feel the need to act like my boss…it always felt right.”

  “I know.” He touches the side of my face, with tentative fingers. “I know. It scared the hell out of me.”

  “Why’d you quit?” I ask, finally.

  “Because I don’t want to be that person anymore.” He says this with conviction, and something twists and bursts in my chest. “I don’t know who I want to be, but Risinger Industries is in my past now. Of course it’s still in my family, and I’m still disgustingly rich.” He smiles a little. “But as much as I can, I’m trying to get away from it. I’m done being careless. I hate being reckless. Most of all, I hate that you’ll always look at me and see someone who hurt you.”