by L.J. Shen
Open when you feel like you might forgive me.
I still hadn’t opened it.
Not even after we had sex, because I knew that wasn’t about forgiveness. That was about satisfying my need for him. And now? Now I still couldn’t forgive him, but finally my curiosity had won out over my self-control.
I pulled the last letter out of my shoebox, the paper yellow and brittle, and read it.
You were always mine.
—Black
I WALTZED THROUGH THE DOUBLE glass doors of FHH, ignoring the stunned faces of the New York employees who thought they didn’t have to deal with my sour-ass anymore. My face was relaxed, my posture poised. I was the same old Vicious, regardless of what I was dealing with in my personal life. The office was buzzing with post-holiday phone calls, overlapping chatter, the noise of working printers and people slurping their lukewarm coffees from their stupid “Best Dad/Mom/Grandmother” mugs.
I strode with purpose to Dean’s office. I couldn’t work inside there right now for the obvious reason—it was occupied by Dean—but I didn’t plan to leave NY, because there was nowhere else I would rather be.
After I saw her at the exhibit, as I sat in the searing hot bathtub and tried to get the feeling back in my numb, icy feet, I’d made up my mind. I wasn’t leaving until Emilia LeBlanc came with me. Even if that meant she was a package deal with her big-mouthed little sister, Rosie.
Emilia, my makeup is revenge.
Yours is forgiveness.
You’re better than me.
I don’t deserve you.
But I’m going to take you, anyway.
But Jaime was right. I was acting like a fucking tool when it came to her, so the least I owed myself was not to let her slip through my fingers because of that this time.
Opening the door to Dean’s office without knocking, I breezed straight in and planted my ass on the chair directly in front of his desk.
He sat there, talking on his phone and deliberately not paying any attention to me. He scribbled something on a FHH notepad as he spoke. “Of course. I’ll let Sue know, and we’ll send someone over as soon as possible. It shouldn’t take long to draft something like this.”
Sliding the notepad across his glass desk, he pointed his finger at what he wrote, offering me a smirk.
You look like shit
I snatched the pen from his hand, grabbed the notepad and scribbled something, lifting it for him to see, right next to my dead expression.
Sue looks like a bad fuck
He chuckled, still engrossed in his phone conversation. “Well, actually, I do have a contact person in Los Angeles. He’s one of FHH’s CEOs. His name is Baron Spencer. Sue will leave his contact details along with our proposition. Sound good?”
I gave him the notepad and pen, and he scribbled, tearing the paper from the pad and slapping it against my chest. I plucked it from my suit and read.
Your stepmom is a bad fuck. We’re not switching branches
It was my turn to write.
Fine. I’ll join you here. Care if I sit on your lap?
He looked up at me, and I winked.
We were back to being rowdy teenagers. Before Emilia came to town and shit all over our relationship.
“Excuse me, Stephen? Sorry to cut you off. I have an important call on the other line, something personal. Can I get back to you in ten minutes? Thank you. Okay. Thanks. You too. Take care.”
He slammed his phone down on the desk. I noticed there were a few people peeking curiously from the reception area in the direction of his office, and itched to close the automatic blinds, but knew better than to step deeper into his territory. He would’ve pissed right there in the middle of his office if it were appropriate.
“Emilia resigned,” he hissed out, opening a drawer and throwing her letter of resignation my way.
I didn’t make a move to pick it up.
“I know,” I said with a shrug. “She can do whatever the fuck she wants. I’m not going anywhere without her, and I need more time here.”
“Tell me…” Dean leaned in, lacing his fingers together. “How would you have reacted if I did the same to you? Told you I drove your high school sweetheart from our town just because I couldn’t see her with you, then went ten years later and fucked her in your office, your bed, your fucking everything? Right in your face. How would you feel about that, Vicious? Because I’m starting to believe that you’re a sociopath for not understanding the depth of the betrayal. True, the two of us were never as tight as you are with Jaime and I am with Trent, but we were still, in the grand scheme of things, brothers.”
It was my turn to lean forward. “I’m a bastard, Dean, but you knew. That night, at my party, before she came looking for you so you could go on your first date? You knew how I felt about it. But you went and did it anyway. I was angry with you for years, but I get it now. She was worth it. Emilia is a compulsion. You just want her, consequences be damned.
“Although when you dig deep and think about it, you have to admit, I was there first. Her heart beat for me, and you saw it. You saw it in class. You saw it in the hallways. The way she looked at me in the cafeteria. You saw it in the way she came to our football games, but only when I played, even though you played every single week while I sat on the bench most of the season. She never showed her face on those blue bleachers until after I made first-string. We all knew. Jaime knew. Trent knew. You and I knew. I think the only person who didn’t realize it was Emilia herself. You’ve moved on. You would never settle for her today, and you know it. You like the variety too much.”
He considered my words, tilting his chin down in acceptance. “We can’t both be at the same branch. The LA office is too important to be neglected, and having the two of us in the hallways here is going to result in a power struggle we don’t want. But Vic, I’m so fucking mad at you, I can’t even look at you right now. Not only for what you did when we were eighteen, but also for what you did in my bed. In my house. With her.”
My jaw clenched, but I didn’t dare look away. I stared at him so hard I thought we were both going to pounce on each other again. My left eye was still purple, and his nose was still bruised from our hotel incident.
Dean was the first to open his mouth. “Make it worth my while to sit around in Los Angeles while you chase Millie’s ass and beg her to forgive the assholeness that is you.”
“Name your price.” I knew there were sacrifices to be made, and I was willing to make them. It was justifiable. I got it. I’d fucked up and I needed to atone for my sins.
“Sell me ten percent of your shares.” Dean shrugged. “And I’ll pack a bag and wait it out in LA for six months.”
“That’s seven million dollars’ worth,” I ground out.
Each of us held 25% of the shares. We had equal power. Buying out my shares was buying me out of my power, my influence, my everything. I wanted to laugh in his face, but he looked too serious to fuck with. By the way his hand clenched his phone as he tapped it against his lips, I knew he meant business.
“Fuck that shit. I mean really, Dean?” I huffed. “It’s not like I fucked your sister.”
“I actually suspect you did fuck Keeley at some point, but I’m not going to ask you about it for your sake. You asked me to name a price, Vicious, and I did. Take it or leave it.”
“Five percent,” I shot back. I was so used to negotiating that I thought maybe I could sell him something I could buy back for double or triple the price.
“Ten percent for six months, and if you try to negotiate one more time, I’m taking this offer off the table, and we both know what’s gonna happen.”
Yes. Trent and Jaime would fly out to New York to babysit us again. Then, Jaime was going to drag my ass back to Los Angeles like I was a kicking and screaming toddler and I’d lose her. Forever.
She was mine. I didn’t come this far just to turn around and walk out of this again.
“Fine,” I said, finally. “Ten percent. I’ll draft
the contract tomorrow.”
“No need. I’ll ask my lawyer to do it,” Dean said. “I don’t trust your ass with anything anymore. Oh, I want you to keep Sue. You’re right. She is a mediocre fuck and she wants me to meet her parents, even though I told her I never want to date. Ever. In. My. Life.”
“Fine.” My nostrils flared and I closed my eyes. This was a fucking nightmare.
But Dean continued, undeterred. “I also don’t want you in my apartment. You won’t be fucking my ex-girlfriend in my bed anymore. You can take the apartment you gave Millie. It’s vacant now, anyway.”
I didn’t say a word, processing it all. My expression must’ve been crestfallen, because Dean’s smile only grew wider by the second.
“Shit, man, you’re going to do this, huh? For real.” He threw a foam ball at me.
I didn’t blink or reply. Goddammit, I was making a deal with this joker.
Dean got up from his chair and leaned into my face. “How far are you willing to go for this girl, Vic?”
I ran a hand through my hair, tugging hard at the roots. “Well, I think I’m about to find the fuck out.”
The next couple of days were busy. I signed the contract Dean’s lawyer had drafted (not his dad—a sorry bastard fresh out of law school who drafted a contract littered with enough loopholes and ways out for me to play with when the time came), and I moved my shit into Emilia’s apartment downstairs. Dean was scheduled to head to Los Angeles at the end of the week. We told his staff that I was staying in order to recruit two more lawyers to our New York branch and that I needed to train them. It was only a half-lie. This had been in the works for months now, but I was never set to train them in New York.
People bought it. Though I didn’t know why we needed to explain anything. They fucking worked for us.
Jaime lost his shit when he heard I only had fifteen percent left in the company.
And Trent laughed and said he didn’t feel sorry for me after treating him like an asshole when he confided in me about knocking up that stripper.
I gave Emilia two days. Two fucking days before I came for her. Finding out where she lived was no issue. Fiscal Heights Holdings still had to send her a paycheck for her last week of work, and our personnel head had her new address.
I decided to personally deliver the check, because I was nice like that.
Truthfully, I had no fucking clue what I was doing. I knew I was pursuing her, that I’d given up a lot to stay in New York for her, postponing my revenge on Jo and putting my personal goals on the back burner, but I didn’t understand any other part about this. I tried not to label what I felt for her. I tried not to read too much into it. As I said, Emilia was an impulse. Currently, all I knew was that I was acting on it. On my instinct. On my need. On something feral and basic.
She’d moved to a run-down neighborhood in the Bronx.
Her apartment was just above a Chinese joint that smelled of grease and sweat and had bathroom tiles on the walls. All around on her block, I saw old cars with busted windows and windshields. Gray wet trash lined the gutters, and string-thin, wide-eyed women carried groceries in a hurry to escape whatever danger was waiting for them around the corner. It was one thing to live in a zip code that wasn’t exactly desirable because you had cash flow issues, but a completely other thing to live in a neighborhood that looked like it had one of the highest crime rates in the city.
What the hell was she thinking? She and Rosie screamed prey. They were small, beautiful, innocent, and alone.
I waited outside the door that led upstairs for two hours before she came back home. It was boring as fuck so I spent my time reading emails and making phone calls. I stood out in this neighborhood like a sore thumb. But I didn’t give a shit.
Emilia approached the building, and when she realized that I was there at her front door, she rolled her eyes and sighed. “Go away, Vicious. You’re like a puppy begging for me to adopt you and take you home. Only significantly less cute.” She scrunched her nose.
I didn’t grace that shit with an answer, just pulled out her check from my breast pocket and handed it to her. She plucked it from between my fingers, her eyes skimming over it. There was a brief moment where I thought she was going to throw it back in my face, but then she must have remembered how poor she was.
“Thanks,” she murmured, slipping the check into her messenger bag.
“I don’t like you living in this neighborhood.” I took a step closer.
She crossed her arms as she took me in. “Then it’s a good thing it’s none of your business.”
“Since when are you so cold?”
“Since you barged into my life again and I was stupid enough to let you in—again—and I promised myself there won’t be a third time. What do you want, Vicious?”
That was a good question. I bit my lower lip and took in her little body, in her yellow-and-red checked coat.
“I want to fuck you again,” I admitted with a groan.
“Fuck me, or use me so you can avenge your stepmom?”
“It’s not about that. Fuck the money. Fuck my stepmom,” I said, realizing it was the truth. I didn’t care about all those things. Not when I was about to lose her.
If I hadn’t already.
“I don’t believe you.”
“I’ll never ask you to do anything about it ever again. All I ask is for your time, so I can explain.”
“Thanks, but no thanks.” She inserted her key into the lock and was on the stairs inside with the door shut before I had the chance to do my usual move of shoving my foot into the gap.
I banged my fist on the painted metal. At least the door looked sturdy. “Now that I know when you get back from work every day, I’m going to wait for you outside the subway and see you home safely.”
She laughed from the other side, a cold laugh that she’d learned and mastered because of me. Because of everything I’d done to her.
“If you want to waste your time, be my guest. I’m not going to forgive you. And even if I did, I wouldn’t want to be with you.”
“We’ll see about that.” I waited for another response, but this time there was only silence. I grinned quietly to myself. The push and pull was back. She could push all she wanted, but she was going to be pulled back to where she belonged. My arms.
I was still eyeing the door when a skinny white guy who was a veteran junkie, judging by his rotten teeth and lost eyes, shuffled for the door, holding a plastic bag. “You live here?” I growled.
He nodded, confused.
“Third floor. ’Sup, man. You lookin’ to score?”
“No, douchbag, I’m your motherfucking nightmare. Stay away from the girls on the second floor. Tell your junkie friends and anyone you know in this goddamn shithole the same thing.” I shoved five hundred-dollar bills into his hand. And fuck, why was it muddy? I didn’t even want to know. “For every day they’re safe and left alone here, you’ll get another hundred. Deal?”
His eyes widened in disbelief, his jaw falling. I don’t think he’d heard a coherent sentence in a while. “Sure, man. Sure.”
I turned around and walked away, hoping it was worth it.
It had to be.
I had a feeling it would be.
TRUE TO HIS WORD, VICIOUS waited for me at the subway every day at eight p.m. sharp. That’s when I’d appear from the freezing station and join him on my street. We would walk in silence.
At first, he tried talking to me about my day, my new job, my new boss, trying to milk info out of me about my life. I was having none of it. Finally, we settled into a routine where we didn’t say a word until I got to my door. Then, he’d watch as I fished out my key and opened it. Every day, exactly a second before I closed it behind me, he’d asked the same thing.
“Hear me out? Ten minutes, that’s all I’m asking.”
I’d say no.
And that would be the end of it.
After the first couple of weeks, he changed his script from “ten minutes
” to “five minutes.” I still said no. I probably should’ve been more insistent about telling him to get lost and stop following me, but the truth was, it really was a bad neighborhood, and I was grateful for him seeing me to my door every night.
It surprised me, his determination and dedication to the cause, whatever that cause might be. We’d only spent a couple of days of bliss in bed together, so the fuel to his lust was bound to run out any day now, right?
A part of me still suspected it was just another one of his games. Vicious was a terrible loser. He’d proven this over and over again. When he wanted something, he took it, leaving bridges burned and scorched-earth battlefields behind him. I could only imagine what he had planned for Josephine now that he’d read the will.
I wasn’t sure what he wanted from me. Even more, I didn’t trust myself not to give it to him again. But it soothed my sore pride that he was there every day. Especially after Georgia. Still, not enough to hear him out.
A month after we moved out, Dean came by our new apartment. He looked good, if you liked the hot-shot, all-American Bradley Cooper look. Which I thought I did, but apparently, I was more of a brooding, all-consuming-jerk Colin Farrell type of girl. It was a Saturday, and I was just getting ready to go to the corner grocery. I swung my door open, and he stood there, with his huge smile and wavy Hollywood hair.
“Sweet Jesus! Dean,” I said, clutching the door tighter, remembering the Post-It note he’d left me. “If you’re here to taunt me, don’t worry, Vicious beat you to it, and he is pretty persistent.”
“Millie,” he said in a tsking tone, pushing my door open and walking in like he owned the place.
He was wearing a white turtleneck, dark denim, a gray tweed overcoat, and that I’m-better-than-you smirk the HotHoles were probably born with. Dean stopped when he spotted Rosie sitting on the couch, reading something on the old iPad her school had provided her. His eyes narrowed at her and mine narrowed at him.