by Erica Breyer
By Monday afternoon, she’d pulled herself together enough to answer Nat’s fifth call.
“Darling, what on earth’s going on? I called your office, and they said you’re not in,” her friend’s voice was warm over the line. Cassie pulled in a shuddering breath, astonished at how badly she was handling this. It was just one night, dammit, what the hell was wrong with her?
“Oh…Nat…” Despite her determination to be firm, her voice gave her away.
“Cass?” There was alarm in the word. “What’s happened?”
“Nothing…I…” Her voice betrayed her again. ‘Get a fricken’ grip, Cassiopeia!’ she scolded herself. It didn’t help. Just using her own name made it worse. He liked to call her that. Along with Wallstreet. And babe. She hated being called babe. “Fuck!” she said aloud. She was crying again.
“I’m coming over,” Nat said and ended the call.
She must have run red lights to get there because she was at the apartment in record time. When Cassie pulled the door open, it didn’t take more than a second for Nat to put two and two together. In fact, she added additional twos along the way.
“What did he do?” she asked, wrapping her arms around Cassie and pulling her face against her shoulder. It took a minute for her friend to stop sobbing. By then, Nat had guided them to the couch in the sitting room, where Cassie had draped herself across her lap and had settled into another bout of ugly-crying.
“Shhh…darling…shhhh…it’s okay…” she soothed, smoothing the damps curls from Cassie’s clammy forehead. “Speak to me…what was it? Another…another…girl?” she said the words carefully. The woman on her lap was giving little hiccups.
“No…it…was…worse…”
Nat frowned, still stroking her friend’s hair. “Shhh…there there, darling…just tell, Auntie Nat everything…”
“He…had…he had…a video, Nat!” Cassie was sobbing again, and Nat was starting to find it hard to stay patient. Cassie was too. She was beginning to feel like she was doing a dying swan impersonation. But every time she thought about it, she cried like a baby.
“What video, darling?” Nat urged. “Tell me so I can help you.”
Her words were so similar to what Tyson had said to her after the fight that Cassie had to battle back another flurry of tears.
“I opened a mail on his phone. He had a video of me…of me…looking like a farm animal…there were noises. Like a pig.” Cassie didn’t have energy left for sobbing, so she focused on steadying her breathing.
“Wait…what?” Nat asked sharply, eyes widening. She shifted herself and pulled Cassie into a sitting position beside her. She angled herself to look into her friend’s tear-swollen face. “He had a what?”
Cassie sucked in a deep breath and straightened herself, meeting Nat’s eyes. ‘Get a grip, Cass!’
“He had a video of me.” Her voice was firmer now. A little more like her old self. It gave her the strength to continue. “It was a compilation of images and clips taken while I was training.” Nat frowned. “My ass in Lycra. My belly rolls. Slipping up in the Pilates studio. Tripping on a treadmill. One of me naked in the dressing rooms. Odd that…I rarely strip in the dressing room.” Her voice wasn’t just stronger now; it was oddly detached. She was feeling better.
“In the dressing room?” Nat’s voice was a little strident. “A photo of you naked in a dressing room? But…but…that’s illegal. How could he get a picture like that?”
Cassie shrugged. “I didn’t stick around to find out,” she said simply.
“Did he have an explanation? What did he say?” Nat asked.
“Something about it not being what it looked like,” Cassie replied. “I didn’t stick around for that part, either.”
Nat’s eyebrows pulled together as she tried to think it through. “When did you find out about all this?” she asked.
“Yesterday morning,” Cassie said. “After…after…” she stopped, swallowed. The tears were further off now but still threatened.
Nat’s mouth opened into a silent ‘Oh’. “So…so you…?”
“I stayed over. At his place. Yes,” she said, leaving Nat to draw the conclusions herself. It didn’t take a rocket scientist. Her friend turned and leaned back against the cushions of the couch for a moment, brow still furrowed in thought.
“Right,” she said. “We need wine.” She stood abruptly. When she returned, she had two large glasses and a bottle of red. She raised an eyebrow at the stain on the wall alongside them as she poured two generous glasses. “Alright, darling, let’s get everything out.”
Two hours later, Cassie couldn’t talk anymore. In spite of herself, most of what she had to say sounded like a love story. It was. It was their love story. A story marred by a big, ugly smear with a barnyard soundtrack. Cows. Donkeys. Pigs. She shuddered.
“I just can’t fucking understand it, darling!” Nat sounded exasperated. Three large glasses had loosened her tongue. And her vocabulary. Nat seldom cussed, so when she did, it made an impact. “The man seemed so fucking smitten with you!” she emptied her glass and sploshed in some more. “Fucking smitten, goddammit!”
“He’s running a campaign,” Cassie said, reaching for the bottle to top up her own empty glass. “Something to do with fat people. Getting new recruits on board, I guess. Maybe I’m part of the marketing mix.” She’d heard his little speech. ‘Inner beauty. Screw that! I’ll show him Inner Fucking Beauty!’ Her head was a bit woozy, but it felt better than the mind-numbing pain of the previous day. She gulped down a mouthful of wine. “I guess some people will do anything to make a buck,” she muttered darkly.
Nat put her hand up and rubbed her shoulder. “Oh, Cass, I’m sure that’s not the case.”
“Sure,” Cassie said, her voice still brittle. “It must have…must have made him sick to…to have to touch me. Cassie the Cow…Cassie the Pig.” If she’d patted herself on the back for getting her shit together, it was too soon. Her next breath wheezed into a sob, and she was crying again.
“Darling, don’t cry,” Nat consoled her. “You know you’re wrong! You’re not a pig…you’re so so beautiful. I just wish you could see that. Why can’t you see that?” Cassie didn’t want to hear what she was saying.
“It’s like senior high all over again,” she wept. “Those kids…the things they did…”
Nat pulled her closer. Cassie had been a chubby girl at school. It had taken a while for her form to take shape…but her beauty had been clear from the start. Not that everyone had seen it. Children could be cruel…particularly when they were bored, privileged adolescents with blurry boundaries. Nat set her jaw. She dealt with too much of the fallout of high school bullying in her counseling practice. Her shared history with Cassie had motivated her to devote endless hours to kids who were trying to cope with the cruelty.
But Cassie had changed. Grown up. The duckling was a swan. Not a lean, muscular, athletic swan…but a swan, nonetheless.
It broke her heart to know that her best friend couldn’t recognize her worth. And it brought out her inner warrior woman to think that anyone else might not see it.
Tyson Killoran was in Nat’s cross-hairs.
✽✽✽
The next few days didn’t get any better for Tyson. Days morphed into a week.
Two.
Cassie had locked him out on every level. Her receptionist wouldn’t put his calls through, the office security barred his entrance, and he was loathe to face another police intervention at her apartment. He’d waited outside both her apartment and her office, waiting for her to emerge, but there was no sign of her. Was she sneaking out through a goddamn trapdoor?
Finally, he backed off, praying she’d make the next move. Each day, five-thirty would come round, and he’d be watching the door of the gym. But it never opened. No beam of light with her figure silhouetted in it. Nothing.
“Ya gotta get a grip, man,” said Maxwell, as they worked the mitts together. His next fight was in a week, and he was
nowhere near ready. All he could think about was her.
“Yeah,” he breathed past his mouthguard. “Yeah, I’m getting a grip—” Max took him to the floor with an easy sweep.
“Really?” said Maxwell. “Don’t look that way to me.”
Tyson shook his head to clear it. He sighed. “I dunno what to do, Max,” he said, still sitting on his ass. “I’ve tried everything.” The other man shrugged. Cassie’s birthday had come and gone – he’d had the date on file from that day in the consultation rooms. Max had been in the office when Cartier had called to advise that Cassie’s birthday gift had been returned to the store unopened. A bracelet with her namesake crafted in platinum and diamonds. The employee had politely suggested that perhaps Madam might prefer the constellation of Cassiopeia as a necklace instead. Tyson had been gutted.
“Give her space, brother. There’s no rush. You got time. Let her figure it out for herself. When she’s ready, she’ll come to ya,” Max said, thankfully giving him time to find his feet. Tyson had spent too much time eating the dirt tonight.
“Yeah…but what if…” Tyson stopped. ‘What if she doesn’t want me?’ He never said the words, but they were there, deep in the recesses of his mind. There was a reason he didn’t discuss his heartbreaks with his mother. The woman had raised him with little concern for teaching him to recognize his place in the world. He’d done that on his own.
“She’ll want ya, Ty,” Maxwell said, reading his mind. “Give her time. She’ll want ya.”
Tyson nodded as he ran his teeth against the rubber of his mouthguard, squaring up against the burly man in front of him.
But maybe she wouldn’t.
✽✽✽
“London?” Cassie’s mind spun.
“I know it’s short notice, but it would be a great move, Cass,” Jerry Forsythe was saying. She was right. Cassie knew it. “Two months isn’t long. Frankly, you might choose to stay. Our London office has been desperate to get someone like you on board. What do you say?”
Cassie sighed and rubbed her forehead. She’d been working like a woman possessed. Her campaigns had not just taken off; they’d soared. This was the next step. Setting up similar protocols in their London subsidiary. Same company. Same corporate culture.
Different continent.
A completely different country to where she’d set up a hiding place for the last couple of weeks. She could never leave for good; her whole life was here, her friends, family. But maybe…maybe a break?
Tyson had been relentless for the first few days. She’d thought she’d go mad but had hoped that he’d let up. Days had become weeks, and she’d still been aware of his presence. The flowers hadn’t stopped being delivered. Gifts she hadn’t opened. What the hell was his problem? Did he need more video footage for his ridiculous little library? Nat had been her anchor, the strong backbone for her heart when she’d been sure she would crumple. Although even Nat had felt moments of weakness.
“Are you sure you won’t talk to him, darling?” her friend had asked the night before over dinner. Nat had just fielded yet another phone-call. Tyson had stopped trying to call Cassie, probably after he’d realized she’d blocked his numbers, along with anyone else who’d tried to reach out to her from his gym. Nat hadn’t had that luxury. She had too many patients who might need to contact her for emergency reasons. She picked up her phone when it rang.
She hadn’t said a word about Cassie to Tyson, though. Coolly dismissive. Cassie had felt the air seize in her lungs when she realized who the call was from.
“Tyson,” Nat had said. “Are you well?” Cassie’s heart heaved. “I’m sure she’s fine,” Nat had gone on. “No, nothing to say, as I told you before.” Nat had nodded. “I’ll be sure to let her know you called.”
Nat had sighed and repeated the question. “Cass…are you sure you won’t speak to him?” she asked. Cassie shook her head. Just knowing he’d been there…on the other end of the line…had felt like too much to think about. “He seems so sincere. And I’m not just saying that because I think he’s pretty. You two seemed so good together…can’t you just—?”
“Nat, I’m not going down that road,” Cassie had assured her. “I’m not putting myself in a place like that again.” In the face of her firm determination – and relieved she’d finally stopped crying – Nat had reluctantly capitulated, but not without some hard words.
“You can’t hide from heartache forever, Cassie,” she’d said. “Love is messy. I see that in my practice every day. Sometimes you have to fight for it. Sometimes you have to set fears aside. But it’s worth it.” When her friend hadn’t replied, she’d added. “You can’t bury yourself in your job every time something feels difficult. You’ll end up being CEO of some major firm…but you’ll be all alone.”
Cassie had felt a little guilty knowing that her friend had been dragged into her drama, but she’d hardened her heart.
Now, as she faced a boardroom of directors, showing her a way out, Nat’s words came back to her. She brushed them aside. This was probably just what she needed.
“I’ll do it,” Cassie said. “I’ll go.”
✽✽✽
Nat hadn’t been thrilled at the prospect. She and Andy had been the only ones to see her off at the airport, but Cassie didn’t need a full escort.
“You’ve got my keys and my notes about taking care of my plants?” Cassie asked yet again. Nat was great with living things. Cassie herself was probably proof of it. But still, it was hard to step away from her entire world for two months without at least a couple of trepidations.
“Everything is going to be A-okay!” Nat assured her brightly. That made Cassie feel worse. Her friend was never on form when she adopted Americanisms. “I’m going to miss you, darling,” Nat added, as if aware of her fears. “But I promise I’ll keep an eye on everything. And it’s all going to be just fine.” The pair hugged, eyes locking for a moment. Both knew that Nat was talking about more than just Cassie’s home. She pulled Nat in for a deeper embrace, absorbing her warmth before she drew back.
“I know,” she whispered. “It will be fine.”
And she stepped away, praying that it would.
Chapter 19
It had taken a couple of weeks, but Cassie had finally found her groove in the new city. The continuous bustle of London was different from her laid-back beach lifestyle. She’d grown to enjoy it, though, aside from the constant sniffle she developed. Blowing her nose resulted in gray-tinted tissues that convinced her she was probably inhaling as much smog as air.
She loved the work, and her colleagues were charming, which helped ease the transition. She’d been welcomed like a quirky cousin, and though Tyson had been convinced her accent was British, her new workmates delighted in teasing her with a fresh crop of American jokes daily. She’d warmed to her new supervisor, Leo Burnett, immediately.
“Welcome to the family, Cassiopeia,” he’d said the day she arrived, shaking her hand in both of his. She’d been warned the Brits were ‘all business’ and anticipated a chilly reception, but it couldn’t have been further from the truth. “What a marvelous name…it’s a constellation, isn’t it?” he’d asked, and Cassie had fought down a little pang, remembering a similar conversation with Tyson.
“Call me Cassie,” she’d smiled, not pulling her hand from his grip. Leo was a genteel man in his late sixties whose fatherly way extended to everyone on the team, and it never made her uncomfortable when he began calling her ‘my dear’.
She’d warmed to him even further after she’d learned that his wife had succumbed to cancer two years before, and Leo hadn’t quite recovered from the loss. His veneer of professionalism never slipped, but his conversations were peppered with references to ‘my Amanda’, the lost woman he still loved. Somehow, it put Cassie’s heartache into perspective. She was a wreck after losing Tyson after just a few weeks. She couldn’t comprehend losing a love like Leo and Amanda’s.
Life in London was good too. The Human Resour
ces department had assisted in finding her a furnished apartment on a short-term lease. It was just a couple of stops from the office on the Underground, and she’d been surprised at how easy it had been to settle in.
She’d explored the little streets around her small block, which overlooked a tiny, beautifully manicured park. There, families walked through crisp winter afternoons and weekends, with dogs and small children in tow. She’d strolled through it some mornings and even watched in awe one gray morning as a fox had run along the wall of her tiny courtyard before turning to disappear into the hedges of the park. She could see how Jerry had thought she might like to stay. But her heart wasn’t here… It was still torn in two.