Because I Love You

by Amy Brent

  “In the busiest week we have here at the office?”

  “Meetings can be rescheduled,” I said, turning to look at Cheryl who sighed in irritation. “Don’t look at me like that. I pay you enough to deal with things like this.”

  “I suppose that you do.” She rose from her chair, tucking her paper pad under her arm. “I can see that something is going on, boss. I don’t know what it is, but other people here in the office are talking about it.”

  Shit.

  “If there is anything going on,” Cheryl continued, leveling a long and hard look at me. “I suggest you think hard about what you are doing here, Mr. Crayton. While Violet is a grown woman, she is still very innocent.”

  My throat went dry, and hot guilt flooded through me again. There was no telling what Violet what was thinking now that I had encouraged her to go home for the week. Unable to stand the silence in my office, or the sight of Violet’s unoccupied desk, I took my coffee mug to the break room to freshen it up. I needed something to get me through the rest of the day.

  The break room was empty when I stepped inside, away from the chaos of ringing phones and chattering employees. I couldn’t even remember a time anymore when it was quiet at Crayton, Inc. The past ten years were a surreal and numb blur of various events and people that came and went. The Summers were the only steadfast friends throughout my entire life.

  And I had violated their sense of trust in me in every way imaginable.

  I poured myself a cup of hot coffee before taking a seat on the leather couch with an exhausted sigh. Sleep had been evading me, no matter how much I tried to drink myself into oblivion, but now, I had to deal with the upcoming work week without Violet around to help.

  She really did make a good assistant. She was attentive. She could hit deadlines without any issues. The only problem the both of us had at this point was letting our personal emotions get tangled up in one another. How was I supposed to look at Violet after telling her that evening in my office was a mistake? It would crush her.

  I knew that much about virgins. Their emotional stability often went off-kilter because it was a big deal. After twenty something years of sex, I could turn anything off inside of me without a problem. Violet didn’t have that ability just yet.

  Which made the idea of pursuing a sexual relationship even less likely. I had to end it before anything went further. For Violet’s sake, but also for my sake. I pulled out my phone with the intention of finding her work number, but the break room door opened before I could even think of what I could possibly say to make things easier. My mood only worsened when Michael Foster stopped short in surprise when he saw me sitting in the break room.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, hesitating near the door. “I didn’t think you took breaks in here.”

  “I own this building,” I remarked, coolly. “I can take a break anywhere I want to. What are you doing taking a break so early in your shift?”

  He held up his own coffee cup. “Just getting a quick refill, sir. The rest of the department said that I could come in here to get a quick refill whenever I needed to.”

  “That is what scheduled breaks are for,” I said. Irritation swept through me as I got to my feet. I needed silence to think, and with Michael in the breakroom, I couldn’t be alone with my thoughts. “Get back to work, Foster. I’m not paying you to have coffee breaks.”

  Michael scrambled to where the coffee pot was. “Of course, sir. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that I couldn’t come down here for refills.”

  “Everyone would be down here if they needed refills,” I said, pouring my cup out into the sink. I needed something stronger than a cup of coffee to get through the rest of the day. “I’ll let this one slide, Foster. Don’t let me catch you in here again.”

  The color in Michael’s face drained. Stepping out of the break room, I strode up to Cheryl’s desk where she was reading over a document with a frown. She looked up when I approached, unbuttoning the front of my jacket.

  “I think I’m going to take that suggestion of yours,” I stated, clearing my throat. “I might need some time off to get my head screwed back on right.” Like that would help, given what happened.

  Cheryl set the paper down on her desk and pulled her keyboard close to her. “I can reschedule your entire week if needed. Just say the word, Mr. Crayton.”

  “Do it.”

  Her fingers danced along the keyboard but stopped when I leaned down to look at her with a small and relieved smile that only she could see.

  “Thank you,” I whispered. “When I come back, make it a point to take some time off too, Cheryl. You deserve it after all the work you have done for me.”

  Cheryl smiled up at me. “Anytime, sir. My job is to make your life easier here in the office.”

  “You’re doing a good job of it.”

  I locked up my office a few minutes later. Lifting a hand to wave goodbye to Cheryl, I took the elevator down to the private underground garage to find my driver already waiting for me.

  “Where to, Mr. Crayton?” he asked and opened the back-passenger door. “Any meetings we need to attend to or—”

  “Just to my place,” I replied, sliding into the cool leather seat. “I’m taking the week off, so consider this your vacation, too.”

  “You don’t need me to drive you around at all this week?”

  “I’ll call you if I need you to drive me anywhere.”

  He didn’t question it any further, but I could see the relief on his face. My employees and staff worked hard right alongside me. They never questioned any personal time off because it happened rarely for me, let alone them.

  Manhattan was busy as I expected it to be, and it took twenty minutes for us to arrive at my penthouse suite on the very top floor of the building. The housemaids had already left for the morning. I stepped in through the front door with a relieved sigh. Everything was scrubbed clean from what I could see, and the dry cleaning had been placed in the closet without question.

  Everything around me moved seamlessly. Nothing was out of place.

  I took a long, hot shower with thoughts of Violet in my head again before dressing in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. I scrolled through my phone to settle on Violet’s work phone, but it went straight to voicemail when I called. I didn’t expect her to take work calls on vacation, but my heart still clenched anxiously. My fingers were heavy with dread when I dialed the Summers landline. It was the only way I could check on her since Violet wasn’t answering her personal or business phone.

  It was Gloria who answered cheerfully on the third ring.

  “Summers residence. This is Gloria.”

  I swallowed the nervous bulge in my throat. “Hi, Gloria. It’s Cole. I just wanted to see if Violet made it back to the Hamptons without any problems.”

  “Oh, yes. She arrived yesterday evening,” Gloria said. The tone of her voice didn’t suggest anything was amiss, and I let out a pent-up breath. “She said that you had told her to take some personal time off to come see us. I appreciate that you gave her some time off. The poor girl looks like she didn’t sleep well.”

  Because of me.

  “It’s the job,” I managed to say in an even voice. “It can be hard to adjust to the office because it’s so busy. That’s why I wanted to make sure that she got some time off with you and Alan. A refresher.”

  “Well, it’s much appreciated. I’ll make sure that she gets some sleep while she’s here. Although, we do have a nice party coming up here. I found a very nice young man that I think would make her happy. Violet is so picky when it comes to any man who's interested in her.”

  That jealous fire burned my chest again, but I cooled it quickly. That was what Violet needed. A man her age. She didn’t need someone like me. I had no idea if I even had the ability to love anyone after Stephanie. The hole in my heart seemed bottomless despite how much I tried to stuff in there.

  “Good luck with that, Gloria. I just wanted to make sure that Violet got back okay.�
��

  “I will pass the message on to her. Thanks for calling.”

  She hung up without waiting to see if there was anything else. I left my phone to charge in my suite before heading down to walk my usual jogging route through Central Park. The park was abuzz with various activities while I walked along with my hand shoved deep in the pocket of my jeans. My sour mood only worsened when I replayed the short conversation with Gloria in my head.

  I needed to let Violet go. I had to let her go. It was for the best, but something told me that my dick wouldn’t let it go very easily. That carnal part of me wanted to explore this further, despite what my head urged me to do. Even my own heart didn’t agree with my head.

  “Just let it go,” I muttered, running a hand through my hair. “Let it go, Cole. Let it go before you break the poor girl’s heart.”

  Chapter 12

  Violet

  The landline rang cheerfully from within the kitchen. I didn’t bother reaching for the handset in my own room because I knew my mother would pick it up quickly. No one in the house needed to worry about picking up the phone. My mother refused to have a cell phone for friends or neighbors to call. She wanted them to call the landline as a way to remind every one of her status in the Hamptons.

  I returned my attention back to Cole’s social media page. He wasn’t active like my mother’s Facebook profile. The last time Cole had even posted anything was a picture of a sunset over three weeks ago.

  No phone calls. No text messages. At least, on my personal phone. I had been so desperate to get out of my stifling apartment in the city to keep myself distracted that I had left my work phone sitting on the charger. Still. Cole had my personal number. He knew how to get ahold of me.

  Fear shot through me before settling icily in the pit of my stomach. Cole never once struck me as the type of man to turn into a ghost when it came to relationships. He had promised that we would talk when I returned to Manhattan.

  He told you to leave, Violet. He told you to spend some time away. If that doesn’t scream rejection to you—

  I squeezed my eyes shut with a watery sigh. It didn’t matter if that was his purpose by sending me away. I saw that look in his eyes. I couldn’t get it out of my head, no matter how hard I tried to forget. It was the look of a man completely wild with lust, but also with guilt, torn between what I wanted, and the conflict raging in Cole’s heart.

  There was only one way to settle it. I grabbed my phone to find Cheryl’s phone number at Crayton, Inc.

  “Crayton, Inc,” Cheryl said cheerfully. “This is Cheryl. How may I direct your call?”

  “Hi, Cheryl,” I parroted, holding the phone tightly to my ear. “It’s Violet Summers. I just wanted to call to check in on work.”

  “Oh, I’m glad to hear that you got home okay. Mr. Crayton said you weren’t feeling well, so he gave you the week off.”

  My throat squeezed tightly. “I was just a bit homesick, that’s all. I just wanted to make sure that everything is okay at the office.”

  “Everything’s fine here,” Cheryl said. I could hear the frown in her voice. “Are you okay, Violet? You sound like you want to ask me something.”

  “No, nothing. Well…” I hesitated for a moment. I didn’t want to raise any more alarm bells in Cheryl’s mind, but I was dying to hear Cole’s voice. “Is Mr. Crayton in the office? I actually do need to talk with him.”

  “You’d have to try him on his work cell. He left the office this morning after telling me he was going to take a week off of work as well.”

  “He’s taking some time off, too?”

  “That’s what he told me,” Cheryl said. “I imagine you’ll be here next week, right? Mr. Crayton mentioned I could take the next week off.”

  Relief washed over me at that. At least I still had my spot as his personal assistant if Cheryl was planning to take the next week off. I still couldn’t erase the uneasiness in my stomach.

  “Yeah, I’ll be there next week.”

  A knock echoed in my room. I turned in my chair to find my mother opening my bedroom door with a smile.

  “I have to go, Cheryl,” I said, reading the excited expression on my mother’s face with an inward groan. “I’ll try Mr. Crayton on his cell if he is out of the office.”

  “Have a good week. Get some rest, honey.”

  “What is it?” I asked after putting my phone down on my desk. “You look way too excited for something. Who was on the phone?”

  Mother perched herself delicately on the edge of my bed with her tan and smooth legs crossed at the ankles. She waved a flippant hand.

  “No one important,” she said. “I have a proposition for you, actually. That’s why I came up here.”

  I tensed warily at that. “What sort of proposition?”

  “A day in the city doing some shopping.” She smiled at me. “Maybe some new clothes will cheer you up out of this strange funk you came home in.”

  “I’m not in a funk, Mom. I told you that I’m just tired, nothing else is bothering me.”

  “Baby, you’re pale as a piece of paper. There are bags underneath your eyes. Something is going on with you.”

  “Nothing is going on with me,” I said, defensively. I reached up to touch the puffiness under my eyes. “I’m just stressed with work, that’s it.”

  “That brings me to my next point. I’m hosting a party this weekend that I think you would be interested in.”

  “What’s different about this one?”

  “There is a young man named Ryan who—”

  “No,” I interjected, shaking my head adamantly. “No, Mom. Don’t play matchmaker, please. I already told you that I’m not interested in dating anyone right now.”

  Not anyone besides Cole.

  “I don’t understand what is going on with you,” Gloria said. A puzzled frown spread across her face. “When I was your age, honey, I was at all the social events I could go to with your father. It’s important that you find someone who can provide for you, who can keep you financially secure. Ryan Collins’s father is an oil tycoon who is now single. Imagine your future with someone like him. You wouldn’t have to worry about a day in your life, Vi.”

  Ryan Collins happened to be one of the biggest douchebags in the Hamptons. He hosted endless parties with his friends, drank all day, and cheated on any girlfriend he managed to rope in. He was attractive, with his chiseled body and sandy blonde locks, but I still grimaced at the thought of sleeping next to a guy who didn’t understand the concept of loyalty.

  “Ryan is a tool bag,” I said. “You know how many girlfriends he has had over the past year?”

  “That’s beside the point. His inheritance solely relies on Ryan getting married so—”

  I got up from the desk chair with a noise of disgust. “Why is me marrying someone like that so important to you?”

  “I just want to make sure that you are going to be secure in the future,” mother said, startled by my reaction. “Honey, we’re in a different class than most of the population. Your father worked very hard to make sure of that.”

  “And that’s why you shouldn’t be pawning me off to some guy who cheats on everyone he’s with.”’

  “This is the twenty-first century, Violet. Don’t be so dramatic over it. I can’t force you to marry someone you don’t like.”

  “You can sure as hell pester me,” I muttered, sliding my feet into a pair of flip flops next to the bed. “Why do you keep bringing this up?”

  “Because I know how hard it is to have nothing. Your father and I weren’t always rich, Violet. We had our utility bills disconnected so many times that I still couldn’t count for you.”

  “I’m not in that position,” I said. “My job at Crayton, Inc makes sure of that. Why can’t I find someone to love on my own?”

  Her eyes narrowed at me curiously. “Is there someone that you love? Because that would explain a lot of things about your behavior since you’ve been back.”

  I kept my face c
arefully expressionless, despite how my heart rushed at the truth of it. Was it even love? Or just lust at this point? I didn’t even know what to think of my feelings for Cole.

  “That’s not the case,” I said, and her face slipped into disappointment. “Do you want to go shopping or not?”

  The next three hours ticked by in a haze of various stores. When we got home, I dumped all the bags on my bed and pulled out the clothes for the house staff to take to the dry cleaners. I held up the small cocktail dress that my mom insisted I should wear for the party, just to cheer me up.