Best of 2017

by Alexa Riley

  I don’t say a word as he flips open the file. He slams a photo of some random woman down in front of me.

  “This is Amy Leigh Randall,” he hisses.

  I stare at the stranger on the passport copy. “What the fuck–” I begin but he slams down another.

  And there’s my Amy. Her hair is mousy, as it was on the passport I snooped at in her bag. Her smile is bright and so are her eyes, and she looks so young. So sweet.

  “That’s Amy,” I hiss to my father, “as you well fucking know.”

  He shakes his head, and he’s victorious, just as he is in the courtroom. “No,” he says, and jabs a finger at my beautiful girl. “That’s Melissa Martin. Your fucking cleaner.” Oh how he laughs. He laughs as my poor spinning brain picks up the pieces.

  I stare dumb and it makes him laugh harder.

  “Oh good God, boy! Wise up, she fucking played you!”

  I can’t even think. I can’t. I stare at that fucking photo and my hands are shaking. “You’re wrong,” I say. “This is fucking ridiculous.”

  “Yes it is!” he snaps. “You’re fucking ridiculous, boy. You’ve been played by a fucking cleaner. By hired fucking help! I can’t believe you paid half a fucking million for that, she’d have done it for minimum wage.” He laughs again.

  My heart is pounding in my temples as the pieces all fall into place.

  And the picture is fucking hideous.

  It’s so hideous my stomach wants to turn inside out.

  But my father keeps the blows coming. “Don’t tell me you’ve fallen for the girl. Mother of Christ, this just gets better.”

  “This can’t be right,” I tell him. “You’re a fucking liar. You’ve always been a fucking liar.”

  He shakes his head. “No, boy. I’m not. I’ve never fucking lied to you. You lie to your fucking self. That’s the difference between you and I. That’s why I’ll always be the senior in this business until the day I fucking die. Because I have the fucking balls to own my own fucking shadow, but you, you’d rather bleat on in therapy than fulfil your own fucking potential.”

  “I’m going to get to the bottom of this,” I hiss. “And then I’m going to leave this fucking business, and you along with it.”

  “I’ve made it easy for you,” he says with a grin. “Melissa Martin is right downstairs for you. Meeting suite sixteen, where you met the wily cow in the first place, I believe.”

  MELISSA

  I HATE BEING HERE, caged in meeting suite sixteen with its big glass walls in the heart of Alexander’s business domain.

  I shouldn’t be here.

  My resignation letter is already stuffed in my apron pocket, my legs shaky as I sit beside Sonnie, wondering what the hell we’re all doing in here, summoned at such short notice.

  “Health and safety in the workplace,” Janet begins up front. “As per the request of the management.” She looks as flummoxed as we do, and it scares me.

  This whole thing scares me.

  “Feels off to me,” Sonnie whispers, and shudders for effect. “Not like we don’t have this in the handbook. Maybe some silly cow fried herself on the vacuum cleaner or some shit.”

  I can hope.

  Oh God, how I hope.

  “I hope it doesn’t take long,” I whisper back. “Brutus needs his walk.”

  “He ain’t so bad, that mutt,” she says, and it makes me smile through the paranoia.

  “He’s a good boy,” I say.

  “His owner ain’t so bad, either.” She nudges me. “I saw him yesterday. Little bird might have told him about you.”

  Oh fuck how my stomach lurches. “You did what?”

  She can’t carry on. Janet calls the room to order and starts talking through her slide deck.

  I clutch the letter in my pocket, holding it like a talisman as I stare numbly at the screen. This will be my last time in this building, I swear it. I just need to get out of here unseen. Please God, let me get out of here unseen.

  It seems to take forever. Janet’s words blur into one, the screen fading into the background as my thoughts tumble and crash around my stomach.

  I’ll grab her when this is over, I’ll hand over my letter and make a dash away from here.

  And then I just have to wait until Wednesday. I’ll tell him my real name as soon as I’m through his door.

  No more lies. Not ever.

  I manage to calm my breathing, counting in to seven, out to eleven as I fret in my seat. The clock keeps ticking. Fifteen minutes, twenty, twenty-five. The slide deck counts up to twenty-six, and we’re almost there when the room ripples. Slide twenty-three. Only two more to go.

  I don’t look around at first.

  Call it instinct. Call it paranoia in overdrive.

  It’s only when Sonnie nudges my elbow that I tear my eyes from the screen.

  “There he is,” she whispers. “Ain’t he mighty fine? Look quick, before you miss him.”

  The world stops turning. My breath stops coming.

  Just like that the cards collapse.

  They tumble from the sky, every single one, and my final ace is burning.

  My final ace is all gone.

  He’s staring right at me as I turn my head to the window.

  His father is at his side with a terrible smile on his face, and Alexander looks as horrified as I do.

  More horrified than I do.

  He shakes his head so slowly, his jaw gritted as he swallows, and his eyes. Oh God, his eyes. His eyes are full of pain. Pain and hate.

  Alexander Henley fucking hates me.

  And I fucking hate myself.

  His father gives me a wave, and he’s laughing. He’s actually laughing as he turns away and grabs Alexander by the elbow.

  Alexander doesn’t move for long seconds, just stares in disbelief as I stare right back.

  I don’t even hide the tears falling. I don’t care how many people are staring at me, or how Sonnie is squeezing my arm.

  “Sorry,” I mouth, “I’m sorry.”

  And that breaks the spell.

  He turns away with his father, then shrugs him off as the older man tries to speak.

  I get to my feet as the man I love stalks off down the corridor, and Janet shrieks as I make a run for it.

  “Miss Martin!” she screeches, but I don’t even slow down.

  “Alexander!” I call, but he doesn’t even look at me. He slams the door at the end of the corridor, and I’m all set to charge on after him, be damned with the consequences, but I can’t.

  The hand on my shoulder is firm. Alexander Henley Senior’s grip is brutal.

  “We need a fucking word, Miss Martin,” he hisses.

  And I cry.

  Oh God, how I cry.

  ALEXANDER

  I TAKE THE STAIRS, all sixteen fucking floors of them three at a time with my lungs on fire.

  I barge past some catering staff halfway down and don’t even apologise.

  I can’t speak. I don’t want to fucking speak.

  I don’t even want to be alive.

  The world spins as I pace through the lobby. My lungs scream for air as I barge through the main entrance doors.

  My lungs scream to be out of this fucking place.

  I stumble onto the street and straight into Mr Rand on his way in.

  He holds out a hand and I stare mute, as though I’m a fucking lunatic. Because I am. I am a fucking lunatic.

  “Are you alright, Henley?” Rand asks, and I brace myself on his shoulder, using him as leverage to walk on by. I stumble down the street with the wind whipping my tie, and the rain feels like acid against my cheeks.

  A cigarette. I need a fucking cigarette.

  I stumble into a tiny corner shop two streets down, and the assistant is wide-eyed as I bark out an order for anything. Sixty of fucking anything. And a lighter. Make that two fucking lighters.

  “Do you need some help?” she asks, and I know I must look like fucking death. “A doctor, or…”

 
I hand over my credit card as she rings up my purchases. My voice sounds like a crazy man.

  “I’m fine,” I say.

  She nods politely as she hands over my cigarettes.

  I’ve torn into the first pack before I’m even out of there. I smoke it with my back to the wall and light up another straight after.

  I’ve been played by a fucking cleaner. My own fucking cleaner.

  Of course I’ve been fucking played.

  The gemstones, the fucking band, the way Brutus was so fucking fond of her.

  Of course he was fucking fond of her. He fucking knew her. He saw her every fucking day.

  My hands ball into fists against the pain.

  Brown hair to blonde, as though she knew I liked blondes. As though she knew about my teenage fucking crush.

  As though she’d peered inside my fucking soul and not the tatty fucking memory box in the storage room.

  It takes me three cigarettes before I can trust my legs to take my weight.

  Three cigarettes before I feel like I can breathe without screaming my lungs raw.

  I hover in the street, contemplating going back to the office and tearing the little bitch a fucking new one.

  Scrap that. I should congratulate her fucking prowess and tell her she’d make a damn fucking fine lawyer.

  She can have my fucking job if she wants it.

  I laugh a bitter laugh as I picture her pretty face.

  Oh fuck, she was fucking good.

  Good enough that I actually believed she fucking loved me, which is a fucking joke in itself.

  Nobody who’s ever truly known me has ever come out the other side still loving me.

  I hail a cab to take me home.

  I’ve nothing to fucking say to her, and nothing to say to my fucking father, either.

  MELISSA

  I’M STRIPPED of everything – my ID badge and my swipe card and Alexander Henley’s house keys.

  I’m even stripped of my stupid scratchy cap and apron.

  Mr Henley Snr. laughs as he finds the resignation letter in my apron pocket.

  “So close,” he says. “And to think you nearly got away with it.” He laughs again to himself. “Extraordinary. You’re wasted as a cleaner, most likely as a hooker, too. You should be a lawyer.”

  I have to cover my mouth to stop myself being sick.

  “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you what would happen if you were foolish enough to contact my son,” he says. “Consider your employment well and truly terminated. Please don’t insult me by asking your manager for a reference.”

  I can’t speak. I can’t say anything.

  His smile is a sneer. “Believe me, you don’t know anything about my boy. If you’ve any sense at all you’ll stay as far away as possible. He has a penchant for asphyxiation games, as I’m sure you well know. Something tells me you wouldn’t come out the other side of the next one.”

  I blink away tears, and I don’t care. I don’t care that I wouldn’t come out the other side of the next one.

  I really don’t.

  The life insurance would be more than enough for Dean to take care of Joseph.

  “Stay away from my fucking son,” Mr Henley Snr. hisses. “You’re fucking dead to him.”

  I don’t say a word as he marches me to the exit with a security guard at my side.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  ALEXANDER

  I CALL out an emergency locksmith and barricade myself in tight.

  I smoke all my cigarettes and only venture out for more.

  I ignore all calls. I ignore the appointments on my calendar. I ignore all the messages from my cunt of a fucking father asking me when I’m going back to the fucking office.

  The pill bottles in the medicine cabinet scream my name, but I can’t abandon Brutus.

  His furry head on my lap is the only thing that keeps me breathing.

  It’s been forty-eight hours when I pull Melissa Martin’s little thank you notes from my kitchen drawer. I head upstairs with a cigarette in my mouth. The gemstone cabinet clicks open with the new code.

  I hold her scrawled gemstone identification card next to the note thanking me for muesli, and it’s right there. Right in front of my fucking face.

  She’s tried to disguise it, of course. The scrawl is more slanted on the gemstone card, but the loops of her letters are the same.

  It was right in front of my face the entire fucking time, I just chose not to see it.

  I didn’t want to see it.

  My heart pains as I see her lucky quartz. What a fucking bitch. What a total fucking bitch.

  I turn it over in my palm as I take the final drag of my cigarette, and then I throw it. Hard. Hard enough that it bounces off the fucking wall and disappears behind some shelving. Fuck it. Fuck all of it.

  When I start I can’t fucking stop.

  Thousands upon fucking thousands worth of rare gemstones meet the same fucking fate. I clear the shelves with frantic sweeps of my arm, launching them at the wall together with their pretty fucking plinths. I don’t give a fucking fuck. Not about any of it.

  I charge downstairs and stamp on my fucking Kings and Castles CDs, because the bitch has fucking ruined them for me. She’s ruined fucking everything for me.

  The orchids are wilting in their fucking vase and I tear those up too.

  I hate how she was inside this fucking place. I hate how she was inside me. Inside my fucking head.

  I’ve never felt so fucking violated.

  Not by those cunts in the public toilet, and not by my filthy fucking father, either.

  And I want to tell her. I want to tell her what I fucking think of her.

  I want her to see who I really fucking am. Not the fucking sap she played like a fucking fool.

  The real fucking me.

  The one who paid a fucking million a couple of days ago for a permanent go on her pretty fucking snatch.

  I’m going to get my fucking money’s worth.

  My fingers are shaking as I type out a message to Claude.

  Amy. Tonight. Delaney’s.

  I wait for the reply.

  Are you fucking insane?!

  I don’t have time for this shit. I press to call.

  “Book it,” I snap. “Just fucking book it, you greedy fucking cunt.”

  “Jesus, Henley, calm the fuck down!” he bleats, and I laugh.

  I really fucking laugh.

  “My name’s Ted fucking Brown,” I say.

  MELISSA

  DEAN DOESN’T KNOW what to do. He wanders around the place, taking care of Joseph and trying to take care of me along with him, but I’m a lost cause.

  It’s too painful to eat, so I don’t.

  It’s too painful to think, so I don’t.

  I lie in bed, cocooned in a smog of despair that won’t lift. My heart breaks a thousand times when I think of what I had and what I lost.

  I was so stupid.

  And selfish, and cruel, and reckless.

  I hurt him.

  I’ll never forgive myself for how much I hurt him.

  I kiss Joseph at bedtime, and I hobble out to give him lunch, but the rest of the time I’m a zombie.

  I may as well be dead.

  “You need to eat, Lissa,” Dean tells me on Wednesday. “Please just eat something. Some soup, or…”

  I shake my head. “I can’t.”

  “But you have to! Please, Lissa, think of Joe.” His words make me cry, and he sighs. “Or don’t. Please, Lissa, just get some help. I can take you to the doctors or call someone out.”

  “Nobody can help me,” I tell him. “I don’t want to see anyone.”

  He doesn’t push it, and I go back to bed.

  I shout him to leave me alone when he taps on the door in the afternoon. I tell him I’ve got nothing to say.

  He comes in anyway, and chucks me his phone.

  “I shouldn’t even be fucking showing you,” he hisses. “But I can’t fucking bear to see you like thi
s.”

  The message is blurry, I have to blink three times before it comes into focus.

  Delaney’s. 8 p.m.

  Your client is Ted Brown.

  I almost throw up.

  “You can’t go,” Dean says. “Not on your own. He’ll fucking kill you.”

  But I’m already up on my feet.

  “I’m going,” I tell him and he curses at me.

  “Did you not hear me? He’ll fucking kill you, Lissa. Call Helen, get her to babysit.”

  “I need to go alone,” I say.

  “No, you really fucking don’t.”

  But I do.

  I do need to go alone.

  I take a shower and throw my everyday clothes on. A worn cami and a pair of budget jeans.

  I don’t wear any makeup and I don’t spritz myself with designer perfume samples.

  I just go as me.

  I want him to know me. Me.

  I want him to stare into my eyes and see me staring back at him.

  I want to hear him say my real name.

  But most of all I want to say sorry. I need to say sorry.

  Even if it’s the last thing I ever do.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  MELISSA

  I DON’T bother checking into my own room at Delaney’s. I walk straight through reception and call the elevator. It takes me right up to the top floor, and I head for suite twelve with frantic steps.

  I’m not scared.

  My heart is already broken. I already hate myself for what I’ve done.

  My dreams are already in tatters.

  My breath is ragged as I reach the door, but I make no move to compose myself before I knock.

  He keeps me waiting this time, and I wonder if he’s right on the other side. I wonder if he’s having second thoughts.

  Tears spring to my eyes the very second he opens the door. Bittersweet relief floods through me.

  Black suit, white shirt, black tie.

  Dark eyes. Angry eyes.

  Hurt eyes.

  His hair is slick and his jaw is gritted.

  The fine lines around his eyes look etched in. He looks tired. Damaged.

  There’s a lump in my throat as I breathe him in for what might be the final time.

  I soak in the shadow of stubble on his jaw. The birthmark on his cheek. The heaviness of his brow.