AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Sounds like bull. You’re a rich guy who cheats on his wife. That really lacks originality, Chris. And based on the way you treated me, I’m going to assume it wasn’t the first time.”
“You don’t know shit about it,” he snaps. His blue eyes are cold and his tone is angry.
“And who’s fault is that?”I snap back.
He sighs and the look of anger is replaced with contrition before he moves around his desk to sit in his chair. “You don’t understand. I hated leaving you like that.” He leans back in his chair and stares at me. “I wanted you that morning. Wanted to take you to breakfast. Lunch. Dinner. Hell, hide away with you in the Hamptons for the week.”
“You’re married, Chris. You were going to do all that before, what? Going back to your wife? Did you think I would just be okay with you being married? Maybe you’re used to women like that, but it’s not me.”
“No.” He pauses before he speaks again. “I know, and that’s why I left because I knew I’d want more with you and I didn’t have more to give.”
His words hit me hard causing conflicting feelings to arise. On one hand, I finally feel the validation that I’ve wanted for months. That I wasn’t the only one that felt something. That there was something there. On the other hand, I’m angry that he put us in this situation when there’s nothing either of us can do about it.
Neither of us say anything for a few moments before I speak up. “If what you’re saying is true about not being happy…is divorce not an option?”
He doesn’t respond right away and he rubs his forehead like maybe he’s going over his answer before he says it. “It’ll cost me a lot.” He looks at his computer. “Like a lot.”
“Oh,” I whisper. I’d recently seen while I was researching this job that Wes Beckham, the CEO of the company had just hit Forbes’ youngest billionaires list. I assume as CFO of the company, Christopher Holt must definitely be dancing around the high hundreds of millions. I think about my student loans and credit card debt and briefly wish I could be the kind of woman who could date a married man for a few months. Forty thousand dollars seems insurmountable at times for me, but to a man like Chris, it’s probably nothing. “Are you going to fire me?”
“What?” He shakes his head as if my suggestion was the most ludicrous part of this conversation. “No, no of course not.”
“I just mean…is it okay for me to work here given our history?” I don’t know what answer I’m hoping for. Part of me hopes he’ll say no. That it would be too hard to be around me and that he’d write me a stellar recommendation to go literally anywhere else, but the other part of me wants this job. I’ve done my research and this company is just new enough and already wildly successful that getting in early is a very smart decision. It’s like getting in on a start-up that is on the verge of really exploding.
“What happened between us was before you worked here. It’s okay. It’s no one’s business.”
“Okay,” I shake my head. “I won’t tell anyone, of course.”
“Probably best.” He gives me a sad smile. “Beck knows.”
“Beck?” I ask, wondering who he means.
“Wes. The CEO. He’s been my best friend since college. He knows I slept with someone at Owen’s wedding. Not specifically you, of course.”
“Oh,” I repeat.
He leans forward and twiddles a pen between his fingers. “Yeah, I kind of haven’t stopped thinking about you so, yeah he knows.”
I blink several times trying to keep the tears at bay again because none of this matters. It doesn’t matter that he felt something or that I did or that he can’t stop thinking about me.
He’s married and that’s it.
“Well, I appreciate the opportunity,” I say. “And ummm, I’ll send in the next person.”
“Marissa,” he calls as I turn towards the door and when I turn back to face him, he’s moving towards me. He grabs my hand and rubs his thumb over my knuckles gently. “Please don’t hate me.”
“This would be easier if I did,” I whisper.
“Fuck, I am so sorry.” My older sister Autumn sits across from me drinking a cosmopolitan as we eat our favorite sushi from the restaurant near her apartment she shares with her fiancé. I just finished going through the details of my day from hell and I feel like I’ve just been to war. Autumn knows all the gritty details from my night with Chris. I had broken down and told her after several glasses of wine, even though I’d contemplated not telling her at all because she has only ever slept with one guy and she’s currently got his ring on her finger.
“Oh, did I mention my boss also yelled at me?”
She gasps as she holds her drink an inch from her mouth giving me her signature older sister, I will kill someone for you look, followed by I will find a way to sue him too. “Wait. He yelled at you too?”
“Oh no. Not him. His boss. The CEO. Wes Beckham? Kind of a dick. A few people warned me and they were not kidding.” I rub my head in memory of crying in the bathroom after he yelled at me for emailing him the wrong sales report.
On my first day!
I have thick skin so the tears didn’t come just because of him, but the day as a whole was awful.
