by Emily Snow
Lucy has fucked me.
She’s fucked me into feeling the kind of hurt I haven’t experienced in years.
As Hannah starts out the door, she pauses in the walkway. The vicious sneer returns to her face as she stares at something. I’ve got an idea of what that is, and my body stiffens. “You’re lucky he doesn’t sue the shit out of you,” she mutters before taking off down the hall, the sound of her heels clicking on the concrete floor. It competes with the awful thud of my heart. I don’t want to see Lucy. Don’t want to voice how she’s fucked everything.
I don’t want to let her go, but I’m going to because I can’t trust her.
It takes a few moments, but she finally steps into the doorway. She’s wearing those red pants she had on that first night at B’s and the same red lipstick. Her gaze is lowered to the edge of my desk, but she looks up when I make a sound. Meeting my bitter stare, she flinches. So do I. Because the wide fear in her hazel eyes is the opposite of the sleepy grin she gave me right before she fell asleep last night.
“Sit down,” I order, needing to get this over with.
She nods, trembling from head to toe as she slides into the chair across from mine. Watching her, listening to her shallow breaths, makes me realize that Lucy Williams has failed to meet another of my expectations. I’d expected that, when the time came, letting her go would be easy. Simple as fuck. But it’s not because I care about her.
She’ll be that reminder for me. When I say that I don’t do attachments in the future, I’ll think of her.
“Jace,” she starts, but I thin my lips and shake my head.
“Save it, Lucy. You're fired.”
“What?” she breathes.
Fisting my hands on my desk, I repeat myself, this time slowly, enunciating each word, so she gets the point. “You. Are. Fucking. Fired.”
She folds her arms over her stomach and sways forward. Fuck, even I feel like I’m going to be sick. I’ve not vomited since before I was the legal drinking age, but when I swallow, I taste bile. “Are you at least going to give me a chance to explain myself?” she demands. She sounds close to tears, and I don’t think I’ll be able to deal with them.
I’ve always hated when women cry. And Lucy—no matter how much her actions have ruined me—will make me regret what I’m doing the second tears fall.
If it saves my business, maybe it’s worth it.
I try to convince myself of that as I shove away from my desk and stalk around to her. I bend until our faces are close. “There's nothing to explain! I don't have a lot of rules. All I ask is for my employees to work hard and respect my clients’ privacy. You didn't do that, and now we’re all about to pay the price, Ms. Williams. You fucked me over because you just didn’t give a shit.”
“I'm so sorry, Jace.” She shakes her head defensively, her lips moving as if she’s searching for something more to say. I don’t want to hear any more. Don’t think I can. So I’m relieved when the words don’t come to her.
I lean back, narrowing my gaze at her. “Don't fucking apologize. I just want you to leave. I've got a goddamn nightmare on my hands, and I can't have the woman who took the photo here when B shows up ready to take everything I’ve worked so hard for.”
The pain in the back of my throat? It gets worse with every word I speak to her.
“What if I explain myself? What if I told him that I didn't mean to? What if…” Her voice trails off. She has so many what ifs, but it doesn’t mean anything when there’s only one that would matter. What if I hadn’t taken that picture?
“Do you think Bailon cares? Do you think he gives a damn that you didn't mean to post that photo so that whichever of your wonderful friends could share it with the world?” I jam my hands into the front pockets of my jeans and turn away from her before I can issue the blow I know will make her go so I can get my head right to fix this. “Do you think I care?”
“Yes,” she whispers brokenly, and something bitter gnaws at my insides. “I mean, I hope you care. We…” She buries her face in her hands, letting out a soft sob.
I shouldn’t want to touch her when I hear that sound, but I do.
Fucking Lucy.
Fucking weakness.
“There’s no we, love,” I state. “What you did put my company in harm’s way. It put the other people who work for me in harm’s way. Those people out there”—I jab a finger in the direction of the workshop—“they’re like my family, and you didn't give a damn about them, so that's why I can't and won’t do this.”
When I tell her this, she stands. Her face is red, chest is rising and falling rapidly, but she still takes a step towards me.
I lift a hand and close my eyes. “I don’t want to touch you, Lucy. I can’t be near you.” Dragging a hand through my hair, I set my face in a harsh line. “Just … go.”
Silent tears trickle down her cheeks, but she bobs her head. “I really am sorry, Jace,” she murmurs between gasps.
I let her leave without so much as another word.
TWENTY-NINE
LUCY
For the first few days after I get fired, I'm in a daze. Once that fades, though, I follow Gossip Daily. I stalk any new information about the heiress I outed, about Jace and the implications my mistake has on him and his company, like it's my job.
“Are you still looking at that thing?” my mother asks me when she stumbles upon me sitting on the couch after she comes home from dinner with her Bingo friends about a week after I’m excused from EXtreme.
I swallow, but the wedge in my throat is still there. Still refusing to go away. It’s been there for days, since I realized that Jace isn’t going to respond to my calls or texts. “Mom, I really messed up.” She sits down beside me, grabbing my laptop from me despite my protests. She closes it and sets it on the coffee table, reminding me of the time Dad had taken away my computer because I was studying too much.
“Lucy, it's all right.”
But it's not all right. Nothing about this situation is all right, and I have lost my job, the friends I made there, and Jace because I made a stupid decision. When I came home the afternoon he let me go, my face swollen and red from sobbing all the way home from Boston after I had a couple of drinks with Jamie to calm my nerves, Mom was already waiting for me. She already knew of the photo’s existence, thanks to her hairdresser who saw it online.
Mom was fully prepared to give me a piece of her mind—and a few other choice words—the second I stepped through the front door, but as soon as she saw my face, she paused. She’s never been much for too much affection, but that night, I had curled up on her lap, bawling like a baby as she numbly watched a DVR’d episode of one of her TV shows.
By the next day, we were back to normal. I had no more tears left in me, but what I did have was anger. At the person who forwarded the photo to the media—and it didn't take very much effort to figure that one out. Considering the jackass I was once married to carried a grudge against me for not returning to San Francisco and was now ignoring my calls to directly confront him.
Most importantly, though, I felt anger at myself.
This was a disaster of my own doing, and there was no one I could blame but me.
For the first few days, I tried to call Jace, just so I could apologize again, but each call was sent directly to voicemail. And each text was read and not replied to. Not that I blame him. I couldn't blame him, and as I got his voicemail for the millionth time just yesterday, I realized something that shattered me to pieces:
At some, while Jace and I were carrying on our casual relationship, I had fallen for him. I had fallen for the sardonic way he said my name and the wicked look he gave me when he called me buttoned-up. I had fallen for the boy who gave me so much grief in high school, the boy with a beautiful accent, the man who wouldn't return my calls.
And that burns worse than I ever imagined. Worse than it did when things went south with my husband months ago.
Shifting my focus back to my mother, I lift my shou
lders and reach for my laptop. She slaps my hand sharply, and I wince. “Dammit, Mom. I'm just trying to see if everything is going to work out. What’s it hurting for me to just … look?”
Her lips tighten into a frown. “He still hasn’t called you back to tell you for himself?”
“No,” I say and massage the bridge of my nose. I have a killer headache forming from staring at the computer screen for far too long. “He hasn't and he's not going to. I talked to Daisy and she doesn’t know much, just that he’s still really angry.”
Mom is silent, the look on her face unreadable as she studies my features, which are an equal blend of her and my dad.
At last, she reaches out and slides a strand of black hair behind my ear. “Stop checking the Internet,” she orders. “Stop checking the Internet, stop searching for this man, and move on with your life.”
“Mom,” I groan. “I’ve potentially ruined him. How can you tell me that?”
“Don’t mom me, Lucinda Jane. If you did ruin him, you’ll know because then he will call you to tell you what he thinks of you. I know it hurts, and it's going to hurt for a while because you were stupid—” I huff loudly, but she narrows her eyes and continues. “Now you're paying the price for being stupid. But if you sit around and let this eat away at you, it’s just going to hurt worse. Call Jamie. Go out. Have fun. I’m tired of seeing you around here so much.”
I give her a sideways look, releasing a laugh, my first genuine one in a week. “I'm sorry what did you do to my mother because my mom would never tell me to go out with Jamie because I lose my phone and come home without my shoes.”
She rolls her brown eyes. “If it will get you off this couch and make you take a shower, you can lose your phone every week and I’ll replace it for you.”
“I want you to come with me to see Bailon,” I tell Jamie a couple of nights later as we down drinks at her place. At my statement, she arches her dark brows.
“Thought you said you ate before you came over, but that piña colada seems to be going to your head a little fast.” Because I don’t crack a smile at her joke, she sighs then turns her shot up to her lips. “Alright, Luce, I’ll bite. When are you suggesting we do this?”
“Tomorrow. Hell, we can go tonight.” I had spent most of the day stressing over ways to do my part in fixing my mistake, and the only solution that makes sense is to talk to B directly. I know I won’t be able to speak to Victoria—the other woman in the photo—but at least I can implore Bailon not to sue Jace and EXtreme. “If you don’t want to go, it’s fine and I’ll—”
“Luce,” my best friend exhales, “don’t even give me that bullshit. You want to talk to the man; we’ll go talk to him tomorrow before my shift starts.”
And Jamie keeps her word. She meets me at Bailon’s swanky building at 2:00, dressed for work in a set of Hello Kitty scrubs. “Don’t look at me that way.” But the corners of her mouth tug upward as we take the elevator to the fourth floor. “I happened to like these scrubs.”
“That song is in my head, you know,” I say, trying to find something to focus on to calm my nerves. I’m scared to death of visiting the man, but I know it’s unavoidable. If it helps Jace at all, begging and pleading with B will be worth the embarrassment.
“Major rager OMFG,” she says dryly, repeating a phrase from the song I’m referring to. It had played the night we went out when I first returned to Massachusetts, and she’d rolled her eyes and said that she wanted Avril Lavigne to go back to being complicated.
The elevator doors open, and I let out a breath that scorches my lungs because we’re so close now.
“It’ll be fine, Luce. And if he’s a dick—”
“Nice to see you again, Ms. Williams,” a voice greets me from the U-shaped receptionist’s desk, and the fear in my chest expands when I take in the sight of Sonora. shit. I tentatively approach, Jamie close on my heels. Instead of the derisive expression I expect to encounter, the redhead turns sympathetic blue eyes up to mine.
“I didn’t realize you…”
As my voice trails off, she releases her throaty laugh and casually lifts a shoulder. “Bailon gives me a lot of personal leave, which is why I’ve worked here for the last few years.” She drums her ruby-painted nails on her desk, sucking in her bottom lip. “You didn’t make an appointment. He usually likes everything to be on his schedule.”
“I wasn’t sure he’d want to see me,” I admit, casting a quick glance toward the narrow hall that no doubt leads to B’s office.
“I’ll make sure he does. Just have a seat and give me a few.”
The redhead disappears down the hall, and I hear her knocking on one of the doors a moment before she starts to talk in a hushed voice. My stomach churns violently, so I wrap my arms around myself as Jamie makes small talk. She’s halfway through telling me about her twin sister’s new boyfriend—who has a toddler, which scares Bella more than the second coming of the Black Plague—when Sonora returns.
“He said come on back, Lucy.” As I walk past her desk, she stops me, laying one elegant hand on my wrist. “I hope you work things out with Jace. Everyone screws up. Especially me.”
With every move I make in the direction of B’s office, my heart feels like it’s closer to giving out. I know that if I knock, like I always do, the fear will overwhelm me. So, I step inside of the large office, nervously smoothing my fingers over my burgundy skirt. “Mr. Bailon?” I say as clearly as my voice will allow.
He glances up from the paperwork on his desk. Immediately, his gaze glides past me, to Jamie. His dark eyes gleam, but he quickly narrows them to cast a withering stare at me. “Ms. Williams, please sit down.” As I sit on the edge of my chair, he parts his lips, preparing to speak, but then I start to talk.
And I don’t stop.
I know I sound like an idiot as I tell him everything, starting at the beginning with my departure from Java-Org to the morning Jace fired me, but I don’t care. As soon as I’m done, I lean back and take a deep breath. “I’m so sorry that I did something so stupid, but please don’t take it out on Jace and the company. Please don’t sue.”
He covers his mouth with his hand, tapping his index finger to his cheek. “I have no plans to sue him.”
A jolt rushes through me. “What?”
“I don’t plan to sue him. You should be worried about Victoria—it’s her tits you took a picture of. She could press charges against you.”
“Is she?” I breathe, and B rolls his brown eyes up to the ceiling.
“She’s furious—I’m not going to say she isn’t—but she’s also a fan of looking at herself. I think you’re safe, Miss Williams. The future of your career—not so much.” God, I hate being reminded of that. Hate that I’m right back where I started. “Now, is there anything else I can help you with today or—”
“Then what are you going to do to Jace?”
His dark gaze narrows and he glares at me for several uncomfortable seconds before he steeples his fingers on his desk. “Just because I don’t plan to sue him doesn’t mean I can’t affect his business. It’s never a good thing, Miss Williams, when trust is betrayed in our type arrangements.”
“He didn’t do anything wrong. It was me. I’m so sorry, it was—”
“I asked her to send the picture,” Jamie speaks up. For the first time since we sat down, B focuses his attention on her. She formally introduces herself, then continues, “I wanted to know what happens at your parties, so I begged her to send it to me. She thought she was sending it privately and, you’ve heard what she told you happened after that. She made a mistake, but her ex-husband is an asshole.”
“If you wanted to know what happens at my parties, you could have attended yourself.”
Though she maintains her tight smile, I can tell his words have affected her from where I’m sitting. Her hands tremble in her lap, so she folds them together, linking her fingers. “I wasn’t invited, Mr. Bailon. I’m not sure it would be my scene, though.”
“Mírate,” he says. “Estás asustada de que te pueda gustar.”
If he thinks that replying to her answer in Spanish will throw her off—make her curious as to what he’s really saying to her—he’s sadly mistaken. Jamie squares her shoulders and meets his gaze without faltering. “Para nada.” When his mouth twitches in surprise, she gives him a cool smile. “Lourdes, my neighbor growing up, was from Puerto Rico. I learned a thing or two.”
“I can see that.” He stares at her for a few seconds longer, the heat from his gaze so potent I’m forced to look away. At last, he clears his throat and murmurs my name. I lift my chin to find his gaze on me. “I’ll think on what you told me about Exley.”
“Please do. I’d appreciate it because his business means so much to him.” And years from now, I don’t want him to look back and think that overachieving Lucy Williams had ruined him because she couldn’t follow the rules.
“I’ve got a client coming in ten minutes, and I have work to do.” He hands both Jamie and I a copy of his card then nods dismissively toward the exit. “You can see yourself out.”
I thank him several more times as we prepare to leave, but as we reach the door to his office, something he says stops Jamie in her tracks.
“Una noche. Una noche y te garantizo que te puedo enseñar una o quizás dos cosas.”
She wraps her fingers around his doorframe, closing her eyes as she digests his words. I take in her reaction—her flushed cheeks and the way she moves her lips for a few seconds—wondering just what he said to her. I know it’s dirty, it has to be, but I’ve never seen Jamie so flustered. When she looks over her shoulder, she exudes confidence as she shrugs. “If you say so.”
“You have my card, Ms. Armstrong. Use it,” he calls after her. She drops it in the wastebasket by Sonora’s desk as we leave the building.
When we reach our cars, I ask her what he said, but once again, she shrugs it off.
“Only that he’s a cocky shithead.”