by Maya Cross
"No worries. Thanks, Thomas."
"My pleasure."
I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I'd just done as he asked. It was one of those seemingly inconsequential decisions that turns out to have massive ramifications.
Instead of sitting and waiting, I couldn't resist the urge to have a little wander. It was becoming clear that I may never get the chance to see Sebastian's actual office, but that didn't mean I couldn't check out the building a little. I was still incredibly curious about the sorts of things they did.
The bottom story appeared to be mostly admin staff; young women in blouses and dark pencil skirts bustling back and forward down long corridors. A few of them shot me strange looks, but nobody stopped me, so I figured I wasn't in breach of any major rules.
I didn't intend to wander very far, just enough to get a glimpse of what went on back there, but the place was a maze, and at some point I managed to get turned around. Before I knew it, I found myself standing in a narrow corridor that was devoid of doors or people. It felt like I'd gradually been moving in a loop, so I headed to the end and turned the corner, expecting to be taken back to the main access point.
Instead, I found something that caused my mouth to drop open.
This hallway was shorter, and it had a door. Just one. The access keypad off to one side said that I wasn't going any further in that direction. Not that I needed to. The door itself told me everything I needed to know. There was no signage, nothing to indicate what lay beyond. That is, except for the small golden letter A that was inscribed on the surface.
There was a grinding sensation in my head, the feeling of a host of gears all suddenly clicking into place. I knew now why that symbol had looked so familiar. This wasn't the first door I'd seen it on. I thought back to the night Sebastian and I had met, to the hidden offices I'd inadvertently prowled through. The name tags had thrown me off, but now I remembered; they were all marked the same way.
Something heavy and dark began to claw at my stomach. I'd asked Sebastian outright about the tattoo, and he'd lied. There was clearly a lot more to it than a drunken generic design. All the strange occurrences and eccentricities that he'd talked his way out of raced through my head. The hidden offices, the secret parties, the strange documents, they were all tied to this. They had to be. Each one taken by itself was fairly innocuous, but throw in the dead man on the news, and this one tiny symbol suddenly pulled it all together into something much more sinister.
Who the fuck were these people?
Somehow, I found my way back to the lifts and threw myself down heavily on the sofa. I had no idea what to do. It wasn't fair. Things between Sebastian and I had finally felt like they were making sense. I'd been happy dammit. But now I could feel that slowly bleeding out of me, replaced by an overwhelming sense of fear.
I'd known there were things about his job he had to keep quiet. I'd accepted that. But I'd assumed that meant client names and project details and other random minutia. This was something else entirely. Part of me wanted to just ignore it, to shove it under the rug in the back of my mind and let things continue the way they had been, but I knew that wasn't possible. I had to know what on earth I was dealing with.
A few moments later, the lift doors split open and Thomas and Sebastian strode out. "Well, isn't this a pleasant surprise," Sebastian said, grinning at me, although the smile fell rapidly when he caught sight of my face. "Sophia, what's wrong?"
Thomas seemed to sense my mood had changed. "I've got something to take care of," he said, shooting me a curious look before heading in the direction of the main foyer. I was thankful for the privacy.
I stared at Sebastian for a few seconds, uncertain where to even begin. "Why can't I come upstairs?" I asked eventually.
That seemed to catch him off guard. "Sorry. I know it's a bit strange. It's just company policy."
"So you're not hiding anything up there?"
Something flickered across his face ever so briefly. "What would I be hiding?"
"That's what I'm trying to figure out."
He looked puzzled by that. Slipping onto the seat next to me, he placed one hand gently on my knee. "I don't understand. What's this about?"
I didn't answer directly. "Do you remember what you told me that night outside my house," I said instead, "the night before you went away? 'I promise I'll never lie to you.'"
He nodded slowly. "I remember."
"So why did you?"
There was a pause. "I'm not sure what you mean."
I sighed. I hadn't really expected him to just spill everything of his own accord, but it had been worth a try. "Let me be more direct then. Why is there a door back there," I nodded towards the centre of the building, "that has the same mark on it as the one on your chest?"
His eyes widened. There were a few seconds of stunned silence. "I think you must be mistaken," he said shakily, but even he didn't sound convinced.
I felt a small flash of anger, but I smothered it. I'd already overreacted once with him. I wanted to give him a chance to explain. "Please, at least do me the courtesy of dropping the act now. I'm not stupid, Sebastian. I know what I saw. I saw it that first night we met as well, I just didn't remember until now."
He had a panicked look in his eyes now, his pupils madly darting left and right. "I'm sorry," he said eventually.
"I don't want apologies, Sebastian. I want explanations!"
He ran a hand through his hair and stared down at the floor. "You don't know what you're asking."
"I'm asking for you to be honest with me. That's all. It's pretty clear you're not who you say you are, and between the secret offices, the strange symbols, and the dead foreign dignitaries, this has me confused and to be honest, a little frightened."
His eyes shot up to meet mine, and any lingering doubts I'd had about the connection vanished. "Dead foreign dignitaries?"
I nodded. "I saw a dead man on the news a few weeks ago. A British politician. He had the same tattoo as you, only on his arm. At the time I thought it was just a coincidence, but your reaction basically confirms that it's not."
He gazed at me, his face utterly distraught. It was the look of a man with an impossible choice to make, and it sent a fresh wave of dread rolling through me. After all we'd shared since that night at my house, I'd honestly been expecting us to get past this. It had felt like he finally trusted me, and that it was only a matter of time before the rest of his walls came down too. But now I wasn't so sure. Whatever he was still hiding was apparently bigger than everything else. Was it bigger than what he felt for me?
"This isn't fair, Sophia," he replied eventually. "You knew we had secrets. I never hid that."
This time the surge of anger was bigger. "It isn't fair? Are you kidding me? Look, I understand some jobs deal with sensitive information, and I totally respect that. I'm in the same boat myself with case details. But this is something else entirely. Do you understand how this looks to me? You have a bloody tattoo of some secret company logo on your chest! I can't even begin to imagine what that means."
His fingers clenched and unclenched rapidly, his head shaking back and forward in a steady rhythm, as if he could send everything into rewind through sheer force of will. "Please don't make me do this," he pleaded.
"What choice do I have?" I asked. "How am I meant to be with a man who keeps things like this from me? How can I trust anything you say? I thought I was starting to get to know the man behind the mask, but now I feel like I'm looking at a stranger." Saying it out loud just made the pain worse. I felt heat welling behind my eyes, but I blinked it away. I was not going to cry in the middle of his office.
He drew a heavy breath. "Everything you saw was real, Sophia. I'm a lot of things, things that might not be easy to understand, but I'm also the same man I was a few days ago. The man who danced with you and held you and felt so impossibly lucky to wake up next to you. The man who thinks he's falling in love with you."
I recoiled as if struck. Of all the
things he could have said to shock me, that was at the top of the list. How could I possibly deal with that?
"Love?" I said, barely able to wrap my mouth around the word. "Seriously? That's how you're going to wriggle out of this one?" I thought I'd been confused before, but that one little word had set off a bomb inside me. My emotions now lay scattered in a thousand tiny pieces.
He looked almost as surprised as me. "I'm not wriggling out of anything. Look, I've kept things from you, that's true, and I'm sorry beyond words for that, but they were only the things I had no choice but to hide. I have never lied to you about the way I feel. Never." There was fire in his voice when he said that, an earnestness that was almost impossible to ignore.
I shook my head. No matter what I said or did, it felt like it would be the wrong decision. I didn't understand this man. This man that could make me feel so treasured one minute, then so alone the next.
"Even if that's true, it's not enough," I replied slowly. Of course it's enough, a tiny part of me was screaming, but it was drowned out by the chorus of other voices, all yelling with equal fervour. "I'm not going to pretend like I have any idea what the hell is going on here, but I can't deal with the constant questions anymore, Sebastian. I can't keep finding new secrets behind the curtains."
"I know," he said wearily.
"So can you promise an end to all that?"
There was a long pause, perhaps the longest of my life. It felt like that moment in my house all over again, that agonising wait, the whole relationship teetering on the next words out of his mouth. Only this time, I didn't get the response I'd hoped for.
Eventually, he closed his eyes. "I don't know."
Every muscle in my body tightened. I let out a long breath. "Then there's nothing more to talk about."
I was surprised by how calmly I got to my feet. I expected him to object. He'd proven his tenacity time and time again. But he didn't. He just stared mournfully at the floor and let me walk away.
I caught sight of Thomas on my way out. He was sitting in an armchair a little way around the corner, sorting through some papers, although he gave me a sympathetic nod as I walked passed. Apparently he hadn't gone far after all. So much for privacy.
I made it into the back of a cab before I began to cry. The driver shot me several uncomfortable glances, but my mind didn't have space to focus on him right now. There was too much pain. Too much confusion. I had no idea how I was meant to have reacted to what just happened. The scope of Sebastian's lies still hadn't sunk in. I didn't know what it could possibly all mean.
And then there was that word.
If he'd meant what he said, how could he just let me leave? Love was supposed to be a connection that triumphed over everything else. I tried to convince myself that it was just a ploy, a desperate, last ditch attempt to save what we had. But the pain in his eyes had been so real, the conviction in his voice so strong. It didn't make any sense.
None of it made any sense.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The next couple of days were rough. I wandered around the office like a zombie. I think that was my body's way of trying to get through work — just shut down completely. It seemed to do the trick. I wouldn't have called myself a model employee, but I made it through most of my tasks with at least some level of competency.
But at night, I couldn't help but turn the situation over and over in my head. The whole thing had left me utterly dumbstruck. Our relationship had gone from perfect to catastrophic in the blink of an eye. What on earth went on behind the doors of Fraiser Capital? I'd run the gamut of possibilities through my head a thousand times. Was Sebastian a secret agent? A gang member? Part of some kind of bizarre corporate fraternity? Each possibility was as ridiculous as the last, but no plausible option seemed to fit.
I wanted to be angry, and a lot of the time I was, but try as I might, I also couldn't push the things he'd said out of my mind. I hated him for making it so difficult. If he'd just kept his mouth shut, I think it would have been easier to let go, to dismiss what we'd had as lust taken too far. But that one word changed everything. It forced me to confront my feelings for him head on.
My history with love was chequered at best. I'd thought I loved Connor, but obviously that hadn't worked out so well. And I'd been going down the same path again with Sebastian — blind adoration for a man who wasn't honest with me. On the other hand, Connor had never made me feel that divine sense of bliss I experienced when Sebastian and I were together. Even now, with everything that had happened, I often found myself longing to just lose myself in his arms. That had to mean something, didn't it?
It made me feel like the biggest fool on the planet, but part of me kept hoping he'd call and explain himself. I didn't know if I could deal with the truth, or if I'd even believe whatever he had to say, but I hated that he didn't try. It was a coward's move to invoke that word and then not fight.
The weekend passed quietly. I was starting to feel a little better. The initial feeling of panic had ebbed away, replace by a kind of grim acceptance. He wasn't going to call, and that was okay. It seemed devastating now, but the world would keep spinning. One day at a time, I told myself. It can only get better from here.
I was wrong.
On Monday morning, I got a call from Ernest.
"Sophia, could I see you in my office for a moment?"
Ernest wasn't much of a face to face manager. He preferred the buffer offered by phones and email. To be called in to see him was either very good or very bad, but the sinking feeling in my belly told me it was probably the latter.
"Okay, I'll be right over," I said, a small tremor evident in my voice.
As soon as I opened his door and saw Alan sitting calmly at the desk, that fake smile spread across his face like lumpy butter, my fears were confirmed.
"Sophia," he said, "please, sit down."
Ernest looked almost sheepish, like he felt guilty about leading me into an ambush. I tried to muster a little token anger but, truth be told, it didn't make much difference. If Alan himself had called, I would have had to go just the same.
I did as I was told, sliding into one of the guest chairs that faced the two of them. I suddenly felt cold, the kind of chill that seems to seep right into your bones. I was fairly sure I knew what was coming.
"I'm going to get straight to the point, Sophia," Alan said. He'd do most of the talking. Ernest was just here as a courtesy, most likely. "We need to have a talk about your performance recently."
I stayed silent. I figured I may as well make the conversation as difficult as possible for them.
"To be frank, it hasn't been up to par," he continued.
"In what way?" I asked. My voice was strangely quiet, almost dangerous. It seemed to catch him off guard.
"Well look, you must understand, we respect that work/life balance is important—"
"I'm not in the mood for your bloody jargon, Alan," I interrupted. "Just spit it out."
He rocked back a little in his chair, reflexively tugging at his suit jacket. At least I had him off balance. "Well, you've been arriving late, leaving early, taking long lunches, that kind of thing. Like I said, our goal isn't to work you to the bone, but this firm expects a certain level of commitment which at the moment you're not reaching."
In a way he was right. I had been lax lately, but the injustice of it ran like fire through my veins nonetheless. "I bet if you went back and looked at the last few years," I said, "you'd find I've billed more hours overall than any other associate on this floor. Probably more than you yourself."
He bristled. "I don't know about that. In any case, we all appreciate your dedication to the company. But you can't just rest on your laurels in this business. And the fact remains that your recent work has not be up to standard."
I hated how he kept using the word 'we', like he and Ernest were somehow cohorts in this little game. Ernest couldn't have looked more uncomfortable if he'd tried.
"So what is this? Am I being fired?"
Alan gave a little laugh, one that was as fake as his smile. "Now, let's not be hasty. We know as well as anyone that this job can get overwhelming at times. No, we just feel that your poor attendance, coupled with recent events, mean that—"
"Recent events?" I said, my tone somehow growing colder still.
He hesitated once more, but I didn't need him to fill in the blanks. I'd done so the moment I walked through the door.
"You mean with Jennifer?" I finished.
The dip in his expression confirmed it. I'd underestimated her. That little weasel really did want me gone, and between my recent lapses in attendance and my reaction to her prank, I'd handed her all the ammunition she needed to make it happen.
"She mentioned that you'd ignored some of her instructions, yes."
"Did you actually read what those instructions were?" I hissed.
Something in my voice must have jarred him to his senses, because he sat up straight in his chair, seeming to realise exactly who outranked who. "That's not really relevant," he said, his voice growing stern. "I trust Jennifer to do the right thing. What this comes down to, Sophia, is attitude. It's about showing you're a team player. Work is distributed the way it is for a reason. When people start going off on their own, things begin to break down. Jobs slip through the cracks. Everyone has their role to play. If you can't understand that, then maybe you don't belong at Bell and Little."
Ernest still hadn't said a word.
"And what do you think about all this, Ernest?" I said. I didn't really expect him to leap to my defence, but it was worth a shot.
He shifted in his chair. "I think that this isn't you, Sophia." He looked almost sad when he said it.
Alan cleared his throat. "What I was trying to say before is, we think maybe you should take a little time off. You've got a significant amount of leave built up. Why not use it to get your head right? There's no shame in saying you need a little R and R."
