I went from being strategic and looking for information to arm myself to just hurting myself for no good fucking reason.
The tears fall again, fast and furious, and I shove the computer away. I want to crawl into a hole and die.
4
Luke
Cold, slick fear rolls through me as I force myself onto the elevator at my office. There’s a solid chance Grace won’t be home when I return, or she’ll have changed the locks.
My hands shake as I push the buttons, my head swimming with details I usually catalogue with cold efficiency. I need to buy myself some time. I need to repair the damage I’ve done and make some urgent changes.
When I arrive at our firm’s floor, I nod curtly to the receptionist, then head straight to my office. My assistant Cameron isn’t at his desk, which is for the best. I don’t want my messages first thing. I hear his voice filtering from down the hall, coming closer, so I quickly open my door and duck inside, then lock the door and close the blinds.
Fuck.
I slam my eyelids shut and press my back against the door.
This is embarrassing.
You own the fucking firm, you dipshit. Just tell them you’re taking a week off. You don’t need to explain yourself to anyone.
Except I do.
My father’s voice echoes in my head, dripping with condescension. “How did you not notice what he was doing? How did you let this happen under your nose?”
Never once did he think I’d known about Sam’s reckless behaviour and let it slide. He’d gone straight to incompetence.
Would he judge me in the same way for destroying my marriage?
They had never liked Grace much. The dislike was mutual.
Not that he liked his own wife, either.
Was infidelity and marital cruelty hereditary?
In front of me, my monitor blinks on. Our internal messaging system pops up. Cameron is back at his desk and has noticed I’m here.
Great. Don’t mind me, I’m just having a meltdown.
I move to the desk, shoving thoughts of my parents back into the dark, gross hole where I usually keep them.
Cameron: Messages are on your desk. Let me know when you have a free minute to go over meeting requests for the week.
He’s been with me for almost two years, the longest any assistant has lasted at that desk, and he’s used to me being a bear.
I start to type back some excuse, but it’s a lie even as much as it’s the truth.
The real truth is, I need him to lie for me.
Can I trust you, Cameron? Well, I’m not going that far. I’m not a fucking idiot.
I stalk back to the door and yank it open. “Come in.”
His expression doesn’t change as he takes in my appearance—unshaved, no suit. Look of death pasted on my face.
Who died?
Me, if I have anything to say about it.
As soon as the door closes behind him, I open my mouth to tell him I need him to cover for me—and nothing comes out.
He frowns.
I turn to the window and take a deep breath. Then I pivot back and pick up the messages. One thing at a time.
The name on the second piece of paper curdles the blood in my veins.
She doesn’t call me here. Ever. My fingers shake as I keep flipping, then go back to the first one. “Georgian Bay VC cancelled our meeting?”
He nods.
I shrug. “Okay.”
Flip. My fingers tighten. “Caitlyn Jobst called?”
“She didn’t say what it was about.”
“Okay.” Another flip. I read the name on the third slip of paper. I don’t care. We don’t always go through them, but I just needed to know she hadn’t said anything else.
Do not fucking call me at the office.
“Do you want to go over the meeting requests for next week?”
“Yep.” Do not call— “No.” I clear my throat. “I need to take some time away from the office.”
Now it’s his turn to say okay. He doesn’t ask why.
I swallow hard. I need you to tell my brother. “I don’t want to tell anyone just yet.”
“Understood.”
Ask me why. Make me say it. “I’ll be accessible on my phone and I’ll take my laptop home.”
“Sure.”
“Alex can take any venture capitalist meetings we can’t move.”
He nods. “You spoke to him already?”
The way he looks at the door, I realize my friend is in the building.
Did I tell him that I broke Grace’s heart? Fuck no. “He’s here.” It comes out like a flat statement. Does Cameron interpret that as a positive answer to his question? “I haven’t spoken to him yet. Can you tell him I need to see him.”
Another flat statement. I haven’t been able to ask a single question properly since Caitlyn Jobst called?
I’m broken.
I’ve broken both of us.
“Give me five minutes to return these messages, first. Then tell him I need to see him.”
Cameron leaves, closing the door behind him.
I’m alone with the messages, and I dig for a lighter in my bottom drawer. Next to the pack of smokes I keep for when someone needs to go up to the roof and have a Come to Jesus moment about taking their business public.
I burn the message, watch her name curl into dust.
Then I open an incognito browser, go to a web email account I will delete as soon as I send one final message, and I email my former lover a short, curt note telling her we have nothing to talk about. We both knew the deal. What we had was disposable—we just both assumed it would be her who disposed of me when I stopped being useful to her.
We can’t speak again. What we did was a terrible mistake and I regret hurting my wife.
Even as I type that, my fingers clench against the keyboard. I don’t want to bring Grace up here. I never wanted those two parts of my life to exist in the same space.
I was a fool.
A red haze blurs my vision as I try to figure out how to delete the stupid account. I close it, telling myself I’ll do it after I talk to Alex.
Then I close my computer only for my gaze to fall on my leather journal, where I keep a cryptic record of everything in my life.
Including my affair, sometimes.
Yesterday, I’d scribbled down the time and her initials. I rip that page out and light it on fire, too, watching it burn. I repeat that for a few other pages I can find.
It occurs to me I should burn the whole thing, but that size of a fire might set off the sprinklers and someone might report my erratic behaviour to the exchange commission.
Just what we need. Another Preston meltdown to send the Bay Street whisper network into top gear.
Fuck, what a mess.
A knock at the door is followed by it swinging open. Only one person isn’t afraid of what will happen when they stroll into my office uninvited—a man who is closer to me than my own brother, better than me by half, and smart enough to have walked away from this life before it ate it him alive.
Alex sniffs as he settles casually into the chair across from my desk. He’s wearing jeans and a blazer, with a leather messenger bag strapped across his body. He looks more like a hip marketing executive than the business shark he once had been—or the elusive writer he had since become. “Do you smell smoke?”