I greeted the doorman then headed to the elevator.
Jake was there, standing in his suit, looking at his phone.
It was hard to look at him, to know what he did to Cleo, the way he threw her under the bus just to be petty. It also made me sick that she’d slept with him, made me feel a pain in my chest I couldn’t describe. It was like being pissed off but devastated at the same time.
The elevator beeped and then the doors opened.
Jake put his phone away, and that was when he noticed I was there. He stilled, his eyes on me.
I didn’t move to the elevator, holding his gaze, feeling a ferocity that was stronger than anything I’d ever felt toward Valerie. Wordlessly, a conversation passed between us, a coldness that rivaled the snow outside on the street.
He was either too stupid or too arrogant to speak, maybe both. “She did fuck me that night—and she liked it.” He slid his phone into his pocket and moved toward the elevator.
I was a logical person who thought through every single action before I made it, analyzed words spoken to me before I responded, but my reaction was so animalistic and carnal there was no thought put into it at all.
I lost my goddamn mind.
I grabbed him by the back of the neck, yanked him back, and then slammed my fist so hard into his face that he fell to the floor, blood gushing everywhere and spilling onto the floor.
“You fucking asshole!” He held up his hands in front of him, seeing the red color everywhere.
I stepped closer to him and moved my shoe onto his chest, pushing hard enough that his lungs couldn’t expand more than a few inches.
He struggled to breathe, started to squirm. “You—”
My foot moved to his neck, pressing down on his trachea so he really couldn’t breathe. “I know it hurts to lose a woman like her. But get over it. She’s mine now. Say anything like that again, even her name, and I’ll kill you.” It was tempting to slam my foot down and really cause damage, but it could be permanent, and that felt cruel. I lifted my shoe, wiped the blood off on the material of his suit, and then stepped into the elevator.
When I stepped into my condo, Cleo was already there.
It was one of the few times I regretted having her there.
I was in a bad mood after the shitty day I’d had, and all I wanted was to be alone.
She came out of the kitchen, holding two plates of food. “With enough practice, maybe I’ll be as good as you.”
I carried my satchel to the dining table and set it down at the edge.
She stood there, waiting for some kind of praise, and when it didn’t happen, she uncorked the wine and poured two glasses. “Everything alright?”
I didn’t want to tell her I’d lost my temper and almost broken a man’s windpipe. Never in my life had I struck someone like that. I’d been a loner my whole life, so I’d never been involved in any kind of altercation. But once he’d said those words, I knew exactly how to make a fist, how to slam those knuckles into his nose to make him bleed as if a homicide had just taken place. I felt like an animal, returning to my wild roots.
She straightened and continued to stare at me, hoping for an explanation.
I didn’t want her to know. Not because I was ashamed. I just didn’t want to tell her what I’d done right before I stepped into the elevator. “I had a shitty day, but I don’t want to talk about it.” I never gave her responses like that, at least not anymore. Most of the time, I actually wanted to share my day, explain the things that ticked me off.
“Alright.” Her eyes lowered slightly, but she didn’t seem angry. “Are you hungry?”
“Not really.” I left my satchel on the table and turned around. “I’m going to shower.” I just needed some time to cool off, to have a moment to myself so I could decompress. My knuckles still ached from the force I’d just utilized, and they needed some cold water from the faucet.
I went into my bedroom, showered, and when I came out, there was an open bottle of beer on my nightstand—still cold. I grabbed it and took a drink, letting the booze dull my rage. The shower had helped, but only so much. I lay in bed for a while, scrolling through emails on my phone, partially expecting a phone call from Valerie.
But if he wasn’t a pussy, he wouldn’t rat me out.
When I got hungry, I returned to the living room.
Cleo wasn’t there, so she must have been in her bedroom. I went to the fridge and grabbed the plate she’d wrapped for me and threw it in the microwave before I ate at the dining table, working on my laptop at the same time.
An hour later, she came out and joined me, wearing a strappy camisole and short bottoms. She carried a folder to the table and set it down. “So, I have some good news. I think I may have found an apartment.” She pulled out the page and set it in front of me. “It’s supposed to be available in a week, but I talked to the owner and worked something out. He said I could reserve it.”
I took the paper and checked out the details. The place was nice enough, but it was farther away, an extra two blocks. It would take her twenty minutes to walk there and back every day. I shook my head and handed it back.
She looked at me blankly. “Deacon, it’s a nice place in a nice neighborhood.”
“It’s too far if you’re going to walk every day.”
“I don’t mind walking.”
“What about one of the buildings right next door?”
She stared at me for a while before she released a faint chuckle. “Deacon, I could never afford one of those places.”
“Well, I know how much is taken out of my bank account every month for concierge services. There have to be hundreds of people who live in this building, and based on what I suspect your salary is now, you could negotiate much higher pay.”
She stared at me blankly, as if she didn’t follow my suggestion.
“When was the last time you got a raise?” I never asked about her finances because I’d be annoyed if she ever asked about mine, but I wanted her to have everything she deserved. I’d be happy to buy her a place, to take care of her completely, but I knew she was independent and preferred to stand on her own two feet. It was one of the reasons I respected her, loved her. I liked that she didn’t need me for every little thing. It made me realize she liked me for me—no other reason.
“Uh…” She brought her hands together on the table. “A couple years ago.”
“And how much was it?”
“I think five percent…”
I’d been working for myself since I graduated so I didn’t know all the procedures for negotiating raises, but I knew she had a lot more power than she realized. “Matt and Anna are nice, but they are nothing compared to you. You’re the one running the show. You’re the one who makes this building so appealing. You work late hours, weekends, and never make mistakes. You could ask for a much higher salary.”
She shook her head slightly. “I was recently fired because of transgressions I take full responsibility for, and I think it’s unwise to ask for a raise after that.”
“But he should have given you a raise a long time ago. He knows you’re too polite to ask, and he’s taking advantage of that. He’s gotta make a million dollars off you every single month in fees alone.”
“Yes, but he’s the one who owns the building.”
“But you’re the single biggest reason people want to live here. Yes, the condos are nice, always updated, are in a great location, but there are condos everywhere. You guys have turned it into a resort where we get to live. Ask for the raise.”
“Even if I asked, he would only give me five percent—”
“You go in there with the number you want. Tell him to take it or leave it.”
Now her eyes widened in disbelief. “He could replace me with someone for a fraction of the cost.”
“But we both know he’ll never find anyone who can hustle the way you do. That last person he hired didn’t even last a month. I had a signature from every client in the building saying
they would leave if you weren’t reinstated. Use that to your advantage.”
She sighed quietly, starting to fidget with her hair.
“He’s still making a killing even if he pays you double. He just sits on his ass at his beach house and cashes the checks. His life wouldn’t change.”
“But he gave me a chance in the beginning, and that was really generous. I was really young at the time, but he took the chance.”
“And you’ve paid him back a million times over. Look, you could leave and start your own company.”
“I have a noncompete clause—”
“That only lasts so many years.”
“Deacon—”
“Ask him for the salary you want, and then you can move in next door.”
“Geez, that would be a lot of money…”
“How will you know unless you try? I’m not exactly sure how much you get paid now, but I know it should be much higher for what you do and how much he’s benefiting from all your long nights and weekends. Honestly, I can’t believe you work so hard for someone else. With that kind of dedication, you should work for yourself.”
She shrugged. “Honestly, I really like my job. I’m not just saying that. There’re a lot of clients in this building that I consider to be friends, not just people I work for. The salary has never been that important, because I had a nice apartment someone my age could never afford in a million years.”
“Doesn’t mean you don’t deserve that financial security. Do it, Cleo.”
She dropped her gaze. “I don’t know…”
“I can do it for you.”
Her chin lifted immediately. “No.” When she realized she’d snapped, she quieted. “I mean, I don’t need you to do that for me.”
I pushed the paper back to her. “I want you to have everything you deserve. I know I’m biased, but you shouldn’t have to hunt for an apartment that’s twenty minutes out of the way. You deserve a place with a doorman, with someone to pick up your mail for you, a place that’s just across the street.”
She smiled slightly. “I know. That’s sweet.”
“So, talk to him first before you jump the gun. There’s no rush to leave anyway.” I liked having her there. I liked coming home to her. I liked having her in my bed every night. I liked the easy companionship and the fact that it didn’t need to be a secret anymore. She got ready for work and went downstairs. I probably spent more time outdoors in the cold than she did. I would ask her to move in with me permanently, but that was too fast. Our relationship was new again. Didn’t make sense to force it to accelerate.
“I’ll think about it.” She took the paper back and returned it to her folder.
I kept eating.
She opened up a different folder and turned it toward me. “I thought about what you said, running the business side of things so you could spend more time doing your research. Well, without actually seeing the way you run things, I thought this could be a start.” She showed me how she would organize everything. “I think it’s best to protect your privacy as much as possible, so I talked to one of my clients about coding and encryption. He said we could set it up in a way where I would organize all your numbers in a spreadsheet, do all your organizing with it encrypted, and when I send it to you, you just turn it off and you can see the real numbers. That would give you most of the information you need to make decisions about your company. For payroll, there’s no way around that one. I can work directly with your accountant to handle all of that. But that eliminates most of the work for you.”
“But if the information is encrypted, you wouldn’t know if you made a mistake, like entered a number incorrectly.”
She shrugged. “It’s just one column. You can always redo the numbers yourself. But in general, it would cut down significant time.”
“How would you even have time to do this?”
“I can always make time. I don’t mind. Now, for your paycheck at the end of the month, I can send the encrypted number to you, you can send it to your account, and cut me out of it altogether.” It seemed like she didn’t want to know anything about my money at all, or she was so worried I would think she was a gold digger that she was doing everything possible to clear herself of the label.
But I already knew she wasn’t like that. “You already know I’m a billionaire, so does it really make sense to encode everything? It’s just going to slow you down and make your job more difficult.”
“I don’t mind the extra work. Honestly, I feel more comfortable not seeing those numbers every day. Ignorance is bliss.”
“But I trust.”
“I know,” she whispered. “And I never want to do anything to risk that trust. It means the world to me.” She closed the folder and put it to the side. “So, I think I’ve gathered everything for Thanksgiving. I picked up this really beautiful dining set we could use for dinner. Will Derek and Valerie be joining us?”
I didn’t want to tell her what happened, but it was something I couldn’t keep from her. Valerie might keep Derek away from me for a long time, and that needed an explanation. “I invited her…but she declined my invitation.”
“Plans with Jake?” she asked hopefully.
“No.”
“Well…will Derek be joining us?” Now, she didn’t sound hopeful at all, like she already knew what my answer would be.
I shook my head.
She sighed loudly, painfully. “It’s because of me, isn’t it?”
I wanted to lie—so fucking bad.
She could read it all over my face. “Deacon, I want you to be with Derek. Seriously, I don’t mind—”
“You’re spending Thanksgiving with us.”
She dropped her gaze. “Please don’t feel bad for me. I’ve been alone on the holidays before. It’s really not—”
“That’s not why. I don’t feel bad for you.”
“Well, you should be with your son. If I’m standing in the way of that—”
“Valerie is standing in the way of that. Not you.”
She looked at me again, devastated like I was. “Why does it have to be like this?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered. “I don’t know why Valerie has to act this way. I invited her and she seemed touched, but when I said you would be joining us, she flipped out…like she always does. Said you didn’t belong. But I told her you’re family…because you are.” We weren’t married, but Cleo was such an integral part of my life that she was more than just some woman I was seeing. She was my best friend, my everything. I couldn’t explain the way I felt to Valerie without pissing her off even more.
She stared at me for a long time, her eyes slowly softening.
“Then she told me she would keep Derek from me until I got rid of you.”
“Oh…Jesus Christ.” She slouched over the table, her palms against her cheeks, anger in her gaze. “How can someone be so spiteful? So hateful?”
I would never understand it.
“What are you going to do?” She straightened again.
“What do you mean?” I’d been staring at my hands for a while, so I lifted my chin and looked at her. “I’m not going to do it…if that’s what you’re asking.”
Her voice was a whisper. “Deacon, this is your son.”
“And she’s a tyrant,” I snapped. “She’s going to use him as a pawn in this sick game until he’s an adult. She’s got the strings, and I’m the puppet. Whether I’m with you or another woman, she’ll continue to do this forever. I’m not participating anymore. It’s not about choosing you over him or vice versa. The point is, I shouldn’t have to choose.”
She nodded slightly, her hand moving to mine on the table.
“If I lose Derek…then I’ll know I tried everything I possibly could to make it work. When he’s an adult, I’ll explain everything to him. I know he’ll understand. He’s a smart kid with a sharp memory. I just…I don’t want to miss out on all these years, these holidays, because she’s a fucking bitch.”
“Yea
h…”
I was quiet for a long time, trying to find a solution I hadn’t seen before, but there was none. My future was in the hands of my ex-wife, the heartless bitch who liked to twist a blade in my side until I got on my knees. I couldn’t do it anymore.
“If she knows you won’t respond to the threat, maybe she’ll change her mind.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
“Maybe I can talk to her—”
“Don’t,” I said quickly. “Just leave her alone. Seeing you will just make it worse.”
“Alright.” She squeezed my wrist before she released me. “I’m sorry you’re going through this.”
She didn’t know the half of it. “Yeah.”
“Getting custody is still not an option?”
I shook my head. “I would never win, Cleo.”
“You might…if we find proof of her incompetence as a parent. We could hire a PI. It honestly wouldn’t be that hard to catch her doing something she shouldn’t.”
She was right. It would be easy. She fed him garbage, was late to pick him up from school, preferred to spend her time with male suitors over being a parent. Plus, whatever she did when it was just Derek and her at home. But going back and forth in court, spending time and money trying to prove that the other was a piece-of-shit parent was a terrible thing to put Derek through. “No. I don’t want my son to go through that.”
After a week had passed, I knocked on her front door.
She opened it minutes later, looking at me with hostility. “I knew you’d come around.”
I wasn’t going to give in to her demands or try to change her mind. Hearing those words out of her mouth only convinced me I’d made the right decision, because if I played her game, invisible chains would be around my wrists forever. As much as I wanted to be in my son’s life, I didn’t deserve to spend my time as her bitch. “No. I just wanted to extend another invitation…if you’d both like to join us.”
Her eyes fell slightly, the victory disappearing like the setting sun over the horizon. “Will she be there?”
The Man Who Has No Sight (Soulless Book 4) Page 2
