Accidentally on Purpose 6 Book Box Set

by L. D. Davis

  I was always good at hiding my emotions in public, especially at work, but I was so overwhelmed, so weighed down by it all, I didn’t have the strength anymore to put up appearances. It was also becoming impossible to hide my swelling belly, and I knew that people were looking at me, wondering first, what the hell was wrong with me, why I looked so miserable, and second, who the father was.

  My work started to suffer, so much that Kyle delegated most of my tasks to Eliza, and delegated her tasks to the assistants I had hired. I didn’t even know why I was showing up anymore, I barely did anything. So, one day when Walter Sterling called me to his office, I really thought that he was going to fire me, or take away my position and put me back in the mailroom, where I had my humble beginnings.

  “Would you like a drink, Emmy?” Mr. Sterling asked, pouring himself a drink.

  In the past, I wouldn’t have dreamed of accepting a drink from him in his office. I would have been ridiculously professional, as stiff as his drink. But I didn’t care about professionalism anymore.

  I couldn’t drink the alcohol, I had done enough of that before I knew I was pregnant, giving myself another thing to worry about. Had I damaged my baby? My doctor couldn’t give me a positive answer.

  “I’ll have water,” I answered.

  “Well, that’s different,” Walter said with a wink.

  He handed me a glass of cold water, and silently we watched the streets below out of his floor to ceiling, wall-to-wall window.

  “How is your family?” he asked.

  “Fine, I suppose.”

  “Did you see them on Christmas?”

  “No.”

  We stood in silence again for a minute or so. I thought about leaving, but Walter Sterling didn’t call me to his office to look out of the window and ask me stupid questions.

  “You have been having an affair with Kyle for, hmm…about a year now.” And there it was. He said it so casually we could have been speaking about the weather.

  “About a year,” I confirmed, still watching the streets below. There was no point in denying it. Everyone in my part of the building knew about it. Once my pregnancy became common knowledge, everyone began to wrongly guess that I was having Kyle’s baby.

  “Another water, please.” I held out my empty glass, but he was reluctant to take it. I was well aware of the irony of the situation. I should have been catering to him, not the other way around and we both knew it, but he said nothing and refilled my glass.

  “I really like you, you know, Emmy. You are the best administrative assistant in this building. I gave you to Kyle because I knew he needed you to get on track and stay there. You’ve done a damn good job.”

  I stared at him, not because he complimented me, but because I wanted to know where this was going.

  “I am confused as to where this is going,” I said, not too kindly. “How did we get from my affair with Kyle to my work? Are you firing me?”

  “Fire you? No, of course not. Firing you would bring questions and unwanted attention and we don’t need any more of that right now,” he said and nodded to my pregnant belly. “Besides, I’ve always wanted you to stay with the company, to grow here.”

  “Then what do you want, Walter?” I’ve never in my life addressed him by his first name.

  “You’re making Kyle lose focus of what’s most important. He should already be married by now, having children with Jessyca Venner, not you.” His tone was still so casual, that it was making me a little queasy. I never thought that this man who I had always thought well of could be so evil.

  “What if he doesn’t want the bitch?” I asked.

  “It doesn’t really matter if he wants the bitch or not. There is a lot of money riding on their inevitable nuptials, a lot of money and the birth of a whole new era here at Sterling Corp.”

  “Don’t you think that’s a lot of pressure to put on one person?”

  “He was fine until he started screwing you. You’ve got him so wrapped up in you, he can’t see or think straight.”

  “Some may say the man is in love.”

  “And I would agree, but he has a duty to two families.”

  “Does Jess know she’s someone’s duty?” I spat out.

  “Yes, she does, but she truly loves Kyle, and in some ways, Kyle loves her, but not the way he loves you.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said, putting my glass down. “His ‘duty’ will win.”

  “With you and the bastard child around, he could drag this out for a very long time. Timing is everything.”

  For the first time, I felt an emotional response directed at my baby. I put a protective hand over my belly, offended, and hoping his little ears did not understand the word bastard.

  “I have to admit, I’m jealous,” Walt chuckled lightly. “You’re a gorgeous woman, with a fantastic personality, and I would bet thousands that you’re an animal in bed.”

  “Don’t tell me you want to take me for a test drive,” I said dryly.

  “Who wouldn’t want to? Even in your current state,” he laughed. “But that would only further complicate matters, would it not?” He strolled away to the other side of the room, where he pulled a picture off of the wall, revealing a safe. I snickered, thinking it was cliché and obvious.

  I stared out of the window while Walt rambled on about the good of the many outweighing the good of the few, or something. I vaguely remembered Mr. Spock saying something like that in a Star Trek movie, and thought how unoriginal Walter Sterling was.

  “So,” he said, with a finality that made me turn around. On his desk were stacks of cash. I thought maybe he wanted me to go to the bank for him or something, but then it hit me.

  “You’re trying to pay me off?”

  “There’s one million dollars here. I will keep you on the payroll, also, so you won’t be losing anything. You can eventually return to the company, or if you like you can just go work at one of our other locations, or not come back at all. I would understand.”

  “You realize that my own family is wealthy and I’m not in need?” I said, with one eyebrow cocked.

  “Even the wealthiest of people aspire to acquire more money.”

  “What if I refuse your offer?”

  “It never once occurred to me that you would refuse.” He said it with unbreakable confidence.

  “You’re a little too confident, don’t you think?”

  “Not at all. Let’s be frank, Emmy. You don’t like being Kyle’s sidepiece. You know in your heart that he isn’t going to commit to you. You’re probably falling apart inside, wishing you could escape and just disappear. It’s better that you leave on your own than to be forced.”

  “You’re forcing me.” I whispered.

  “I am providing you with a means of escape.”

  I was angry that he was offering me a bribe. I was even angrier that I was thinking about accepting it.

  “I don’t trust you,” I said to Walter. “And your ideas are total Swiss cheese, anyone can see through them, and who does this?” I pointed at the pile of money. “There are hungry children throughout the city and you want to pay off your son’s mistress. I feel like I’m in the middle of a daytime soap. That money is probably company money anyway, which means you’d just nail me for embezzlement. You’re crazy.”

  “You thought about it,” he said, not hiding his animosity for me. “You were going to accept my offer.”

  “I don’t want your money, Walter.”

  “I have a confession, Miss Grayne,” he said, pouring himself another drink. “It’s not company money, nor is all of it my money alone.”

  Now it was really getting interesting. It didn’t take any deep thinking to figure out who his co-conspirator was.

  Jessyca fucking Venner.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The bracelet sparkled in the sunlight, as I turned my wrist back and forth. Back and forth, back and forth, sparkle, sparkle. I twisted and sparkled until my arm got tired, and then I regressed to a
bsent mindedly fondling the bracelet, while staring at the rolling green French country side, dotted with the occasional house.

  I spoke French as well as I spoke Klingon, and I only knew some very bad Klingon words. Fortunately, the couple that I was staying with spoke fluent English and wasn’t at all offended by my lack of language skills. Helene and Marcus were friends Donya had acquired in her travels as a model years ago. When I literally needed to escape my life in America, Donya brought me to Helene and Marcus.

  Helene was a photographer by profession. Often, when I wasn’t paying attention, she would snap pictures of me. There were several pictures with my hand resting on my pregnant belly, and just as many of me looking at the bracelet on my wrist. I didn’t look happy in any of the pictures. I didn’t look sad either, but I didn’t look like my mind was anywhere in the country.

  Helene’s husband Marcus didn’t really have a profession, but he tinkered with various things: painting, writing, trying various musical instruments. During my stay his hobby of choice was designing clothing for my unborn child. Usually the item was missing something fundamental to wearing it, like an arm, or the hole for the head. One time the shirt had an extra arm. I always kindly pointed out the mistakes to Marcus. He would curse in Italian and sometimes try to rip it apart. I didn’t take it personally. I once witnessed him destroy a flute because he couldn’t master a certain song, and there were a few paintings around the house that had obviously received a swift kick from a hefty foot.

  My time in France wasn’t anything to marvel at, nothing exciting to report. Even though I had Helene and Marcus and their occasional visitors, I felt completely alone. I was very pregnant without a father for my baby. No Luke and no Kyle. I was financially able to care for my baby, but raising a child wasn’t something that I ever wanted to do alone. My heart was shattered and I sometimes wondered if there was enough of it left to care for a needy child. I was sure that I loved my baby, but I always questioned whether or not my feelings would shrink into resentment. The thought was petrifying, but I could not succeed in completely pushing it out of my head.

  Sometimes I didn’t really want to go back to the states, back to the nightmare I created. I didn’t want the stares of pity or to hear the sighs of disappointment, but my return was inevitable. My family and doctor insisted upon it, and truthfully, I didn’t think Helene and Marcus wanted to deal with a screaming infant and the child’s depressed mother. So, two and a half months after I arrived, my mother came to retrieve me. After more than half a day on a plane with her, though, I was ready to face whatever was on the ground for me in America.

  I missed Kyle. I missed kissing him, with his fingers entwined in my hair, pressing on the back of my skull, reminding me that he was in control. I always surrendered with weak knees and bated breath. I missed his hand on the small of my back, guiding me in whatever direction he wanted. I missed his laughter, his smile, and his perfect brown eyes. I even missed the way he would look at me in a crowded room, in a way that only I understood: “I love you…I want you,” and when times were rough “I miss you, I’m sorry.”

  Kyle had given me those looks, loaded with unspoken words and emotions minutes before kissing Jessyca at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s. When she put her hand on his face, a dazzling diamond ring that could be seen from the moon nearly blinded me with grief.

  I had turned away, weaved through the bodies of people kissing or singing Auld Lang Syne, pressed through the drunkards and the single lonely people and flung myself out into the night. I stood on the sidewalk, watching people on the street celebrating the New Year and listening to cars honking. In the distance at Penn’s Landing, fireworks were booming in the sky.

  I had forgotten my coat in my haste to get out of the party, and shivered violently in the night air while I waited for the valet to get my car. The coat was expensive but I wasn’t going back in that place. I didn’t want to run into Kyle or Jess or anyone else for that matter. People were already looking at me lopsided before, but the baby bump I was sporting gave people reason to openly stare at me and whisper with me in hearing range. With Jess rocking that rock, I wasn’t going back in there unless I wanted everyone to see how humiliated I was.

  I dug my ticket out of my purse and handed it to the valet who was standing nearby.

  “Do you want to wait just inside until I bring your car around?” he asked kindly.

  “Oh, hell no. I’m not going back in there. I’ll be fine.”

  He shrugged and trotted off to retrieve my car. I hoped he wouldn’t take too long so that I could leave before Kyle came out. Other party goers came out, some to smoke, others to also leave. No one paid me any mind, and I was fine with that. My car appeared at the same time Kyle arrived.

  I glanced at him, but said nothing before stepping off of the curb and squeezing myself behind the wheel. He leaned on the door, preventing me from closing it. I stared straight ahead, swallowing constantly, trying to keep the lump in my throat from exploding.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered so no one out on the sidewalk could hear. “There’s a lot you don’t understand, that you don’t know about. Jess has me by the balls—”

  “Clearly,” I said, my tone sharp and insensitive, even though his was genuinely pained.

  He inhaled deeply and let it out in a huff.

  “Look, I will come over around nine and we’ll talk.”

  “I won’t be there.”

  “What time is good for you then? When will you be home?”

  Looking at him with hard eyes, I said, “Whatever time I had for you has been used up, sucked dry. You’re out of time. I won’t be there when you get there.” A horn blew behind me. “Consider this my resignation—from my job, from you, from all of this. I’m done. Now step away from my car.”

  He stared at me open mouthed, holding on to the door, until someone blew again, longer, and louder. He stumbled back and watched me drive away.

  When I got home, I immediately started packing. I was only taking necessities and would have to return later to retrieve other items. While I packed, I had the airline on speakerphone as I tried to book a flight to Louisiana. I didn’t necessarily feel like dealing with my mom, but I needed to take a couple of days to figure out what to do next, and doing it there so close to Kyle was impossible. I knew he wasn’t going to just leave me alone, and I knew I was virtually defenseless in preventing him from having me. He was my drug, and I was his. The only way to solve the problem was to get clean, and remove him from my life altogether.

  I managed to book a nine-thirty flight. It wasn’t as early as I wanted, but I took it anyway. When the call ended, I saw that I had several text messages and missed calls from Kyle. I was surprised and relieved when they didn’t continue, and after another hour when he had not shown up, I relaxed a little. I didn’t look at the texts or listen to the voicemails. It wasn’t going to help anything to see or hear what he had to say. If that was the only control I could have in the situation, then I was going to keep it.

  I couldn’t sleep. My mind was racing, and my heart was breaking off piece-by-piece every minute that passed. I let a few tears slip by, but I refused to bawl. I would allow myself a good cry at a later time.

  I found some empty boxes in the garage and decided to start the tedious task of packing up some of my personal items that I could have someone ship to me later. I turned some music on and lost myself in the task for a couple of hours. I was so involved in what I was doing that I never heard the front door or his approach. I was in my bedroom, standing at my bed packing some things from my closet when he spoke. Terrified by the unexpected voice, I stumbled several feet back, as I dropped everything I was holding. I gawked at the intruder as my hand pressed against my chest in an effort to slow my speeding heart.

  Kyle stood in the doorway, clearly drunk. He reeked of alcohol; the smell easily wafted across the room. His bowtie was gone, several buttons were unbuttoned on his wrinkled shirt, and parts of it hung out of his pants. Ev
en his hair was disheveled.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded in a gruff voice.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked. I began to pick up the things I had dropped.

  “What are you doing?” he asked again, staggering into the room.

  “What does it look like I’m doing?” I said, not looking at him as I resumed my packing.

  “I wanna talk to you.”

  “I don’t want to talk anymore.”

  “Look at me!” he bellowed, gripping my wrist.

  I looked at his hand on my wrist, the same wrist he had broken not that long ago. I wasn’t getting a good vibe from him, and for a few seconds, I thought he was going to break it again.

  “What is this?” He used his free hand to start rifling through the box. “What is this shit? You’re trying to leave me for good? You fuckin’ promised you’d never leave me!”

  When I could only stare at him in astonishment and, yes, fear, he yanked me away from the box and then threw it on the floor. Yelling, most of it incoherent, he grabbed my open suitcase and dumped it out on the floor.

  “What are you doing!” I yelled, grabbing his arm.

  “You’re not leaving!” he yelled in my face.

  I darted around him, picked up the suitcase and mindlessly started to reload it as I felt panic surging inside of me.

  “No!” he yelled, and grabbed me from behind by my shoulders, and spinning me around.

  “Stop being a dick!” I yelled in his face as I slapped his hands away from me.

  At first, I couldn’t figure out how I ended up on the floor, or why I was seeing stars and why the left side of my face stung and hurt so badly. Not until my vision began to clear did I see Kyle standing over me, with his hand still raised and breathing erratically, with an animalistic expression on his face. I tasted blood and then I realized what had happened.

  He had hit me.