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“What?” She practically sneers at me. “Surprised that I can be heartless too?”
“Not at all.” I casually take a seat in my office chair.
“Where is he? Where’s Mac?”
“In the restroom, puking his guts up.” Her face falters. “What? You thought this was a happy meeting?” I don’t hold back my laugh. “Let me guess, you thought you were going to show up to my office and what? Blackmail me? Tell the board and they’d declare my marriage void or something?” Her chin quivers slightly, but then she clenches her jaw and squares her shoulders. “You didn’t ruin anything, Eleanor. In fact, you just made Stella and me realize we love each other. You also made me realize there isn’t anything I won’t do to protect her.”
“I did this for you, for us,” she says through a tearful, shaky breath.
“For us?”
“Yes, for us! I wanted to prove to you”—she walks around my desk, reaching for my hands—“that I too will do whatever it takes to have you, to make us work. I love you, Atlas. She doesn’t; she never will. She doesn’t know you the way I do. Who you really are.”
I stare back at her in disgust, half in shock at her behavior. In all our time together, she was always reserved, cold even. “Stella knows me better than you ever did, Eleanor, and you have nobody to blame but yourself for that. You threw me away.”
“Please.” She grabs for me. “I love you, Atlas!”
Mac finally emerges from the bathroom, his face contorted in anger. “You what?”
Eleanor whips her head around toward him. “Oh please, you’re twenty years old. You really thought I wanted anything to do with you?”
I see the embarrassment then sadness run through him. She really is heartless. She goes from panicked begging and tears to dead-eyed and emotionless in seconds.
“I—I loved you; you said you loved me.” He starts to cry and I stand up.
“Enough.” I look over at Eleanor. “You have one chance to walk out of my office and never speak to me or my wife again.” She opens her mouth to interrupt. “You need help, Eleanor. Real help. And what you did to Mac, he’s a boy still.” I shake my head. “You’re cruel.”
A mask falls back over her face as she grabs her purse and turns toward my office door. “Come on, Mac.” She snaps her fingers like he’s a dog. He looks at me.
“Mac is staying here, Eleanor. He works for me, not you.”
She pauses, her gaze going from me to Mac, then back to me. I can see the anger growing at the realization that I’m giving him a second chance but she never got one. Her gaze lingers. “Goodbye, Atlas,” she finally says before slamming the door behind her.
“I still work for you?” I look over at Mac, his eyes red even though he tried to hide the fact that he’s been crying.
“Do you still want to work for me?”
“Yes, sir,” he says, taking several steps toward me. “And I promise you, I would never, ever do anything?—”
“I know, Mac,” I say, placing my hand on his shoulder as I look him in the eyes. “Don’t let it happen again.”
He nods, smiling before practically jogging out of my office and back down to the parking garage. I did my due diligence on Mac long before I hired him. The kid came from nothing; he had nothing, and she took even more from him. I second-guess the man I was when I loved Eleanor, but then I’m reminded of something that Stella told me.
“You attract the love you think that you deserve,” she said with such casual confidence, like she didn’t just drop wisdom on me that I’d never once considered. “And someday, when you finally realize you deserve true love… it’ll find you.”
I’m not saying I’m a good person or that I’ll ever end up someplace good in the afterlife, but I know one thing. She’s the closest I’ll ever come to entering heaven and no amount of hell will keep me from her love.
Chapter 25
Stella
Four Months Later…
“Damn.” Atlas admires my ass as I bend over the bed in my heels and lingerie. “Happy birthday to me.” His hands find their way over my hips, tracing the edges of my garter belt up to the string that runs up my ass.
“Atlas, we can’t be late.” I shoo his hands away as I step into the dress he laid out for me. When I asked him a few weeks back what he wanted for his birthday, he told me he wanted Stella’s opening night to be his celebration.
Over the last several months, I have worked tirelessly with contractors, lawyers, engineers, and the city to make sure this remodel not only stayed on budget but ahead of schedule.
