Starting Over (Second Time Lucky Book 1)

by Kat Catesby

  For the record, mine isn’t beating too healthily either.

  * * *

  Rolling into L.A. twenty-four hours later (we had to stop for some sleep as not even I have the stamina to drive for eleven hours straight), I’m tired, sweaty, in desperate need of a shower, and missing Kelsey like I’d miss my right arm.

  As I’m right-handed, you can go ahead and assume I’d miss my right arm a fuck tonne.

  I’ve rented a small one-bedroom apartment until I decide where I want to buy a place of my own. I’m thinking somewhere close to the ocean.

  I’m genuinely lucky that I don’t have to wait for the marital home to be sold before I can buy somewhere else to live…and that I had the foresight to protect the assets that I went into the marriage with. Helen can’t touch any of my investments or bank accounts and as my finances are independent of hers, it’s another reason I’ve not been as upset as I should’ve been over her dragging her feet on signing the divorce papers.

  I don’t need it sorted to move on with my life – although it sure would’ve been nice as far as Kelsey and mine’s relationship was concerned.

  I’m not sure if it’s stubborn pride that has Helen resolutely digging her heels in or whether the never-ending whispers from my parents about reconciling are taking root too deeply.

  I wish she’d just take a step back and look objectively at what we’d have if we reconcile. A polite but passionless marriage that still won’t produce any children. Our DNA just doesn’t want to combine in the form of a baby. We don’t have enough love as a couple for this not to be an issue.

  Some couples function beautifully without children and lead loving, fulfilling lives; we aren’t one of those couples. We fell into the ‘next step’ trap:

  Be a couple for a year.

  Next step: move in together.

  Live together for two years.

  Next step: buy a place.

  Live in our new house for six months.

  Next step: get a pet (a rescue cat that scratched the fuck out of the soft furnishings).

  Still together after five years?

  Next step: propose.

  Next step: marriage.

  Next step: babies…

  …Until the next step was divorce.

  We never stopped to smell the roses, to enjoy each other. It was always about the next step in the great Fox Family plan.

  Now I’m starting again.

  New plan.

  My plan.

  Chapter Three

  Kelsey

  “You haven’t smiled in three days. I’m worried,” says Lucy with big, concerned eyes.

  I’m worried too, I think miserably to myself.

  It’s been three days since Mason left and Lucy is right, in those three days, I’ve not smiled once.

  I keep waiting for the crushing feeling to ease off my chest and allow me to breathe again, but it remains. Oppressive and depressing. There’s a permanent burning sensation in my eyes that reminds me that scolding tears are never far away. I have to sit on my fingers so as not to call or message him – the knowledge that he’s broken me again does little to bolster my willpower on this front.

  But he’s not called me and the last stubborn shred of self-respect I have left won’t let me call him first. If he wants me, he knows how to contact me.

  …Problem is, he doesn’t want me.

  And that’s the most painful truth of all.

  I don’t see how things could get any worse, but the universe has a funny way of showing you that you aren’t always sitting on rock bottom as you may think…

  My wake-up call kicks me in the face just before midday when Pat and Nancy Fox, Mason’s parents, walk into the Mayor’s office followed closely by Helen, who is outright glaring at me with a weird facial combination of spiteful, vindictive, and outright hatred.

  “We’re here to see the Mayor,” Nancy Fox says, with equal animosity.

  I can see that she has something she wants to say and is furiously biting it back. The knot of unease in my stomach (the one present since Mason left) clenches and tightens uncomfortably.

  “Do you have an appointment?” I ask super politely, knowing full well they don’t and also knowing how little that will matter because they are the Fox family and they made huge financial contributions to Mayor Stevens’ election campaign. The Mayor lives in their pocket, not that they’ve ever used their connection for anything dubious or morally questionable. But when a Fox walks in, it doesn’t matter how rammed Mayor Stevens’ diary is, or how much of a shit storm it’s going to be to rearrange his schedule, they get seen. Immediately.

  “No. Just do your job and tell him we’re here,” Pat Fox all but shouts at me.

  Lucy saves me from further humiliation and, knowing that we’ll be told to send them straight through anyway, escorts them to Mayor Stevens’ office. Not that they notice (because she’s so sweet and polite) but she’s clipped and curt with them as punishment for their rudeness. Though it loses its effectiveness somewhat if the assholes don’t even notice they’re being scolded.

  Twenty minutes later, while I’m chewing on an unappetizingly dry sandwich, the whole miserable party stomp past my desk on their way out, and Nancy can no longer keep her thoughts to herself.

  “You should be ashamed of yourself, you little slut.”

  I sit there gobsmacked and wondering if I heard her correctly as the door slams behind them.

  In my already fragile emotional state, the tears that have been threatening me for the last few days begin to pool on my lower lids. I sniff hard and try to swallow the accompanying sob.

  Lucy stares furiously at the door they just slammed. “What the fuck did she just call y –,”

  “Kelsey! In here please,” Mayor Stevens’ booming voice cuts Lucy off and startles me into dropping the last of my sandwich onto my desk. I decide that, given his tone, it’s probably best to clean my lunch mess up later and hastily scurry into the Mayor’s office, gently closing the door behind me.

  Marcus Stevens isn’t a bad Mayor but he’s not the greatest boss. He has little understanding of what it takes to be a personal assistant or secretary and his comprehension of how long it takes to organize and complete certain tasks is abysmal. The man has no logistical clue about what Lucy and I do and therefore he barks orders at us to ensure we are always busy…despite him not knowing the workload we already have to keep his office running smoothly.

  Lucy and I work for the city, not the sitting Mayor. When his time in office is up, he’ll (thankfully) move on and Lucy and I will continue to work here with the next elected Mayor…until then though, we have to put up with him.

  “Take a seat, Ms. Harper,” he says a touch too rudely.

  My recent onset of ever-present anxiety amps up; he only uses our surnames when he’s pissed off. What the hell have the Fox’s been saying and why the fuck did Nancy call me a slut?

  A little voice in my mind is whispering that they’ve somehow finally found out about Mason and me and are reacting exactly as he feared they would…like elitist assholes.

  But why get so annoyed? It’s not like Mason and I are a couple.

  I have a bad feeling about this…

  I take a seat on the crappiest office chair that he’s placed directly in front of his desk – placed deliberately for me to sit on so that I don’t pick a more comfortable one.

  Asshole.

  Suddenly his friendship with the Foxes makes sense; they all have a love for behaving like a wrinkly puckered anus.

  “There’s no easy way to say this, so I’ll get straight to the point, Ms. Harper; it’s come to my attention that you are in breach of your contract and therefore I have no option but to terminate your employment effective immediately.”

  It takes a few moments to absorb his words because, at first, the aging bureaucrat in front of me doesn’t make any sense. His lack of compassion is nothing new, but the words don’t make sense.

  Breach of contract?

&n
bsp; I pull out the only trump card my brain can think of.

  “I’m employed by the city, not you. A sitting Mayor doesn’t have the authority to dismiss employees of this office. You can request to reassign us if there are clashes in working style or personality but you cannot fire us.”

  “I can when there has been a serious breach of contract. Check the clauses of your terms of employment.”

  “I’m not in breach of my contract and nor have I ever been, so you need to declare your reasoning for my dismissal so that I may take it up with Human Resources.”

  “You’ve breached the morality clause and brought this office into disrepute. I have to take immediate action to mitigate the fallout and potential repercussions.”

  “And how have I breached the morality clause?” I can feel my temper climbing in pace with my anxiety at this pompous prick’s sanctimonious diatribe.

  “By having an affair with Mason Fox.”

  What. The. Fuck.

  Affair?

  My relationship with Mason was never an affair.

  I have never been a mistress and nor would I ever want to be. All I wanted was to be openly in love with him.

  “My private life is none of your business and couldn’t possibly have brought this office into disrepute because Mason Fox and I have not been in a relationship for the past six months. And when we were together, it was not an affair. It was a legitimate and loving relationship that we kept private.”

  “Having a relationship with a married man does not make it legitimate, Ms. Harper. It makes you the other woman.”

  “Married by technicality because Helen Fox had not yet signed the divorce papers. They were separated and no longer living together. I am not the ‘other woman’.”

  “That’s not how Helen Fox recalls the situation and Nancy and Pat are also in agreement that their son and daughter-in-law were not separated as you claim.”

  “That’s an outright lie! Mason and Helen weren’t living together. He had a separate apartment.”

  “He owned a separate property as an investment, yes. But according to the Foxes, he was only there during your illicit liaisons. Helen is devastated and by extension so are Pat and Nancy. I cannot have a member of this office scandalously seducing the town’s fire chief. Such disreputable behavior puts you in breach of the morality clause. No moral woman would destroy the marriage of another.”

  “I did not destroy their marriage and Mason is your ex fire chief.”

  “The fact that you know he’s left town just confirms your duplicitous nature.”

  “No. The Foxes are pissed that he’s left town without telling them and both they and Helen are taking revenge by using their connections to get me fired. All that’s confirmed is that money and influence can buy the ear of the Mayor,” I shout because no amount of reasoning is going to save my job. The Foxes will spread this lie and their sycophantic friends will eat up the terrible drama of poor, wronged, Helen Fox. The woman who desperately wanted a baby with her husband and now doesn’t have either…and I’ll be the scapegoat to help her save face. No one will know, care, or believe me when I tell them how she treated him. All people will see when they look at me is the bitch who stole Mason Fox.

  “Pack up your belongings, Ms. Harper. You are FIRED.”

  With what little dignity I have left, I walk out of his stupid stuffy office and straight into Lucy, who judging from her stricken expression, heard the whole exchange. It’s not like we were shouting, more that Lucy was eavesdropping at the door. Not that I mind…it saves me having to repeat the whole conversation to her when all I want to do is cry.

  “Motherfucking Foxes,” she growls. Lucy has no hope of ever being fearsome but her anger is adorable.

  I grab my bag and a cardboard box from the stationary closet and begin filling it with my possessions. Six years I’ve been in this job and now I’ve been unceremoniously fired. Because of a relationship that’s already over and has broken my heart…twice.

  Shit.

  Fired.

  That’s going to look awful on my résumé. Potential employers will ask for the reason behind my dismissal and in a city as small as this, there’s no way I can lie about it because the Fox’s sphere of influence is massive…everyone will know by the end of the week.

  I am well and truly fucked.

  No job, no money for rent, food, and bills. It’s not like I have much in the way of savings either. And Aspen isn’t a cheap place.

  I’m. Really. Fucked.

  “It’ll be okay, Kels. I promise. We’ll work this out,” says Lucy earnestly. I just nod blankly, my mind running a million miles an hour to the millions of ways it’s not going to be okay.

  “I’ll come by after work and we’ll talk it through.”

  Again, I nod as I walk out the same door that not fifteen minutes ago, the Foxes stormed out of with all their self-important airs and graces and superiority complexes.

  Assholes.

  I really don’t like them. But I guess I’m not the only one considering their son and ex-husband just moved to the other side of the country without telling them so that he could escape their presence…

  I’d be embarrassed by that too if I were them. Which, thankfully, I’m not. Because that would make me an asshole and I can declare with almost absolute certainty that I am not.

  Just as I make it to my car and dump my box of possessions and handbag on the passenger seat, a shiver runs up my spine. Not the good kind but the kind you’d expect if you were the idiot teenager who’d wandered off alone in some crappy horror flick and the serial killer was about to pounce and subject you to some torturous and overly grotesque death.

  Reality is frighteningly similar to what descends on me…

  The Foxes.

  All three assholes descend on me before I make it to my driver’s side door and the relative safety of my car. Instead, I’m now trapped on all sides by three very hostile people and two of them are screeching at me like banshees. They’re so in my face that I can’t even pick out the words they are yelling at me.

  I feel claustrophobic and intimidated.

  I try to back away and bump into my car, which is directly behind me, while Helen, Nancy, and Pat continue to invade my personal space and shout at me.

  I pick out the words ‘whore’, ‘homewrecker’, ‘slut’, ‘mistress’, and ‘bitch’. I don’t need to hear the rest of the sentences to catch the gist of this tirade.

  Pushing against Helen, I try to squeeze myself past her and Nancy so that I can escape; I have no interest in being a verbal punching bag for all the things they wanted to say in the office but were too ‘respectful’ and ‘upstanding’ to consider embarrassing themselves publicly.

  Because the parking lot is so much classier.

  A firm hand claws around my bicep, holding me in place.

  “You aren’t going anywhere until you tell me where Mason is, you poisonous little viper,” spits Helen.

  Ah, so this is what it’s all about.

  Mason still hasn’t told them where he is. Well, they’re not getting that information out of me. Not that I’m feeling overly loyal to Mason for leaving me here to deal with the inevitable volcanic fallout from his parents and ex, but L.A. is big and I don’t know where in the city he’s living. I don’t have an address or even know the station he’s now working at – without any of that, he may as well be on the moon.

  I’m keeping quiet because a) I do still love Mason and b) I’m basically in the dark about his whereabouts as much as the assholes currently manhandling me.

  “I don’t know where he is,” I say with as much steel as I can muster…not that I expect them to believe me.

  “Of course you do, you filthy little mistress,” shouts Nancy, all shreds of decorum utterly forgotten.

  The staff parking lot is around the back of the building, away from the street and prying eyes of passer-by’s; no one is going to rescue me from this situation and if I report them to the police it’ll be
the word of three important, well-connected people against my humble account of my assault.

  Today is shit.

  A loud cough draws the attention of all four of us. Three pairs of angry eyes whip around to see who dared to interrupt them while my gaze lands gratefully on my rescuer…

  Max.

  Lucy’s boyfriend, who judging from the brown paper bag in his hand, has brought her lunch to the office. He’s not in his fire department uniform so it must be one of his off-duty days, but he looks no less formidable in his black boots, black jeans, gray ski jacket with his dark hair ruffled, and his blue eyes burning with anger.

  “Come here, Kelsey,” he says through gritted teeth, his large hand outstretched, reaching towards me.

  I don’t hesitate and make to move towards him. Helen tries to block my path and tightens her grip on my arm before the murderous look on Max’s face makes her reconsider. I swear I hear the man growl. Low and menacing.

  “Take your hands off my friend before I’m forced to call my friends in blue and you can explain to them why the three of you are intimidating a lone woman in a secluded parking lot and why you felt it necessary to physically restrain her. That wouldn’t be embarrassing for the almighty Foxes at all,” he finishes sarcastically.

  Helen backs away and releases my bicep, and I flee to the safety of Max’s side, his arm wraps protectively around my shoulders.

  I don’t know Max very well; he and Lucy have been neighbors for a few years and her crush on him dates back to our freshman year of high school, but we’ve never been all that social towards each other. Not because there’s any animosity, just our circles don’t overlap much. Now that he and Lucy are an item, they do, and I’m so grateful to him that he’s willing to stand up for me, even though we aren’t technically friends.

  “We’re not leaving until she tells us where Mason has gone,” hisses Pat with all the bravado he can manage.

  Pat isn’t a small or weak-looking man by any stretch, but next to Max, he’s a waif of a woman.

  Max isn’t someone you can intimidate and the rigid stance of his back and shoulders tells me he isn’t going to give an inch.