by Nella Tyler
He shrugged, almost with apathy, but I knew the idea bothered him. Why wouldn’t it? Prison seemed worse than death to me, especially if he was as innocent as he was protesting. Besides, didn’t the government have more dangerous criminals to spend their time prosecuting? Shit, I thought to myself and forced myself to snap out of the daze I found myself in.
“Would you…” he began to ask, but broke halfway through his question like a shy schoolboy.
“Would I what?”
“Do you want to go on a walk with me?”
“Where?”
“There’s a park nearby, just a few blocks away.” He shrugged. “I hear it’s nice this time of year.”
I knew exactly which park he was talking about as I had taken countless walks there over the past few weeks to try and clear my head. It always seemed to help for a short period of time, but everything always seemed to rush back in an instant. Soon, not even the green scenery could ease my mind. It always went straight back to Caleb, and his child I was carrying.
“You want to go on a walk?” I questioned with a light cock of my head.
“Yeah,” he nodded, “if you don’t mind.”
I was torn between yes and no. I was torn between wanting to avoid him at all costs until I had made up my mind, and wanting him to take notice of me like I wanted before everything got out of hand.
“So…” He swiveled on his feet, waiting impatiently for an answer as I continued to mull it over in my head.
“Sure,” I said, agreeing to his request. He was the CEO of the company, and no matter what I was going through, I thought it was better to have some sort of relationship with my boss until I made my ultimate decision. I promised myself that if he expected me to sleep with him or something like that, that I would kick him in the crotch. If this was another one of his ways to get the only thing he seemed to want from me, I wasn’t going to be happy. I was going to be enraged and beyond pissed, and I was going to make sure in that scenario that he was never able to impregnate some unsuspecting sap again.
# # #
As we were strolling through the park, I couldn’t help but to think that this particular walk through the park was different than my prior walks. There was something in the air, or maybe it was just in my head. At that moment, I didn’t feel nearly as alone as I had felt since I found out I was pregnant.
Side by side, we made our way down a tree-lined path along a paved walkway. There was a cool breeze and the air smelled like summertime. It was refreshing to get out of the office. It was more than refreshing, but still the silence—even if peaceful—was frustrating and odd.
“It’s nice out here,” I said, with no other intention than breaking the ice.
“Yeah,” he said and smiled at me. “It’s nice to get away from the stress.”
“Yeah,” I said back, quietly and under my breath. “You’re going to get through this.”
He exhaled nervously and scratched at the back of his head. “That’s what everyone keeps saying.”
I took a particular glance at him, and saw something in his eyes that I don’t think I had ever seen before. I saw fear, and it was alarming. A fearful Caleb was a version of Caleb I never thought I’d see.
“Look, you say you didn’t do anything wrong…”
He stopped in his tracks and glared at me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” I corrected myself, realizing how my words probably sounded. “I’m just saying that if you did nothing wrong, then you’re going to be all right. I know it’s hard or whatever, but you can’t let this get to you. You have to believe that everything is going to be all right, you know?”
“Yeah, I know.” He sighed and lapped his tongue nervously over his lips before the silence between the two of us returned as we began our slow pace down the tree-lined path.
It occurred to me that I wanted to scream, that I wanted to slap him right in the face for what he had done to me, but I also knew that I was just as to blame as he was for my current predicament. There was no way I could tell him, no matter how bad I wanted to, not right then, anyway. But that was my character, I suppose. We were both going through a stressful series of events, but in that moment, it was more important for me to calm his worries than mine.
Maybe there was an ulterior motive. Maybe the reason I was more concerned with quelling his fears was because when I was thinking about his tax problems—and the thought that might go to jail—it was easier to push the unplanned pregnancy to the back of my mind.
“Look,” he said, “there’s a reason I wanted you to come out here with me.”
“Yeah?” I questioned with an arched brow and turned to face him as we both came to a halt. “What reason would that be?”
“I know…” he began and my heart raced, pounded right against my damn chest.
“Know what?” I chuckled nervously and crossed my arms over each other, trying to cover my stomach even though I knew I wasn’t showing. “What could you possibly know?”
“You’re acting strange.” He cocked a brow at me. “I know that I’ve been a total dick to you these last few weeks.”
“You’ve been under a lot of stress,” I pointed out, trying to give him a way out. Why I was doing that? The hell if I knew.
“No.” He shook his head. “Even before my life went down the proverbial toilet, I wasn’t treating you right. I took you to bed and I couldn’t be a real man after that, and for that I’m sorry.”
“Wow,” I said softly, taking in his apology, an apology I never thought would come. “It’s all right,” I lied through a forced smile.
“No, it’s not.” He pursed his lips first and then expelled a thick cloud of breath. “I treated you like shit and I need to apologize, so that’s what I’m doing and now I just need to know that you truly accept my apology.”
“What has gotten into you?”
He looked around at the scenery around us and shrugged. “I guess some things are just coming into perspective, you know?”
“Yeah…”
“I have another question.”
“Yeah?”
“I want to make it right,” he said. “So maybe we could go get some dinner tonight?”
“I…” I stuttered. “Thank you, but no thanks.”
“Really?”
“I just… I have a lot of work to do tonight.”
He forced a fake smile forged of defeat. “Maybe another night, then?”
“Perhaps,” I responded with an equally fake smile.
# # #
The rest of our walk was filled with silence as we slowly made our way back to the office. Once there, I made a beeline to my desk so I could get some work done. It’s funny, I went on the walk with Caleb because I wanted to get my mind off work and the pregnancy, and when I returned, I wanted to dive into work to get my mind off Caleb.
That wasn’t an easy task, however. It wasn’t even a reasonable one. There was no way I could get my mind off anything that was bothering me, unless I could find a fix for any of them. I wasn’t able to fix my pregnancy, or to fix my relationship with Caleb, but there was one thing I figured I could at least try to sort out.
I decided to take a deep dive into the tax issue. Tara had always seemed shady too me, but she had been extra shady the past few weeks. Something was off with her, and I was going to find out just exactly what that was.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Caleb
I had worked so hard to push Lindsay to the back of my mind from the last time I had fucked her in the conference room, but all that hard work vanished with just a few simple short words. Want to take a walk? I asked her because I needed to apologize to her, and I had secretly hoped that I could fix things with her, but I was naïve to believe that ever could have happened after I had spent so long ignoring her and treating her like a scorned ex.
After our little walk, suddenly she was back in the forefront of all my thoughts. Unfortunately, I was sitting in on a meeting with Lance and N
athan later that same day, and it was not going well. Nothing was going well. And because nothing was going well, the last fucking thing I needed was to be trapped in a small office room with fucking Lance of all people.
Nathan and I sat around a small table while Lance stood at the forefront of the room going over yet another stupid presentation about his terrible marketing scheme.
“We’re currently engaging in market research to test consumer reactions to the new marketing campaign. There are numerous tests to still perform, but currently the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.” He pointed to a graph projected onto the white wall. “We’re seeing, across the board, positive responses within the first impression of each ad from within the app. A popular marketing and advertising concept is the concept of seven touches. Seven touches is where the average consumer needs to see or engage with a product seven times before they make a commitment to purchase—"
“Yeah,” I interrupted him, “we all know what seven touches are, so if you could maybe skip the babble—”
“Excuse me?” He fired right back and shook his head incredulously. “How about you just shut up and do your damn job?”
“My damn job?” I slapped my palm against the table and chuckled. “In case you’ve forgotten, I’m the CEO and founder of this company. Don’t try to educate me on what my job is, or how to do it.”
“CEO, really?” He nodded with a wicked grin. “You’re not acting like a CEO. You’re acting like an asshole, but what else is new?”
“And you’re a petulant child, so I think I’d rather be an asshole.”
“An asshole who is going to look real fucking swell in an orange jumpsuit.”
“Fuck you,” I scoffed at him, the rage boiling in my blood.
“No, fuck you.” He threw a pointed finger at me. “I’m tired of you acting like you’re so much fucking better than me, especially when you’re, what, three weeks away from eating slop off prison trays.”
“Go to fucking hell, Lance,”
“I’ll meet you there, bro.”
“Don’t call me your brother.”
“Fine, what do you want me to call you?” he huffed. “How about budget Martha Fucking Stewart?”
I jumped out of my seat, knocking my chair to the floor in the process. I charged at him, grabbed him by the collar, and slammed him against the wall. “You want to say that again, you motherfucking son of a bitch?”
“Motherfucking?” He chuckled even as I had him pinned against the wall. “Sorry, brother, but that would be your father.”
“You’re still a son of a bitch,” I said with a smirk as my hands tightened around his collar. “You’re lucky I don’t throw your ass out the goddamn window.”
“Enough,” Nathan shouted from behind me in a tone I wasn’t quite familiar with, especially coming from him. He was always so calm, cool, and collected. He wasn’t like either Lance or myself, but there he was in the thick of things. “Break this shit up right now,” he demanded.
I swallowed my anger as I glared into Lance’s eyes. “Today’s your lucky day,” I seethed through gritted teeth as I jerked away from him. As I took short steps backwards he adjusted his shirt and his collar, and right as I twisted on my foot to grab the doorknob, he rushed me from behind, slamming me against the glass of the door.
“Fucking enough,” Nathan screamed and latched onto Lance’s arm, but Lance simply pushed him away.
“Fuck you, Caleb.” Lance shoved me once more before taking a measured step back. “You’re going to deserve everything that’s coming your way. Karma’s a bitch.”
“Yeah,” I said as I ripped the door open. “It’s going to be a real fucking bitch.” I slammed the door shut behind me and speed-walked to my office.
# # #
I was still seething even after I was left to my own devices in my office. I paced across the short length of the room, trying to collect my cool, but I was well past the point of wanting to knock Lance’s teeth down his throat.
From behind me, my office door swung open and in walked Nathan.
“What do you want?” I questioned him in a testy tone, though my anger wasn’t directed at him. He did nothing wrong? “Did you bring the rat with you?”
“No,” he said quietly as he pulled the door shut behind him. “What the hell has gotten into you?”
“Into me?” I asked incredulously with a light chuckle and a shake of my head. “It’s not me who has the problem. It’s Lance.”
“Yeah,” he nodded, “I agree he’s an asshole, but things definitely escalated in there beyond control.”
“Right.” I sighed and scratched at the back of my head. “I’m under a lot of stress.”
“Yeah. I think we all are, but I also understand that nobody is as stressed about this as you are, and why should we be? But that display in there was not productive. Whether it’s fair or not, we need Lance. We need everybody we have to get to the bottom of this so my best friend and business partner doesn’t go to prison and possibly drag this company down with him.”
“I can deal with the tax situation,” I said with a sigh. “There’s something else though, something that’s at the forefront of my mind when it should probably be anywhere but.”
“I’m listening.” He paced to one of two guest chairs in front of my desk and took a seat.
“Right…” I began and scratched nervously at my nose. “God, I can’t even believe I’m admitting this aloud, but I’m having a lot of problems right now.”
“I know,” he interjected.
“It’s about a girl.”
“Seriously?” He arched his brow and swiveled in the chair. “Girl problems somehow are more important than figuring out what’s going on with your taxes?”
“It’s not that it’s more important.” I shrugged. “It’s that I can’t get her, I can’t get Lindsay out of my mind. The situation with her is really weighing on me.”
“Lindsay?” His eyes widened with shock. “The accounting clerk.”
“Don’t give me shit,” I growled. “Honestly, you can keep your opinions to yourself if you have anything negative to say.”
“It’s not that it’s negative,” he said and climbed onto his feet. “I just feel like girl problems, no matter who you’re having them with, are going to be counterproductive to the crazy things that are going on in your life right now that actually matter.”
“She matters, Nate.”
“Okay, fine. You’re right. She matters, but why?”
I bowed my head. “I don’t know. I just can’t get her out of my head.”
“Are you in love with her?”
“That’s a loaded question,” I said and shook my head. “No, I’m not in love with her.”
“Then what is this about?”
“I guess it’s about not wanting to be the same Caleb I’ve always been.”
“Nice.” A gentle smile hitched across his lips. “You know I love you like a brother, but you have some really bad habits.”
“Seriously?” I cocked my head at him.
“Sorry.” He straightened himself out and stepped to the window and leaned against it. “Please continue.”
“She’s not like other girls, Nate.” I shook my head and reminisced fondly of our brief time together. “She’s not cold or calculated. She’s not after my money or anything like that.”
“Then what the hell is the problem?”
“I don’t know.” I shrugged with a flat smile. “There’s just something about her that I’m drawn to and I can’t begin to put it into words, except to say that I want her, you know?”
“You’re serious about this?” He took a measured step towards me. “If you are, then you should go for her.”
“It’s a little more difficult than that.”
He shrugged. “Then simply make it less complicated. It’s not like you have to marry her or anything like that,” he grinned, “but it would be nice to see you act your age for once.”
“I shou
ld kick your ass.”
He pursed his lips and chuckled. “You could try, but I’ve been hitting the gym lately.”
“Yeah, yeah. Your two weeks at the gym don’t have anything on my ten-year dedication to fitness.”
“You’ve got a point there.”
“Can we get back to the issue at hand?” I questioned.
“This girl, she deserves so much more than a few one-night—or day—stands, and then nothing more than an occasional nod from that point on.”
“Yeah.” I nodded in agreement. “That’s the problem. I can want something but it doesn’t mean I can have it or that I’m capable of handling the situation to get what I want in a way that’s productive.”
“Okay, so you want this girl, right?” He stepped past me and twisted on his feet. “But why do you want her, and what do you want from her?”
“I don’t know.” I exhaled. “I don’t know what I want, and I’m probably heading to jail in the immediate future, but I just feel like I need to reconcile with her if nothing else.”
“And what about this New York broad?”
“Sarah?” I questioned with a raised brow and shook my head. “Being with her because of my father for the past few weeks has left me understanding how shitty it is to be used, and I don’t know, maybe I’m changing. Maybe I’m changing because I’ve been thrown into this tax situation and I’m forcing myself to grow up, but whatever the reason, I feel like I just need to apologize to Lindsay and then apologize another zillion times more…”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Lindsay (Wed)
I still didn’t know much about Caleb. Even though we had spent some time—and nights—together, he was still a complete mystery to me. He was hot and cold—mostly cold as the last few weeks had shown me, but he was also dealing with a lot of shit. Still, he was ignoring me long before the possible tax evasion came to light so he certainly had to have some kind of personality flaw.
