by Amy Brent
“Take a deep breath, Miss Charlene, and remind yourself with whom you are speaking,” he said.
I felt anger bubbling in my gut. What the fuck kind of game was he playing?
“Why were you not returning my phone calls? You said so yourself, we needed to talk. What gives?” I asked.
“Why don’t you ask your boyfriend?”
“I—thought I was?” I asked.
“Cut the shit, Charlie,” he said, whipping around in his chair.
The look in his eye took me aback, so much so that I took a step back to the wall of his office. His blue eyes were lit with fire, blazing behind his furious irises as he burned a hole into my forehead. His hands were clasping his chair so hard that his knuckles were white, and for just a fraction of a second I saw a completely different person. His temple was throbbing and his body was shaking in this chair, and I had no idea why the hell he was so angry.
“L, take a breath,” I said.
“Stop playing with me, Charlie,” he said, standing up. “I know about Rick. I know about the live-in boyfriend and the way you yanked my chain. I know you were only after the monetary investment I promised to put into your career if this relationship ever came to light and destroyed your job here.”
“L, what in the world are you—”
“Shut up, Charlie!” he exclaimed as he steadily walked towards me. “I know.”
“Well, I don’t. So, explain how the hell you know Rick,” I said.
He stopped just a few steps shy of me and I could feel the angered heat reaching out from his body. Whatever had happened had stirred up something inside of him that I don’t think he had under control, and I instinctively splayed my hand over my belly button in a feeble attempt to calm my raging nerves.
And to protect the child I had growing inside of me. A child that I still had to tell him about.
“I came by your place Monday, the moment I was done talking with Michael. He knew, he followed us to the pier and saw us together, and I knew we needed to talk. But, you faltered in your little game, Charlie,” he said.
“What game?” I asked. “L, what the hell are you—”
“It’s Mr. James to you,” he said.
“Whatever the fuck your name is, spit it out!” I exclaimed.
“I knocked on your door and a goofy-looking guy by the name of Rick answered. Maybe you didn’t think he was coming by, or maybe you didn’t think I would actually come after you, but he was there.”
“Rick was at my apartment?” I said. “Tall, blonde hair, blue eyes. Big bug eyes that make him look like a fly?”
“The game is over, Charlie,” he said, “Give it up.”
“There is no game, L! Rick isn’t my boyfriend!”
I watched him study me intently before he took a step back. For a split second, I saw his eyes soften back to the L I knew. The kind, considerate, concerned L that I was hoping desperately to find when I walked into this office.
But, it was short-lived, because the angry monster returned with his fiery eyes and his clenching fists.
“He’s my ex. W—we, we dated back in college and he’s never been able to let it go. He’s the only person I know in the area because I came to work for your company right out of college and didn’t have any time to make friends. He comes around and annoys me. He was there when I got back from the grocery store Monday,” I said.
His angry eyes darted to mine before he took a step towards me. I instinctively backed up, sinking myself against the wall as L followed every single movement I was making. His eyes stopped at my skirt, no doubt processing why my outfit was so different. He clocked every single tick of my face, probably trying to figure out whether or not I was lying.
“I’m not lying to you, L,” I said. “He came by while I was at the store getting cat food for Johnson, and he said my front door was open. Apparently, I’d been too distracted by things to lock my door, and he just went on in. He’s not my boyfriend, L. You are. And he sure as hell doesn’t live with me.”
I held his gaze no matter how scared I was of his current demeanor. I wasn’t going to allow a man like Ellison James to intimidate me to the point of tears, but I felt the nausea in my stomach growing. I slipped my hands behind my back, pressing them into the wall in an attempt to get them to stop shaking, and I slowly watched his face soften once again.
And this time, it stayed soft.
“You’ve gotta believe me, L. I would never do that to you,” I said breathlessly.
“I don’t know what to—”
The crack in his voice broke my heart. I knew he was done looking me over, and I knew he had determined I wasn’t lying. The kind of pressure he must’ve been under these past couple of days made me sick to my stomach, and I felt my knees grow weak as they began to shake underneath my skirt.
“We really need to talk, L. There was something I discovered while I was at the grocery store,” I said.
“And what is that?” he asked, as he turned his back to me.
“Do you want the long version or the punch-line?” I asked.
“I don’t give a shit, Charlie,” he said.
“L, I’m—”
“Ellison, we’ve got a problem.”
Michael burst into the room and blew right past me as L whipped around on his heels. Gone was the attention I had, and now I was watching a frantic Michael wave a sheet of paper in the air.
“What is it now, Michael?” he asked.
“What the fuck happened with you and Sheila yesterday?” he asked.
He slapped the sheet of paper down onto L’s desk while my head began to swim with that question. What did that mean? Why was Michael asking him about Sheila? What were the two of them getting into yesterday?
“Michael,” L said, nodding towards me.
I watched Michael turn his head toward me before his face fell. His eyes raked slowly up and down my body while a scowl of disgust slowly crawled across his lips, and I leaned my entire weight against the wall as I felt my face pale.
“We’ll deal with her later. She’s no longer important,” Michael said, turning back to L. “But, this is.”
“What the hell is this?” L asked.
“The short of it? You’re being sued, L. For sexual harassment.”
Chapter 31
Ellison
“Sued for sexual harassment? What the fuck do you mean?” I asked.
“I mean, Sheila Brown—the VP of Sales—she says you sexually attacked her yesterday. She’s lawyered up and everything,” Michael said.
“What the hell is this bullshit? I never fucking touched her,” I said.
“What happened?” Michael asked.
“She came in here with her bedroom eyes and her sashaying hips, pretended to trip over herself, and I grabbed her wrists before she hit the ground. I steadied her on her feet, tossed her wrists down, then proceeded to tell her that if she continued to come on to me, she’d be out of a job,” I said.
“I’m surprised she’s not suing you for assault,” Mike said.
“Which tells you she’s out for blood,” I said. “She’s pissed off because I’ve always rejected her advances, and told her I always will, and that makes a woman like her angry.”
“What do you mean by ‘a woman like her’?”
The question came from Charlie. I’d completely forgotten that she was standing in the corner looking idiotic in that dumpy skirt she had on. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out why the fuck she was dressed like that, but this was more important than her or me. I heard her story—every single word that came flying from her face—and I honestly didn’t know if I believed her or not. I didn’t know if she was telling the truth about Rick, or if I was going to get out of this lawsuit. I didn’t know if Charlie actually loved me, or if Sheila had fucking lost her mind.
“A woman like her who is used to using her good looks and intelligence to get whatever she wants,” Michael said. “She does it in the boardroom, she probably does it in her privat
e life, and she was probably expecting L—I mean, Mr. James—to fall down on his knees for her.”
“Then she obviously doesn’t know him that well,” Charlie said. “He’s never been that kind of man, and he never will be.”
“And how would you know that?” Michael asked.
“Cut the shit. I know you know,” Charlie said.
“We’ll deal with that later,” Michael said, as he pointed back at me. “Right now, this needs damage control. This whole situation with Sheila needs to be gotten under control. If this hits the press, it’s not gonna matter that you were fucking around with an employee. This will be the focus, and this is much worse.”
“I’m standing right here, Michael,” I said.
“I’ll do damage control, alright? I’ll go have a talk with her,” I said.
“Don’t you dare. Being in the same room with her caused this mess, and you confronting her will only make it worse,” Michael said.
“Then I’ll shoot her an email,” I said.
“Even worse. That creates a paper trail that could be used to manipulate you,” Michael said.
“Then how the hell do you expect me to do damage control if I can’t address her?” I asked.
“I don’t fucking know, L! Why the hell did you have to fuck your employee?” he asked.
“What in the world do I have to do with this?” Charlie asked.
“That’s actually a really good question. And, why haven’t you left yet, Charlie?” I asked.
“Because I’m one tub of popcorn away from my next movie-length entertainment,” she said.
“Approaching her fucks you over legally,” Michael said. “The best shot we’ve got is for me to try something. Unless you want to countersue.”
“For what?” I asked.
“False accusations and slander. Libel, if it hits the press before we get ahead of it,” Michael said.
“L, we really have to talk,” Charlie said.
“Seriously, Charlie. Now’s not the time,” I said.
“No, really. Now is a perfect time. Depending on how you take the information, it might help things a bit,” she said.
“You got a way to get us out of all this mess that doesn’t involve you spreading your legs?” Michael asked.
“Maybe if you spread yours a little more, you wouldn’t be so jealous of the fact that I was sitting on your boss’s face,” Charlie said.
I couldn’t help but let out a slight chuckle. As pissed off and confused as I was, she was still the fiery Charlie I’d fallen in love with. As hard as I’d tried, the truth of the matter was I couldn't drink her away at that bar. When I fell asleep that night, she was painted on the insides of my eyelids. She was everywhere. Her perfume. Her sounds. Her scents. Her tastes. She had embedded herself into every part of me.
But, I was still wary. I still didn’t know if the Rick bullshit she was spouting was true. My heart was screaming for it to be true. My mind, however, was telling me to back up at a furious pace and take a few more days to digest everything.
To sift through everything.
To figure out what the fuck to do next that didn’t royally screw everyone over.
“You don’t get to address me like that, Michael. You want to talk about sexual harassment. The way you’re talking to me is just that,” Charlie said.
“Oh, and hopping in your boss’s lap isn’t?” Michael asked.
“Not when it’s consensual,” I said.
“Seriously, L?” Michael asked.
“Look. This situation with Sheila is rough, yes. But, I didn’t do anything. She can’t take me down for something I didn’t do. We’ll find a way out of this, so long as I don’t confront her,” I said.
“I still don’t understand why you can’t just talk with her,” Charlie said. “Especially if they do it with witnesses around. Surely she wouldn't cry wolf with a bunch of people surrounding her.”
“Is she really giving us advice right now?” Michael asked.
“Whether L wants to believe it or not, I give a shit about both him and this company. I’m not alright with Miss Brown threatening either one, any more than you are,” Charlie said.
“Even you have to see how inappropriate this is. What did she come in here for anyway, hmm? To try and patch things up after ripping your fucking heart out?” Michael asked.
“And I told him the truth—that the man he encountered was not my boyfriend, but my ex who doesn’t wanna fucking let go of the past,” Charlie said.
“The fuck’s she talkin’ about?” Michael asked.
“I hadn’t told him any of that, Charlie,” I said.
She sighed before she pinched the bridge of her nose and that’s when I clocked the position of her hand. She had kept her palm steadily pressed to her stomach, and for a split second I remembered why I hadn’t seen her in so long. Charlie had been calling out sick, and the mindless gesture was proving to me that she really hadn’t been lying.
She had been sick.
Sick with what, however, was still a mystery.
If she wasn’t lying about calling in sick, then maybe she wasn’t lying about this Rick guy? But, it took a really unstable man to pull some shit like that, and if he had access to Charlie like that then she wasn’t safe. There was something deep within me that wasn’t alright with the idea of her not being safe, and the gears in my head completely switched.
“Charlie,” I said.
“Yes?” she asked.
“What did you come in here to tell me?” I asked.
“Is no one really going to offer any solutions to what is happening here?” Michael asked.
“I’m going to countersue for false accusations and slander. Libel, if it hits the media. Let her know that when we do prove the lawsuit was filed under false accusations, she’ll be out of a job and I’ll ruin her career,” I said.
“Could we get a bit of privacy to talk?” Charlie asked.
“No. If you wanted privacy, you should’ve been more careful with the lock on your apartment door. What is it you wanted to tell me?” I asked.
“Are you serious, L? I was panicked all morning about you not contacting me after my idiotic exchange with Michael, and you’re pissed off that I left my apartment door open?” she asked.
“You live in a terrible part of town. Your carelessness brought this on, and nothing else. If Rick is still coming around and he isn’t your boyfriend, then it means you’ve been leading him on, too. At the very least, you haven’t made it clear to him that the two of you weren’t going to be romantically involved again,” I said.
“I told him exactly that when I found him in my apartment on Monday!” I exclaimed. “Leading him on? Are you fucking kidding me right now?”
“If he was still coming around before then, it means—in his mind—you weren’t clear or stern enough. You said it yourself, you had just come out of college and had no time to make friends because you were working all the time. Maybe you were lonely and the idea of knowing somebody in the city gave you solace. Maybe you kept him around for a friendly hookup. Maybe—”
“This isn’t something I need to be here for,” Michael said. “Call me when you get fucking serious about this.”
“I told you what I intend to do. Now, go execute it,” I said.
Michael stormed out of the room while Charlie’s body trembled in my office. I knew I was upsetting her, but this was a double-sided coin. She wanted to play innocent, like all of this had just happened to her, but it was never that simple. Women got lonely and knew when they had sure things, and maybe that’s what happened. Maybe this was all one big cluster fuck accidentally concocted by an insecure woman who didn’t believe in herself until I came along. I didn’t have the time nor the energy to fuel her existential crisis, and I sighed before I turned my back to her.
“How the hell could you say something like that to me?” she asked.
“How the hell could you say you loved me while stringing another man on?” I asked.
> “Oh, and now you pity Rick? What the fu—fine. You want me to prove to you that it’s you and only you?” Charlie asked.
“Is that even possible?” I asked, as I sat down in my chair.
“I’m honestly not sure. You’re the most stubborn, hard-headed man I’ve ever met. But, even though you’re stubborn and driven, you’re not determined,” she said.
“Excuse me?” I asked.
“You’re not determined. If you were, you’d be fighting for this. You’d be studying me, looking into my eyes—the same eyes you've looked into for weeks—to see I was telling you the truth. Instead, you refuse to see what’s right in front of your face because you’re scared I’ll break your heart.
“You already have,” I said.
There was a heated pause, and I could’ve sworn I heard Charlie sniffle. I sighed, putting my head in my hands before I raked my fingers through my hair. This day had just crumbled into a flaming fire of dog shit, and I had no idea where to begin in order to sift through it all.
“If that is all, Miss Charlene, you can go,” I said.
“I’ll show you,” she said, grabbing her purse. “And I know exactly how.”
“Care to enlighten me?” I asked.
“I’ll find out the truth myself.”