Pride and Papercuts

by Staci Hart

  In here, at least. A host of things could be addressed out of my office, like catching up with my staff, monitoring progress, heading to accounting to address the little inconsistencies I’d found. Jess had seemed just as surprised as I was when I showed her last week, but we’d chalked it up to a clerical error. What I’d discovered was too inconsistent—a little bit here, a miscalculation there—and I’d been meaning to go down to accounting for weeks. But between finalizing the proposal for the new center to present to city council and my preoccupation with shadowing in the advertising department, it’d been pushed down the priority list over and over again.

  I couldn’t pretend it didn’t all feel pointless. In a few weeks, I would be gone, and though I hoped my mother wouldn’t punish the charity division, I knew better.

  But I cheered at the thought of getting up and moving around. As if doing something would give me control, even though it wouldn’t. Nearly everything was up in the air, and I was no juggler.

  With a sigh, I pushed back from my desk, snagging the financial statements I’d gathered to take to accounting. But before I stood, a knock sounded, and the door opened without invitation.

  Shelby’s wide eyes met mine, her face pallid. She slipped into my office and closed the door behind her.

  My brows quirked. “Shelby? What can I do for you?” I glanced at the clock. “Did I miss a meeting?”

  “No.” The word was grave. Ominous. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “Didn’t know what to do about what?”

  She took a seat, her back ramrod straight and hands knotted in her lap. “I … I just overheard something that you need to know.”

  She didn’t continue, seeming to need a moment to compose herself.

  “Are you all right?” I asked gently.

  “I’m not. And I’m sorry to bring you into this, but I had to do something. You’re the only one I could tell.”

  “Tell what?”

  With a deep and heavy breath, she spoke, “Your mother was just in a meeting with Roland I was unaware of. She … she’d sent me to pick up some files from billing, but when I realized she hadn’t given me the codes I needed, I went back. I was about to knock when I heard them. I shouldn’t have listened, Maisie. God, when she finds out, she’s going to fire me and make sure I never get a job again. But you need to know.” Her voice wavered, her throat working as she swallowed.

  “Shelby, what did you hear?” I encouraged, dreading her answer.

  “She … she’s been stealing from the company.”

  The temperature dropped ten degrees in a heartbeat.

  Shelby rambled on, “Roland found out—apparently, they’ve been blackmailing each other, some kind of a standoff. She’s been siphoning money out of Bower and into offshore accounts. And Maisie … she’s using the charity to do it.”

  Something in my brain imploded. “What?” I breathed.

  “The charity is a front. Don’t you see? This is why she shut you down from expanding in the first place, why she didn’t want you to head it up. She’s been keeping you out of it because she knows you’d figure it out. You’ll blow her cover and Roland’s too. The discussion was about what to do with you.”

  My vision dimmed, my hands and cheeks tingling painfully. You’re about to pass out. Breathe.

  I drew a long breath and exhaled. Then another.

  “Your mother already has a plan to get rid of you, though the way she spoke …” She shook her head. “It sounded like she was just as happy to disown you as she would be to make you take the fall. And I couldn’t—I can’t—let her do that. Roland is trying to save you too, but by the way they were talking, it sounds like the jig is just about up.”

  I sat in that chair, detached and distant and unable to speak.

  Because once again, everything I thought I knew about my mother had been demolished and reduced to rubble.

  I knew my mother to be many things. Humorless and cold. Doggedly driven and immovable. She fought to the death for everything she had and many things she didn’t regardless of whether she was right or wrong.

  But never could I have fathomed that she had put her own company in danger.

  What I’d believed to be an innocent mistake wasn’t innocent at all. It had been calculated by the very last person I thought would do it. I’d imagined the firings she’d decree on finding out, the carving out of the hearts of anyone who dared steal from Bower, never fathoming that it could be her. Never believing it could be the one who held the fate and well-being of our company above all else, even me.

  My mother.

  And she’d been using my charity to do it.

  “So I … I went down to billing and picked up some files, knowing full well they were wrong, and when I came back up, Roland was gone. She was sitting at her desk as if nothing happened, and she … she asked to see you.”

  A jolt, a thundering roll of reckoning.

  She’s going to tell me. She’s going to come clean, and then I’ll have to go to the police or the Feds or whoever. How does one even get in touch with the FBI? Is there an eight hundred number for ratting out your mother?

  “What will you do?” she asked after a moment. “What should we do? Oh God, do you think I’ll be charged if she’s caught? Do you think you will? Should we go to the police?”

  “I … I don’t know,” I muttered, pausing to think. “Do you think you can keep this to yourself for just a day or two?”

  Her face screwed up, but she said, “I’ll do whatever you think will help.”

  “Let me see what she wants with me and take a second to think this through. In the end, we might not have a choice.”

  Shelby nodded, chewing on her bottom lip like a piece of gum.

  “Should you go up first, or should I?” I asked.

  “You go. She sent me back down to billing to get the right files. I’ll try to make myself scarce as long as I can without raising suspicion.”

  “All right,” I said numbly. “Thank you, Shelby. I … I’m sorry. To involve you. That she involved either of us.”

  She stood, drying her palms on her skirt, her shoulders tight and lips flat. “Please, don’t apologize. I’m just so sorry she’s done this.”

  “So am I.”

  With a nod, she left.

  When I moved my hands from the desk, hand-shaped condensation was left on the surface.

  And I rose from my seat to face my mother.

  With every step, my daze focused itself into a lightning rod of fury as the weight of her betrayal dawned on me. She’d jeopardized everything—the company, her place in it, my charity, even my own safety—all for her greed. That was all it could have been, because she had more money than God himself. But apparently, that wasn’t enough.

  As I waited in the elevator to reach her floor for what felt like hours, I wondered if perhaps she was stealing because she had to. Could the company be less profitable than it appeared? Had she been hiding that truth, skimming from the company to keep up appearances and her lifestyle? Had she been trying to save herself?

  There had to be some reason, and I wanted to know what it was. I needed to know why she would betray the very foundation of her beliefs, beliefs she’d spent the length of my lifetime trying to shackle me with.

  It was madness.

  It was the final straw.

  If she wanted to set herself on fire, that was her prerogative. But I’d be damned if I let her set me on fire too.

  I marched through the bullpen of cubicles, vibrating with rage. Past Shelby’s empty seat I stalked and into the office of the devil. But not to make a deal.

  To rescind one.

  I wasn’t exactly sure what I’d find when I entered her office. Remorse was probably too much to ask for. Honesty, perhaps. An explanation about what had happened and how she was going to fix it. Even if it was indifferent, I expected the truth. And when she was finished with her excuses, I would explain to her exactly what I thought before quitting this job. Quitting
her.

  Quitting everything.

  I imagined finding many versions of my mother behind that door as I walked through it, launching it shut behind me. Resignation. Indignation. Submission, in my wildest dreams.

  Instead, she was ablaze with silent outrage.

  The door slammed behind me, already in motion before I’d gotten a full look at her. I screeched to a halt, disoriented from the raw and unexpected fury simmering in the room, licking at me like piping steam.

  “Do you have something you’d like to tell me, Margaret?” Her voice was still. Calm. Coiled to strike.

  “I’d ask you the same question.”

  Her eyes narrowed, the tension between us tightening painfully. “I gave you the chance to be honest. I told you to tell me the truth about your little secret or stop seeing him. But you didn’t, did you?”

  I watched in horror as she opened the folder on her desk, removed a large photograph, and held it up in display.

  A sliver of Marcus, visible through the crack of his closing door. Me, was trotting down the stairs of his stoop with a blissful smile on my face and my coat slung over my forearm. It had been too warm for the coat, I recalled, and my scarf remained in my bag, right where I’d left it.

  It was a stupid disguise anyway, I noted bitterly.

  “Of all the betrayals,” she seethed, her voice quivering with malignant rancor. “A Bennet. Marcus Fucking Bennet.”

  The fire in my belly for the fight I’d planned—for my accusations and refusals and rejections of her—was doused and left smoldering. In a split second, I tamped that knowledge down. If she wasn’t going to come clean, my accusation might do more harm than good. Telling her might throw Shelby under the bus and could possibly incriminate us all. I didn’t know what would happen, and until I did, there was only one matter to address.

  The picture in her hand.

  “You had me followed,” I said. “Of course you did. We thought you would.”

  “We?” She nearly choked on the word, her eyes wild and ringed with white. “I knew that day in the courtroom, but I’d convinced myself you couldn’t possibly be so stupid as to fuck Marcus Bennet.”

  “Mother!”

  “You’ve told him everything, haven’t you? You’ve sold out your family, your mother, your birthright for a Bennet? Of all the revolting rebellions you could have pulled, this is indisputably the worst.” She stood, fueled by fury, walking so slowly, so raptorially around her desk and toward me, I instinctively moved backward to keep the space between us. “You have no idea what you’ve done, Margaret. You have no idea what I’ll do to them. You showed your hand, so certain I was bluffing. But you’ve made your choice. And so I have made mine.”

  My mother came to a stop before me, judge, jury, and executioner.

  “Get out. Get out of this building. Get out of my house. No daughter of mine would ever stoop so low as to fuck a Bennet just to get back at her mother. No daughter of mine would be so bovine and dense as to cross me in the most grievous of ways.” Her lip curled back, exposing her teeth in a sneer of pure and unfiltered hatred. “I’d rather have no daughter than to be yoked to you.”

  I despised the pinch of tears at the corners of my eyes. The tear in my chest. The hot pain of rejection from the woman who was meant to love and protect me. Because even now, even after everything, I realized I still wanted her love and approval.

  And I hated that most of all.

  “I came here,” I started, every molecule in my body trembling, “to tell you I was leaving. Because your mistrust is poison. Your greed is revolting. The bitterness that makes up the whole of who you are disgusts me. All of this pain, all of this suffering, and all because you weren’t good enough for Paul Bennet.”

  Time stop-started with a gasp, a shift, the swing of her hand, the sound of flesh against flesh.

  The slap cracked in the air, snapping my head toward the wall, leaving my ears ringing and my cheek blazing with pain. But I refused to react, refused to cry or flinch or press a hand to my stinging face. Instead, I turned my gaze on her again, thankful she’d made all this so easy for me to walk away from.

  “You shut your fucking mouth, you ungrateful bitch.” She gave me her back, saying stiffly, “Have your things out of my house by the time I return. And don’t think to step foot in this building again.”

  With that, she sat, her attention wholly on whatever papers lay on her desk and whatever she wrote on them. Perhaps it was the contract for her soul. Though I suspected she gave that away long ago.

  I took a final look at my mother and left her office for the last time.

  The office bustled on from somewhere far away, everything distant, like looking through the wrong end of a telescope. I spoke to no one as I walked into my office and gathered my things. When I stepped into the packed elevator, I held my bag in front of me, taking up the smallest space I could. The revolving door dumped me onto the busy sidewalk, but no one saw me.

  Into a waiting cab I slid, and off we went toward my mother’s house. There were two men in the world I wanted to see, and one waited behind that grand old door of the only home I’d known.

  James opened the door, directing me with worried eyes to the kitchen where my father sat, typing away on his computer. Dad’s smile on hearing me enter instantly faded, and the second he wrapped his arms around me, I came unraveled. My numbness had been a levee, and when it broke, pain spilled out, filling every crack and space. He held me until my tears ebbed, then stopped, leaving me with nothing but a hitching breath and runny nose.

  He sat me down and snagged a tissue box, tilting it in my direction. Gratefully, I took one. And while I mopped up my face, he took the stool at my side, hooking a heel on the foot rung, his face grave.

  “Tell me what happened,” he urged gently.

  “She found out.”

  The breath he took was sharp and noisy. “I suppose we knew she would.”

  With my nod, a strange feeling settled over me. Not of sadness, not of fear. “Mother had me followed—I was with him last night, and now she knows, and she called me in and … and … it’s over. It’s all over.”

  Relief, I realized. The feeling was relief, tinged with shock and laced with disappointment. But that curious sensation was the weight of her control as it lifted, inch by precious inch. “I’ve been instructed to leave.”

  And then he listened at my side while I regaled her invasion of my privacy, the fight itself, my intent to quit and her beating me to the punch.

  I did not, however, tell him about what she had done to Bower.

  I couldn’t tell anyone.

  The knowledge of my mother’s crime was a curse. Now that I knew, it was my responsibility to act, to decide. Because of that knowledge, I was faced with a choice that shouldn’t have been mine to make. I didn’t know what the consequences would be for her if I went to the authorities, but they would be dire. And to be the one to pull the trigger, fire the bullet that would put my mother in the ground … it was too much to decide in an hour or a day.

  I hated my mother for putting me here. I only wished I hated her enough to pull that trigger without remorse.

  For now, I couldn’t tell anyone. The more people who knew, the more complicated things would get, and they were already labyrinthian. Not to mention my aversion to putting the responsibility I despised on someone I loved.

  Once it was settled, they’d be the first people I called.

  Until then, the burden was mine.

  When I finished speaking, he spent a long moment watching me. I didn’t know if he’d be disappointed, if he’d scold or reprimand me. If he’d be upset or angry.

  But to my surprise, he was none of those.

  Instead, he smiled. “You’re finally free.”

  “Free.” I tested the word in my mouth, on my tongue. “I’ve forsaken everything, but somehow, I can’t summon any regret.”

  “Then you know it was the right decision.”

  “Quitting?”


  “I’m glad you told her you quit, but she fired you. It was a choice, but your fate had already been decided. What I meant was Marcus.”

  And that was the truth, the reason I couldn’t seem to feel sorrow or loss. Because of all I’d gained.

  “I approve of any man who inspires you to stand up to her. I’m sorry for the chance you’ve lost to make a difference in that company, but somehow, I think you’re going to make a difference no matter where you go.”

  “I wonder where that will be. Where I’ll go?” I asked myself as much as him. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

  “Oh, yes you do.” He leaned in, covering my hand with his. “You’re going to live.”

  Tears nipped at my eyes, but before I could speak, he patted my hand and said, “Come on. Let’s get you packed.”

  Companionable silence fell between us as I followed him up the stairs and to my room. While he retrieved my suitcases from the closet, I took a look around, uncertain if I’d ever see this place again. My plants and my flowers, all collected in the bay window. My books and my knickknacks, the documentation of my entire life. This room was my sanctuary in this house, the place where my happy memories lived. I wondered if it would be seized, liquidated, but wondering was all I could do. I knew too little of that world to do anything more than guess.

  Dad opened up a suitcase and laid it on my bed, and I began to clean out drawers.

  As he gathered my favorite books, he said, “What now? Where do you want to go? My apartment in SoHo? Take some time to regroup.”

  My cheeks flushed. “I thought I might stay with Marcus, if he’ll have me.”

  He looked down his nose at me playfully. “I’m going to need to formally meet this boy.”

  “You will, don’t you worry about that. I take it you’re not staying here?”

  A shadow passed behind his eyes. “Only long enough for a few parting words with your mother.”

  My hands paused mid-fold. “Because you’re going to the apartment?”

  “Because I’m going to file for divorce.”

  I blinked, a smile rising on my face. “Really? You’re really going to do it?”