“I don’t know how much you heard, but I can’t believe what she just said to me.”
“I heard,” he paused, “enough.”
I growled viciously, the sound vibrating against the silence in the room around us. Angry at her. Angry at myself for crying. “On what planet,” I ugly-gasped, swallowing air into my lungs and sobbing it out. “What universe would a cheating scumbag be a ‘good man?’”
“She really said that?” He asked. So, he’d heard the stuff after, awesome. I looked up and him, I knew I was puffy and red and hideous. Why did I even care?
“Yes. She even made a deal with the caterer to postpone the date!”
“I thought my mum was bad.” Isaac looked away from me, out the window behind me. “Sorry, this isn’t about me. I was trying to make… sorry.”
“Did you know that he’s trying to tell everyone it was a one-time thing? I did my research. I connected the dots. I practically plotted out the whole affair! He ended it the night before our wedding day. Less than twenty-four hours. It wasn’t over. It was never going to be over! Honestly, I hope they get married on our postponed date so that at least it was for something.” My tongue ran away from me, my lips willing partners in crime. “And that… it wasn’t because I wasn’t enough.” I shielded my face from him again, sobbing into my palms.
I needed to stop. I needed to regain control of myself. I could sob all I wanted into my pillows at night, but here, in front of someone, in front of him, I needed to compose myself. My lack of a good night’s sleep made it more difficult to reign in my tears, I kept my face in my hands, mortified.
By the time I came up for air, I was in his arms. My tears soaked through his rumpled blue shirt, the heat of his skin against my cheek. It all came rushing out of me. “I am so angry,” I whispered into his chest. “But thank God that I found out the way I did because if I’d found out privately, I would have probably stayed. I was so weak and fucking stupid. I would have believed his story and given my whole life to him. Now, I’m just mad I wasted all that time with a gaslighting, manipulative, lying… Ah!” I yelled into his chest.
“Piece of shit.” Isaac finished. Our eyes met and I let out a breathy chuckle. His eyebrows were stitched together, and I could see that he felt sorry for me. I hated that. Leaving New York was the best thing that ever happened to me. I searched his face for some insight into his thoughts. Did he think less of me for breaking down in his arms? He was still frowning, his pupils dilated, making his icy blue eyes warmer. Maybe he was angry for me, too. His warm fingertips wiped away the last tears running down my cheek. “Only a total idiot would hurt a woman like you.”
He had to say that. What else was there to say to your co-writer losing her shit right before dinner?
“Ugh, I’m sorry. I cry when I feel anything remotely not happy.” I backed away and covered my face with my hands again. I took a deep breath and blew away the emotions, sealing the door to those emotions firmly shut. “I thought she and I would talk about the weather. Sorry you had to see that.”
Isaac handed me a tissue from a box on the dresser adjacent to my vanity. “Well, if you ever need an out, just shoot me an s.o.s. and I’ll come to your rescue.”
I smiled wryly.
He tucked a curl behind my ear and left his warm palm on my cheek. “You were right, Celeste,” the way my name sounded on his tongue—while his eyes locked with mine—sent a cheap thrill up my spine, “you deserve better.”
In a momentary act of boldness, I took a tissue and blotted the tears from his chest. In a small act of insanity, I said, just one decibel above a whisper, “I hope your girlfriend doesn’t mind finding my snot on your shirt.”
“I don’t have a girlfriend,” he replied.
I wasn’t so bold as to meet his gaze, then. I concentrated on the rise and fall of his chest under my touch. My heart was pacing in my chest again. “Oh, good. At least you won’t be getting in trouble because of me.”
CHAPTER 17
Isaac
I was already in a lot of trouble because of Celeste. In any other world, under any other circumstances, that could be read as an invitation. If it were any other woman, I would take that exchange as a green light to run a hand up her thigh or kiss her neck while she begged for me. In any other dimension, I would rip every last piece of clothing from this woman and make sure she never remembered or knew any other man’s name but mine.
But we were here, in her rainbow-colored room, surrounded by her past and stained in her emotions. If she was inviting me, I was declining. Because I wasn’t going to be the man who took advantage of her vulnerability. If she was opening that door, I wasn’t walking in until she was ready for me to. I respected her too much to take what I wanted in that moment. Even if she was offering.
Instead of ravishing her right there against the wall, I shoved my hands in my pockets.
Celeste checked her reflection in the mirror, finished curling all that wonderful hair, and wiped away some of the makeup that had smudged around her eyes. “We should get going,” she plucked a little black tube of lipstick and parted her lips.
Watching a woman preen herself is one of the simplest pleasures in life. I thought idly. I was entranced as I watched her lips turn crimson and she smiled at herself.
“I’m ready,” she declared. Like nothing had even happened. She closed herself off as easily as one locks a door behind them.
“For the record,” I paused, letting her assume I was about to be an ass, “at least you aren’t an ugly crier.”
“Thanks.” She winked, tossing her hair over her shoulder, throwing a coy peace sign.
“I’ll have to beat the men away with a stick showing up with you like that.” The compliment elicited a blush across her collar bones.
“I’ll be doing the same, but with the ladies.” She rolled her eyes and strutted past me.
I shook my head in response and followed her out of her room. Summer was in full swing, finally, and we stepped out into the late sunshine, squinting like moles coming out from their hole. The Saturday night traffic buzzed around us, and people flooded the sidewalks, hurrying home, or into the many pubs that lined this side of town. I pressed my hand to the small of her back and led her into my favorite spot.
“I come here a lot. They make the best bangers and mash.”
“I want that.” She slipped into the chair opposite of me. “This has been the second longest day of my life.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
She sighed, resting her chin in her hand. “No. Tell me about your life. Mine’s too depressing.”
“I grew up in the country, on a farm.”
“With animals?”
“My grandparents had two cows, a few sheep, lots of chickens. We sold eggs mainly.”
“How’d you end up in London?”
“I actually failed out of school at sixteen and moved here for work.” She didn’t hide her complete shock. “I know, you’d never guess it.”
“But you have a diploma from Oxford in the office.”
“I do. I worked for about six months in construction and realized I hated it. I thought, in school, that I would just grow up and work for a living. You know, with my hands. And, I hated it. I realized I wanted to study. So, I moved back home and went back to school. Dropped all my friends. And applied to a local college. I transferred to Oxford after two years. That’s how I ended up here.”
“You skipped a lot of chapters there,” Celeste pointed her fork at me.
“They’re not worth the read,” I took a bite of my food to end the conversation there.
“You’re entitled to your secrets,” she mused. “Why human rights?”
“Same reason as you, I assume. There’s so much wrong with the world. I feel like we should have all evolved past genocide by now.”
Celeste shook her head, “Unfortunately, not.” She looked forlorn and melancholy. “Sometimes, I see how evil people can be to people they know, and I think, this
is why people are just fine with all of the evil in the world today. Because if we’re capable of destroying the lives of the ones we know, then the lives of the people that we don’t know aren’t even on our radar.”
“Here’s to trying to make a difference.” We clinked glasses and gulped down the rest of our beer together.
§ Celeste§
It was different in this pub with Isaac. Maybe it was the delicate hum of alcohol in my veins or the dim lighting, but I thought I saw more of him—showed him more of myself. His blue eyes were shadowed, as if his past was peeking through in the dark flecks of blue that spattered against the icy bright hues I had always focused on. His eyes were dynamic, drinking me in across the table, tickling my skin as they grazed up and down my neck. I caught his eyes on my chest more than once, and couldn’t stop myself from pressing my breasts together with my arms, my panties dampening in response to his gaze. I hoped that I was teasing him, that he was imagining the lacy bra under my shirt, that his thoughts wandered the way mine did in the pauses of our conversation.
We talked about work, life, the fate of the human race, and all the while I had to focus on breathing steadily. I’d never really looked at him, always too busy in the office to mind. Too busy trying to impress him with my work. Too busy rolling my eyes at his cool temperament. Or averting my gaze from his naked chest.
Isaac was effortlessly sexy. His dark hair fell messily across his forehead, mussed up from the way he ran his hands through it when he read, or now when he made a point that hinted at his past. His lips were full and sloped upward at the corners, leaving his grin devilish and taunting. Sharp canines gleamed when he laughed, and I found myself joking with him just to see them over and over.
Here, he didn’t take his eyes off of me. He didn’t look out the window or avoid eye contact. We were locked in this exchange, both intimate and public, serious and then doubling over in sarcastic laughter. I could feel the thread of wanting between us. Kieran said I’d feel it in my pussy and I was one hundred thousand percent feeling it everywhere. In that booth, we were yearning to learn each other, to connect.
The table was so small, that underneath Isaac stretched his legs and rested his thigh against the outside of mine. If he dared to, he could slip his hand under the table and under my skirt. I wished I didn’t want him to. When our conversation turned serious, he leaned in, close enough that just a few inches would close the gap between our lips.
“Life’s like that, Celeste. You can’t plan everything. I know you wish you could just color-code your future into submission,” Isaac shrugged and swallowed down the rest of his beer, “But you can’t.” He licked his top lip and reached over to squeeze my hand. He meant to comfort me, but all I could feel was the way the busy pub had turned fuzzy and distant around our little table.
“I had my whole life figured out for me. I was going to be married to a nice boy, from a nice family, with a great job, and an even better inheritance. I’d stop working this vanity job, insert eye-roll, and pop out several kids, stay home while they were little, and then rejoin the workforce when they were older. Or not. Whatever I wanted…
They all said that, you know… ‘Whatever I wanted.’ I was fed the same plotline to this life that I really came to think I wanted. I’m rambling, sorry. But now, I’m here, and I feel free. Isaac, I wish I could tell you that I am heartbroken and my whole life was taken away by this cheating bastard. But, it wasn’t. He trapped me for years and then his aunt set me free. I fucking owe her one.” I scoffed and chugged the last of my beer, I was just toeing the line of tipsy. “I’ve just come to the realization that I was stupid enough to have my parents and my boyfriend manipulate me into thinking that what they wanted for me was what I wanted for me.”
§ Isaac §
“So, what do you want for yourself?” I asked.
She contemplated that for a moment. Celeste’s eyes pierced right through me, settling in my gut and stealing the beating from my veins. “I feel like I’ve been on mute my whole life,” she said quietly, thoughtfully, as if she’d never dared to give the words breath before. A part of me shattered for her, this Phoenix whose wings had been clipped. The part of me who had once been that person, too, longed to let her know I’d been on this path before.
“Well, then, I think it’s time you get a say in your life, no?”
“I guess so, yeah.” She folded her arms across her chest and looked out onto the quiet London streets. This late into the night the city was sleepy with the night shift, the buildings were darkened, all the workers home in their beds or crawling in and out of pubs.
“I wasn’t supposed to be here either,” I said. Celeste cocked her head slightly and made a motion with her hand, urging me to go on. “I was practically the poster child for a troubled teen. My mum was an alcoholic, and probably a drug dealer, although that’s never been confirmed. She dabbled in drugs herself but thankfully kicked her coke habit. Father wasn’t in the picture. I hated school and ran away as a teen to do menial labor. I was supposed to be on the prison pipeline.”
“What changed?”
“I was shoveling gravel one day, and I mucked it up. This older guy, who worked with me, he turned to me and said quite plainly, ‘if you can’t shovel dirt the right way, maybe you’re meant to work with your head and not your hands.’” I was going to stop the story there, but another wave of Celeste’s hand and I kept going. “He meant it as an insult, I think. Construction is an oddly macho field to be in. And I asked him what he meant, and he told me to fuck off. So, I did. I quit. And I tried to get a job at a desk, anywhere. But I couldn’t because I was one step above homeless and completely uncultured. A swine, really. So, I went home and re-enrolled in school. I got the help I needed for my dyslexia and attention deficit and here I stand before you, a man humbled by another man while shoveling dirt.”
Celeste laughed and clinked her glass to mine. She cradled her head in her palm. “Well, don’t stop there.” She teased me with a grin and nudged my thigh under the table with her knee.
“I wasn’t supposed to make it out of the country. I was supposed to do drugs and die young. Poor me, a bastard boy whose mummy didn’t love him enough. No, I moved home and treated my grandparents right. As for my mum, I found forgiveness for her. We’ve come a long way.” Even with how much we were sharing, somehow revealing I was a child of rape was too far. Too much detail.
“Addiction is a terrible disease.” She said solemnly.
“That it is. We went out that Thursday, to celebrate one year of sobriety.”
Celeste’s eyes lit up, as if she cared for my mother in some way. “That’s amazing. Good for her! And good for you. I won’t be forgiving Anthony. I’m not that big a person.”
“You already have.”
“I feel nothing for him, for us, whatever we had.”
“That’s a form of forgiveness, I think.”
“I’ll never forgive myself for not seeing it.”
“That’ll come with time.”
A reverent pause filled the space between us and Celeste broke the silence. “I want this. London, working with you, for you, whatever the hell this is. I don’t want to be someone’s trophy wife. Or plaything. Not unless they’re my plaything, too. I want,” she didn’t look to me, but kept her focus on the liquid cupped between her palms. “When I got to London, I didn’t recognize myself in the mirror.”
“And now?”
“Now? I think I’m starting to.”
I tucked her hair behind her ear and traced the line of her jaw. “Do you like who you see?”
Celeste dropped her glass. “Yes, I do.”
“Good, I’d have to question your sanity if you didn’t.”
§ Celeste §
Isaac went rigid in his seat when he glanced behind me to the door. A stone of panic dropped in my stomach at the prospect that it might be a woman who caught his eye. I turned to watch a pair of guys enter the pub, dressed smartly in dark suits and well-groomed hair.
“Oye,” he raised his glass. His two friends crossed the maze of tables to get to us.
A blonde approached first and looked me over shamelessly. “Who do we have here?”
“Are you on a date?” The other swatted Isaac.
“Um, no. This is Celeste,” Isaac cleared his throat.
The blonde raised his brow to the other friend. They turned to me simultaneously. “We’ve heard nothing about you.”
“We work together,” I explained.
“I mentioned you when you started.” Isaac shot daggers from his eyes at the blonde who pulled up a stool next to him and turned to grab another.
“You didn’t mention Celeste was drop-dead gorgeous.” He leaned into me, placing the stool down for the dark haired friend.
I didn’t know what to say, so I drank.
Isaac shifted uncomfortably in his seat, avoiding eye contact with me. The feeling I had moments ago vanished. Maybe I’d imagined his attraction and I felt embarrassed, having flirted shamelessly.
“I’m John, this is Taylor,” the blonde said slipping into the chair next to me. His accent was Australian. “We work finance. Just came from a deal.”
Taylor held out a manicured hand and shook mine. His nails were painted black and his smile was more of a curious grin. He shrugged off his suit jacket to reveal a slim fitting purple button-down and took the seat next to Isaac. “He works finance. I sold my soul to finance for the money.”
“Not everyone can save the world like you two.” John loosened his tie and ordered another beer for the table. I took it as my opportunity to escape.
“Actually, not for me. I have to go home. I’ve still got some reading to do tonight.” I stood up. Isaac knew that was a flat-out lie, but he didn’t protest.
“Aw no!” Taylor whined. “I was looking forward to picking your brain. Isaac hasn’t introduced a girl in ages.”
“I’m not introducing a girl. Celeste’s my colleague. She’s leaving because you’re arseholes.”
“Don’t let Isaac overwork you,” John’s smile glittered, “Make sure you leave some time for fun.” He winked up at me and I pulled the strap of my bag over my shoulder.
See You Monday: An Office Romance (Weekday series Book 1) Page 14
