YOURS TRULY

by Bella Grant

  “But what job is he hiring you to do?” I blurted out in dismay. “There’s no open position here!”

  “Don’t worry your head about that,” Grep piped. “We’re all a big family here. What kind of boss would I be if I knew your sister wanted a job and didn’t help out?” His response was goading me. “So, it’s settled, then. I’ll see you tomorrow, Kelly. At 8:00 sharp. And be on time or I’ll have to punish you.” At my glare, he continued. “You know, docking your pay or something.”

  Kelly working with Greg? Over my dead body. I’d find her something else to do, but I wasn’t going to let her be the next employee on her knees in Greg’ office. No way in hell!

  Seth

  “Mr. Armstrong,” the receptionist from the front desk stated over the intercom, “Mr. Halliday is on his way up.”

  I pressed the button to respond. “Thanks, Annie.”

  “No problem, sir.”

  I was in a foul mood and had no real desire to speak with Greg, but he was my oldest friend in the world and if I could talk to anyone about what had happened with Nicole, it would be him. He knew everything, including my insecurities about my scars and my fear of being alone for the rest of my life, with all this wealth and not a woman or child who loved me to share it with.

  What was the sense of having all this money if I couldn’t occasionally take time off to spend with family somewhere in the Caribbean or rent an island in the Mediterranean Sea? Vacations were no fun alone, which was the reason I hadn’t taken one in a very long time. I needed one soon, though. I could feel myself cracking, and it had started with the conversation I had overheard.

  That morning, Nicole had slipped beneath the sheets, wanting to wake me up with a blow job, but I had stopped her. I was disgusted with her. She found me so distasteful but could still perform sexual acts with me, just to get her hands on my money. Many men would have had sex with her one last time before breaking up with her, but my level of repulsion couldn’t even stand her touching me.

  She’d protested when I told her the relationship wasn’t working out. She’d thought I was joking at first, and when she realized how serious I was, she had shrieked at me, showing her true colors. Her words came back to me now, haunting me and driving the nails into the coffin of insecurities.

  You think you can find better than me? I’ve got a newsflash for you, nobody dates ugly anymore.

  No woman alive would be with you unless you offered them money. Or they met you in the dark.

  I’d thought I’d made progress accepting my new face and overcoming my insecurities, but she had destroyed years of therapy.

  “Hey, man. What’s up?” Greg asked, entering the office without knocking. He closed the door behind him and strolled to my desk.

  Sometimes I was jealous of him and the easygoing way he browsed through life. He was never short of female friends and went through them in rapid succession. Good looking and owner of a company, though not on the scale that mine was, he was the picture-perfect boyfriend on the outside.

  “Just trying to get some business sorted out before I head to the Bahamas,” I answered, glancing at my computer where I was checking the emails I received to conclude who would attend the conference.

  “Ah, so you’re going international?” he commented, dropping in the seat across from my desk. He draped his leg over the arm in a casual pose.

  “Well, I’ve got the time on my hands and the resources,” I returned. “So why not?”

  “How about your girlfriend? Shouldn’t she be taking time off your hands?”

  I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I don’t have a girlfriend.”

  He sobered and sat up. “What happened?”

  “Remember I once told you I couldn’t believe she was interested in me?”

  “To which I told you, bullshit. You’re a decent man.”

  I scoffed. “Well, not being decent but handsome seems preferable to being decent and look like me.” I gestured at him. “Case and point.”

  “Hey,” he protested. “I know you’re hurt and all, but don’t go picking on me.”

  “You’re right,” I acknowledged, sighing. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to take out my frustration on you.”

  “It’s okay, man. You’re in a vulnerable state right now,” he remarked and stood. “I have an idea. I’ll come over to your place later tonight and we can watch the game. It’s game three of the NBA playoff semi-finals.”

  “I’m not sure I’m in the mood for company,” I mumbled, wanting to nurse my wounds in private.

  “Great!” he exclaimed as though I hadn’t spoken. “I’ll be over at 8:00 then. You don’t have to work tomorrow, so we’ll booze up. Should I get the strippers?” He laughed at my look of dismay. “Just joking, man. Lighten up. We’re gonna get you a girlfriend who loves you for you. You’ll see.”

  “I won’t hold my breath,” I mumbled as he ambled out of my office.

  By the time I arrived home, I was no longer averse to having Greg over. I didn’t particularly want to be in my own company over the weekend. I’d skipped a party I should have attended with Nicole because I wasn’t in the mood to mingle with a group of men who brandished their wives by their sides. I especially didn’t want to see the women pretending to feign anything but interest in the scarred side of my face.

  For the first time, I had anticipated attending such an event with a beautiful woman attached to my arm. A woman who would scream to the world that I was lovable and deserved to be happy too. Despite being scarred physically, I didn’t have to continue being marred emotionally.

  When Greg arrived fifteen minutes after eight o’clock, I had the game on and had taken out a bottle of scotch from the wet bar off the kitchen. He brought pizza with him, and it was almost like high school all over again.

  We watched the game and drank, Greg a little more than me. Although a lot more relaxed, I couldn’t stop thinking about Nicole. Not that I had fallen in love with her, but she’d at least been a presence in my life I could turn to. As soon as Greg left, which would be soon because of his texting throughout the game, I’d be left to my lonesome again.

  “Do you ever think about settling down?” I asked him, muting the television during halftime so we could talk a bit. “I mean, we’re getting past our prime.”

  “Hell, thirty-two is hardly going downhill,” he responded with a scowl. “I have a goal in life, and marriage comes at age forty. Then I’ll settle down with some hot young thing and be the envy of all my friends.”

  “Meaning me,” I concluded since, like me, he didn’t really have other friends.

  “Nah, you’ll be long married before then. You just need to find the right woman. I think I found mine.”

  I frowned at him. “You think you’ve found the right woman, but you won’t marry her until you’re forty?”

  “No,” he refuted with a grin. “I’ve found the next ‘right now girl.’ She’s the younger sister of my PA.”

  “Are you sure that’s wise?” I asked him in concern. Sometimes his philandering exceeded dangerous levels. “And how young are you talking about?”

  “Don’t worry, she’s legal,” he replied, his grin still intact. “I’m not stupid. She’s the ripe age of eighteen.”

  I hummed a noncommittal sound. “Still too young. She’s not even old enough to drink.”

  “Hey, I’m just sticking to the law. Who knows? Maybe I’ll marry this chick.”

  I observed him dubiously. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea, but as you said, the law says you’re both old enough to make the decision. Not that anything I say would get you to change your mind.”

  “Damn right,” he stated. “She’s a foxy babe. Of course I’d rather date her sister, but she won’t give me the time of day. Can you believe a woman can resist this?”

  I rolled my eyes at the size of his ego. “Smart woman.”

  “Ha ha,” he said dryly. “Laugh all you want. I might change your mind about helping you get yourself a girlfri
end.”

  “I don’t need help getting a girlfriend,” I protested. “I just want a woman who meets me, gets to know me a little, and understands who I am before she actually sees me. Maybe someone who falls in love with me before she encounters all this mess.”

  “I’ve been thinking the same thing!” he exclaimed. “Let me borrow your laptop a minute.”

  “What for?”

  “Just go get it. You’ll see.”

  I was feeling mellow and didn’t want to get up, but I dragged my ass off the couch and strolled to my office. I retrieved the gold MacBook Pro from my desk and powered it on as I returned to the living room. The game was back on, but the television was still muted.

  After unlocking the device, I handed the computer to him, sitting on the arm of his chair to watch what he was doing. When he pulled up a dating website, I immediately protested.

  “No way! That’s as desperate as it gets. I’d rather be single.”

  “Don’t be an ass,” he countered and continued to the dating page, Secretz, bringing up a search of singles in and around Seattle. “Look at that.”

  “You do know that half the people, heck, maybe even three quarters of the people on dating websites are bots, right?” I asked him. “And of the quarter that remains, another half have fake photos and incorrect information.”

  “That’s generally true,” he agreed, scrolling down the page, which did have a lot of beautiful women. “But not on Secretz. To get onto this page, you are vetted like you’re meeting the president. They verify your information and even perform a background check. Women get a month’s membership for free, but guys have to pay upfront.”

  “Hmm, and I guess with all the women they have, men flock to this website.”

  “Not as many as you’d think,” he answered. “They don’t advertise to the general public, and even if they did, most people can’t afford it.” He told me the membership fee per month and I almost choked, not because it was expensive for me, but the price was steep for a dating website.

  “That’s a ridiculous amount to spend when you might not even meet anyone,” I criticized.

  “Read the testimonials.”

  “Probably fake,” I murmured but read the testimonials as he scrolled down. If the testimonials were to be believed, there was an absence of bots on the website and the administrators were rigorous in removing fake profiles on the off chance one slipped through their tight vetting system.

  “See?” Greg crowed in triumph. “There’s no reason you can’t make the effort.”

  “I don’t know, man,” I said, shying away from this online dating.

  “You just said you wanted to meet a woman who would get to know you first before meeting you in person,” he reminded me. “Well, there’s no better way to do that than on Secretz.”

  “Except I’ll have to post a profile pic as well,” I said, admitting my fear. “So the result would be the same.”

  “Photoshop.”

  I scowled at him. “No! That’s dishonest.”

  “Okay, then pay for the premium membership. You’ll have a profile pic but nobody will see it unless you decide to reveal it to them.”

  “So I’m paying more for anonymity,” I summarized aloud, wondering if I should take the chance. My pocket wouldn’t hurt if I took this leap, and what was the worst that could happen?

  “What do you say? Give it a chance?”

  I heaved a sigh. “Okay. How do I sign up?”

  I started off hesitant, but as I signed up for an account, I took note of the detailed website. Where other sites would have left most fields as optional, I had to fill out every piece of information. At the end, I was told I would be contacted within twenty-four to forty-eight hours to be interviewed by a moderator to cross-check my responses.

  “This is way too much trouble,” I grumbled as I exited the browser.

  “Women are worth the trouble,” Greg said with a knowing smile as he got to his feet. “And speaking of women, there’s a redhead and a brunette waiting for me at home.”

  I shook my head and walked him to the front door. “Spare me the details.”

  “Don’t worry, you’ll get a full account in the morning,” he responded. “No, make that in the afternoon. I’ve no intention of resurfacing until at least noon.”

  “I’ll remember that.”

  At the door, he turned to me and squeezed my shoulder. “It’ll be okay, man, you’ll see.”

  “Hmm, I won’t get my hopes up.”

  But that was a lie. After Greg left, I showered, and as I pleased myself, I couldn’t help thinking that I wanted a woman to call my own. I was terrified that this dating website might be my last chance.

  Robyn

  “Thank God!” I exhaled in relief when I peeked through the kitchen window and saw Kelly exiting the strange car. She walked around the front of the car, and the driver, a tall muscular man I couldn’t see clearly, stepped out of the vehicle as well. I watched in disappointment as she staggered to the man, who swung her up into his arms and backed her up against the car. My sister’s legs latched around his waist as they proceeded to get hot and heavy against the car.

  I moved away from the window when I saw her skirt hike up. I wasn’t interested in spying on her, but I’d been awake since I woke up at eleven o’clock feeling like something was wrong. I’d checked her bedroom to find her gone, and although initially I had crawled back into bed, I’d had a horrible time trying to fall back asleep.

  A glance at the time on the microwave revealing it was some minutes after three o’clock in the morning. I’d worried the whole night, thinking something was wrong. I’d contrived a million and then some things that could have happened to her, why she wasn’t home yet. She had work tomorrow morning, and as much as I hated her working at Halliday Inc, she seemed to be getting into the motions of responsibility.

  What she’d done tonight, though, was irresponsible. I understood I couldn’t control her, nor did I want to, but she could have let me know she was going out and with whom. If something had happened to her, I would have no clue what to report to the police.

  Although it was late, I reached for the cordless phone attached to the wall in the kitchen and dialed my mother’s number. As a desperate attempt, I’d called her to see if she knew anything about where Kelly might have gone. My mom had responded that she hadn’t spoken to Kelly since she moved to Seattle.

  “Did you find her?” Mom asked as she came on the line. “Oh please don’t tell me it’s bad news. No news at this hour of the night is good.”

  “Relax, Mom, she just got home,” I replied in relief.

  “Where is she?” Mom demanded, her tone transforming from concern to anger. “Put her on the line so I can tell her just how selfish and thoughtless she is.”

  “She’s not in yet.”

  “What do you mean she’s not in yet?”

  I returned to the window to make sure she hadn’t jumped back in the vehicle and left with her companion. Nope, they were humping right there in plain sight. I quickly drew the curtain to block them from my vision.

  “She’s still outside,” I explained to her, scrubbing a hand over my weary face.

  “She’s with a guy, isn’t she?”

  “I’ll talk to her.”

  “The good that’ll do you,” Mom replied, and I heard the defeat in her voice. “I give up, Robyn. I’ve tried with her. I’ve been stern, I’ve been friendly, I’ve rewarded and I’ve punished and nothing changes her.”

  “It’ll be fine. I promise.” I didn’t know how but it had to work itself out. She had to change.

  “She’ll sap the optimism from you, too,” she warned me. “I’m going back to bed, dear, and I suggest you do the same.”

  “Okay, sweet dreams.”

  “More like nightmares,” she muttered and hung up.

  I replaced the phone and sat at the kitchen table for half an hour before I heard the car parked in the driveway leave, and Kelly unlocked the front
door. I rose to my feet and met her in the hall. She glanced at me in surprise and had the good sense to look chagrined. She was tugging down her dress and her cheeks went red.

  “Robyn!” she exclaimed, surprised. “Why aren’t you in bed?” Her words were sluggish as though she was tipsy, which would explain the way she swayed unsteadily on her feet.

  “Because I’ve been up worried about you,” I stated, my throat clogged with tears of disappointment. “How could you do this? Go out and not let me know? Didn’t you think I’d be worried about you when I found you gone?”

  “I just needed a drink,” she answered, frowning.

  “You’re underage!” I remarked, my voice rising. “What the hell are you doing with your life, Kelly? You’re a smart girl. What happened to you?”

  “I don’t feel so good,” she mumbled and clutched her stomach.

  “Jesus Christ, don’t throw up on the floor!” Too late, she had poured out her guts on the floor in the hall. The stench of beer hit me. Did she even have anything to eat while she was guzzling all this beer? And if she felt so bad, why the hell had she been outside getting banged by a man she didn’t even know? I realized just how serious a situation she was in, and she needed help.

  “Let’s get you to the bathroom to clean up,” I sighed. As much as I wanted to be mad at her, at the moment she looked pitiful and I felt sorry for her.

  I helped her out of her things in the bathroom and made her take a shower while I cleaned up the mess she’d made in the hall. I thought there had to be something I could do for her. We needed to have a long conversation. Had something traumatic happened in her life that we didn’t know about, and if so, why didn’t she tell us? She had to know we loved her. My mother could be a little on the strict side, but she balanced it with words and actions of love.

  I finished cleaning up just in time to help her change. I did so, ignoring the red marks on her neck and other parts of her body which attested to what she had been doing. I helped her into bed, pulling the sheets up around her and, without a word, turned to leave.