by Cherry Kay
“The last time we posted a position, we had over eight thousand applications come in,” the man said, frowning. “It’s crazy out there, and I don’t envy your position. With budgets being cut left, right, and center while everyone sources as much free artwork and labor as possible, we’re having a hard time staying competitive. Our firm has more unpaid interns than ever before, and to be honest, they’re doing work that’s well above what they should be doing.”
“Does my experience count for anything?” she asked. “I know you’re not hiring, but as someone who regularly interviews candidates, do I at least stand out from the competition?”
“I did have a chance to look over your resumé, and although the samples you sent me were very strong and well executed, your work history is a little thin. Everyone is buzzing with what happened to your old firm, and I have to say that doesn’t look great on you.
Obviously someone in your position had nothing to do with whatever happened there, but no one wants to be associated with something so nasty.”
“I appreciate your candor,” said Tiffany.
“Rachel said you were a friend, so I’m telling you the truth,” he replied. “It’s not pretty out there, and I’m sorry I can’t do more for you. This is a tough job and we’re in a bad market right now. Have you thought about moving home for a while? Maybe updating your schooling to learn some new skills?”
“That’s sort of a last resort,” said Tiffany. “I can’t imagine leaving the city.”
“Well, all I can say is best of luck to you then.” The man offered her an empathetic smile.
“Thank you for taking the time to talk to me,” she said, reaching out to shake his hand. “If anything changes, let me know?”
“I will,” he replied.
Tiffany knew she’d never hear from him again. She turned and walked through the lobby of the building, heading for the exit. It had been foolish of her to think that she might have learned anything that would cheer her up, but she knew she at least had to try.
Her options were running thin, and if she didn’t find another job soon, then the only option left to her would be moving back home with her parents. She’d told herself that she’d never go back to live in the small town she’d grown up in, but here she was, facing just that very thing if she couldn’t find a better option.
At least it was a nice day outside, she thought as she stepped into the sunlight. She strolled along the sidewalk, trying to figure out what to do with the rest of her afternoon. She’d already spent so many hours applying for jobs and bidding on freelance contracts that she couldn’t face the thought of going back to it.
The freelance option might have been a good one, but the rates people were asking were abysmal. She couldn’t believe the number of requests she saw for projects that required a minimum of eight hours work yet offered to pay only $50. Even the worst job at a firm would pay ten times that amount for a half decent designer, and she didn’t know who were taking these this jobs and driving down the expectations for everyone else.
All Tiffany knew was that she couldn’t compete in that market. It might be income for her if she moved back home, but then she might as well go work at a café in order to make more money per hour. No, freelancing just wouldn’t cut it without a lot of industry connections to lead her to real work, and she didn’t have time to build those connections.
Deciding that if she already had a few thousand dollars of debt on her credit cards, she might as well add a few more, Tiffany stepped into an airy and welcoming café with sleek concrete floors and a long dark wood counter top.
All the baristas looked ridiculously trendy with the men wearing in shirts and suspenders with perfectly manicured beards and haircuts, and the women all tattooed and dressed like off-duty rock stars. Tiffany stifled a little laugh and tried to picture herself working in a place like this.
At this point, she was beginning to think that it was her last real option, but the truth was that she wasn’t hipster enough to work in a beautiful artisan café like this one, and she didn’t think she could handle the uniform in a chain café. She’d worked at a fast food burger joint for several years to pay for college, and she’d promised herself that she’d never wear a uniform again.
Tiffany ordered a cappuccino and a whole wheat multi-berry scone. She swiped her credit card and tried not to think of the cost of what she’d just bought. She took her scone to a table near the window. She loved sitting by the window on days like this. She could watch people walk by for hours at a time, and it was so relaxing to just forget about her problems for a while.
There was something about basking in the warmth of a sunny window that made her feel like a cat curled up and soaking in the luxuriously energy of the sun.
“Cappuccino for Tiffany?” called the barista.
Tiffany got up and went to fetch her coffee. She picked the saucer up carefully, trying not to spill the delicious foam all over the place as she carried it back to her seat, and then she saw something that almost made her drop the cup on the floor.
“What are you doing here?” she asked the woman from her apartment.
“I came to talk to you,” she replied.
The cup rattled in the saucer from Tiffany’s shaking hands as she set the cup down on the table. A splash of coffee sloshed over the edge and landed on Tiffany’s hand. She wiped it off awkwardly and stood there, glancing over her shoulder to see if anyone else had followed her in.
“Let’s not make a scene,” said the woman. “If it helps, you may call me Nadia. Please let us sit and talk like two old friends.”
“You and I are far from friends,” said Tiffany. She sat down anyway, not wanting to cause a disturbance or risk angering the woman, only to have her attack her at some later point in time. “What is it you want from me?”
“Thomas Belmont,” said Nadia. “You’re no longer together, correct?”
“That’s none of your business, but yes, I broke it off with him.” Tiffany looked down at her scone, but her appetite had withered to dust upon seeing the woman. She pushed the plate away from her.
“Thomas Belmont is a bastard,” she said. “He uses women as his playthings, and then he ditches them and moves on to the next. I represent a party who wishes to remain nameless, but who wants to see Thomas Belmont pay for his actions.”
“But why go through me?” asked Tiffany. “How do you expect me to help you?”
“Go to the press,” she said. “My employer is in the unfortunate position of being in the public eye, and she can’t go public with this information lest her intentions be misconstrued as malicious action against Belmont. You could tell your story though.”
“Why would I want to do that?” Tiffany’s nerves had eased a little bit after realizing that the woman didn’t seem to have any intention of harming her, and she sipped at her coffee and thought about what was being asked of her.
“Because he needs to be stopped.” Nadia said. “What he did to you was wrong, and it hurt to find out the truth, didn’t it? Well, you’re not the only one it happened to, and you won’t be the last. Think of the next girl to fall into his trap. She’s going to go through everything you did because you didn’t have the guts to say anything.”
A short burst of laughter escaped Tiffany’s lips. “That’s a cute story, considering you work for some anonymous person who won’t come out themselves. How crazy are you that you think following me and harassing me is any better than what happened between Thomas and I? He’s not the real problem here, you are.”
“You’re making a big mistake here.” The woman glowered and curled her hand into a fist. “Thomas Belmont needs to be stopped, and you are in the best possible position to do something about.”
“No,” said Tiffany, her confidence building with each word. “What needs to happen is that you need to leave me the fuck alone. You can follow me, and you can attack me, but I won’t go public with this. My issues with Thomas are mine alone, and I won’t let you bully me int
o acting out your employer’s agenda. You tell her she can fuck right off, because I’m sick of your shit.”
Tiffany reached for her scone and broke off a chunk. She popped it in her mouth and chewed defiantly, the smile on her face betraying the roiling anxiousness swelling in her stomach. She knew she couldn’t possibly come out ahead in a fight with this woman, but they were in a public place and at this point in her life, she figured she had little to lose anyway.
Reaching into her purse, Tiffany took out her phone and activated the camera. Before Nadia knew what was happening, she held the phone up and snapped a photo of the woman.
“You stupid bitch,” said Nadia. “Give me that phone or I will make you regret that action.”
“I’m not going to give you my phone, but even if I did, it wouldn’t matter. All my photos are immediately backed up to my cloud storage account. You can delete them from the phone, but I’ll still have a copy to use when I go public about how you’re harassing me. How much use would you be to your client if that happened, huh?”
The woman stood up and scowled at Tiffany. She looked as though she wanted to say something, but instead she just stood there, anger radiating from her body language. Tiffany almost reconsidered her wisdom of threatening someone like this, but she had no other options. She knew she couldn’t keep living her life like some quiet little mouse being batted back and forth between Thomas and this crazy bitch or whoever she was working for.
“Tell your boss to leave me alone,” said Tiffany. “I’m done with all of you.”
Nadia turned and stormed out of the café, casting a glance back at Tiffany through the window before stalking off down the street.
Unsure of what to do next, Tiffany tried to stay calm as her body trembled with the fading adrenaline that had been coursing through her blood. She’d never had to be so aggressive with anyone like that before, and she couldn’t believe that she’d threatened someone who was obviously trained well enough to be able to sneak up on and seriously injure someone like Tiffany.
Wanting to kill as much time as possible, Tiffany nibbled at her scone and sipped her coffee for over an hour. She felt safe in the café since plenty of witnesses had seen her with the obviously angry woman, and even someone as ruthless as Nadia wouldn’t come back to attack her in public like that.
No, if anything was going to happen, it would be later at her apartment. Or worse, they would wait and let her fall into thinking she was safe from harm, only to be snatched from the street on some late night, never to be seen or heard from again.
Tiffany pushed these dark thoughts from her mind and realized that the sun had already traveled a fair ways across the sky. It was pushing into late afternoon, and she knew she couldn’t spend the rest of her life hiding in a café. Given the circumstances, she could only think of one person to call, and as much as she hated to do so, she knew she had no other options.
Tiffany picked up her phone and pulled up the contact she’d wanted to delete but hadn’t. She’d tried to erase whatever traces of him she could find, but for some reason she couldn’t bring herself to delete his number. She told herself that she’d left it there so his name would appear on caller ID, giving her warning so she’d know not to pick it up, but the truth cut much deeper than that.
The truth was that she regretted all the bullshit that had come between them, and that she missed the Thomas she’d spent those first lovely days and nights with. She hated the lies and drama that surrounded him, but she couldn’t fool herself into believing that he was evil down to his core.
“I need your help,” she said after making the decision to call him after all.
“Of course,” said Thomas. “What’s wrong? Tell me what you need, and I’ll do whatever I can.”
“Someone threatened me,” she said, her voice cracking a little at saying out loud what had happened. “That woman found me again, and I told her to fuck off. I’m worried I put myself in danger, and I don’t think it’s safe for me to go home. You’re the only person I know who can help me, Thomas.”
“Did she hurt you?” his voice had a hard edge of concern and anger. “Tell me where you are, and I’ll come get you immediately.”
Tiffany gave him the address of the café. “Thomas, this doesn’t mean I’ve forgiven you for anything. I just don’t know who else to call, and since this woman wants me to speak out against you, I figure you’re just as invested in this as I am. I want to be clear that this is about my safety and nothing more.”
“Of course,” he said, his voice betraying his disappointment. “I understand. I’ll be there soon.”
Tiffany put her phone back in her purse and eyed the streets for any suspicious vehicles or people lingering too long on the sidewalk as she passed by. It was easy to get paranoid and to think everyone was part of some big conspiracy to use her against Thomas, and she told herself to relax. Thomas would be there shortly, and however she felt about him as a man, and whatever she thought of what he’d done to betray her trust, she knew he’d act to protect her and to get to the bottom of this.
Still, she couldn’t help but wonder if she’d only made things worse by calling him.
Chapter12
True to his word, it took Thomas barely twenty minutes to get to the café. Tiffany could only imagined how quickly he must have dropped everything to come and get her, and she half expected to see a helicopter idling on the street outside. The notion of how much he cared for her warmed her heart a little, and she had a hard time not rushing into his arms when he walked into the café and spotted her.
“You’re okay?” he asked, his eyes scanning her body as though checking for signs of physical harm that might have come to her.
“It’s okay, Thomas,” she said as she got up from her chair. “The woman just talked to me, and she only got angry after I told her to fuck off.”
“I still don’t like the sounds of that,” he said. “Should we get out of here?”
Tiffany nodded and followed him out onto the street. A sleek black town car was double parked in front of the café, and a tough looking driver jumped out and came to open the door for Tiffany when she approached. Thomas walked around and entered the car from the other side, and he slid into the seat next to her.
She could see through the partially translucent privacy screen that two men sat up front. Thomas usually only traveled with a single driver, and once she’d learned the truth of who he really was, he’d told her that the driver was an ex Navy SEAL, and that he was a ruthlessly trained killer who now served as Thomas’s private bodyguard.
The other man in the front seat wore the same dark suit and simple haircut, and his muds muscled build identified him as most likely being backup security. It told her that Thomas had expected trouble, and she wasn’t sure what he knew about the woman who was using her to get to him.
“What exactly happened in there, Tiffany?” asked Thomas once the car had started moving.
She recounted her experience with the woman in the café, not leaving out any details.
“What do you know about this person who’s trying to get at you?” she asked when she’d finished telling her story.
“Honestly?” he replied. “Nothing. I’ve had someone investigating it through his contacts, but this Nadia person doesn’t seem to exist. The guy I have looking for her is a total pro at getting just this kind of information, and he can’t find a single shred of evidence that she’s even a real person, let alone uncovering any information that would tell us who she’s working for.”
“How many women have their been?” she asked.
Thomas sighed. “Tiffany, that was a different time. I was a different person. I know I’ve wronged you, and that I’ll never be able to apologize enough times for that, but I am truly sorry for deceiving you like I did.”
“Just answer the question,” she said. “I want to know how many girls there were before me.”
“I don’t have an exact number,” he said. “Somewhere between twenty and th
irty.”
Tiffany laughed in disgust. “That’s it? I’d expected you’d have a different girl every night. How long have you been doing this?”
“Since before I acquired Matchr,” he confessed. “Ironically, it was my using the site that way that proved its worth to me as a corporate asset. I already had full access as a super user before I ever became an owner of the company.”
“Why?” asked Tiffany, shaking her head and desperately wanting to understand what would make a man feel like he could play with people’s emotions like that.
“My whole life has been about rigid structure and building myself into the perfect businessman,” he explained. “I went to the best preschool, the best grade schools, the best boarding schools, and the best universities. Nothing was denied me so long as I kept performing, and I’ve always been at the top of my class.”
Thomas spread his hands in his lap as though at a loss for words. He frowned and looked at Tiffany with sadness written all over his face.
