by Alicia Rae
My fingers trembled as I tore out the check and set it on the granite countertop, praying that Damien would accept my repayment offering of the stolen funds on my company’s behalf and not pursue legal action. I’d have to sort out how to recuperate my money from Cale on my own.
I itched to leave Damien a note, apologizing for leaving and possibly explaining why I had to leave, but I instantly shoved the thought aside. It had to be this way.
My phone vibrated in my bag, making me reach for it. It was another text message.
Iris: Just left our apartment. I’ll call you when I’m close.
Me: K.
Before I could overthink, I quietly made my escape.
Sunday afternoon, Iris and I rummaged through all the women’s clothes racks at Dillard’s in search of the perfect dress for her to wear to her second cousin’s wedding next weekend in North Carolina. This was our third store, and so far, we’d been unsuccessful in finding her a cute outfit.
“Would you mind telling me what in the heck yesterday was about before I lose my mind?” Iris asked for the hundredth time since she’d helped rescue me from Damien’s house.
I’d managed to successfully dodge all her questions until now, and that was only because Iris had been in a hurry to get me back to the apartment yesterday morning, so she could get to work on time.
“I told you, Iris. It’s a long story, and I don’t want to bore you.” I gave it one last feeble attempt to brush her off and save myself from an overwhelming embarrassment as I held up another selection for her—a cute spaghetti-strap dress.
“No way in hell would I ever wear that.” Iris shook her head at me in disgust, making me laugh. “And quit giving me the runaround, Raelyn. My life consists of studying and work followed by more work, so please let me live vicariously through you.”
I found a satin dress that was a stunning shade of green. It had only one shoulder strap with a matching colored flower sewn on it. It wasn’t overly flashy, yet it was eye-catching. “This one would look amazing on you with your hazel eyes,” I told her, completely enthralled by my finding.
“Wow, I love that.” Iris came over to me and studied the garment beside me. “Oh my heavens, my boobs would look fantastic in it, paired with a nice sturdy push-up bra.”
I chuckled in amusement.
Iris outstretched her hand to playfully snatch the hanger from me. “I’ll take this. Thank you.” She beamed and then narrowed her gaze at me. “Now, spit it out, Raelyn. I want all the dirty details from Friday night.”
I sighed in defeat at her relentless persistence. “I slept with him.”
“Who?” she asked. Then, her jaw nearly hit the floor when realization finally dawned on her. “Damien? You slept with Damien? The same man who owns Heathman Enterprises that Cale stole obscene amounts of money from?”
Her shock and short summary of the messed up situation did nothing to ease my concerns. “That’s the one.”
“Holy shit!” she exclaimed loudly.
“Iris!” I chided, rapidly scanning the department store to make sure no bystanders were within earshot of us.
To my dismay, three women in their mid-thirties were staring at us. My face flamed bright cherry-red, and I sheepishly murmured, “Sorry.”
The ladies went back to shopping.
Iris tugged on my arm, yanking me toward her. “Raelyn, is it serious with this guy?” she whispered.
“Gosh, no,” I answered. “Iris, you know me better than that. I can’t be serious with anyone.” But as I said the words, an indescribable odd feeling settled over me.
Iris shook her head. “That’s what everyone says right before they fall in love.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” I theatrically rolled my eyes. “Love is but a fuzzy feeling that fades when you need it the most.”
Iris and I’d had this argument many times, and it was always the same. She couldn’t accept that I’d never let myself travel down that path again.
“You’re hopeless.” Iris teasingly shoved past me en route to the dressing rooms.
“I know.” I laughed, chasing after her. “But you still love me anyway!”
Iris flew into the first available dressing room where she entered it and locked the door behind her. I leaned my shoulder against the nearest wall in the waiting area.
“So, tell me, what does this Damien guy look like?” she demanded from the other side of the stall.
“Mmm,” I sighed dreamily. A smile spread across my face. I tried to stifle it, but it was hopeless.
“I’m going to take it, he’s hot?” Iris’s giggle reverberated through the confined space.
I could hear her shuffling in and out of clothes.
“Very,” I agreed as I stared blankly at the clothing rack in front of me while picturing his handsome face in my mind. “He has the rarest, most beautiful eye color I’ve ever seen, and I find myself often sinking into the depths of them.”
“I can’t wait to meet this guy.”
Normally, I would have argued with her, but I was too busy finding another trait about him that I was attracted to. “He carries this certain persona about him that pulls me in. I seem to be drawn to him with an unshakable magnetic force. And when he touches me, I lose all sensibility.”
“Whoa,” she whispered. “That sounds intense.”
“It is,” I admitted, terrified of the truth behind her words. “And he has tattoos.”
“Oh, I love a man with ink.”
“Me, too.” My light expression was replaced with a frown.
I was heartbroken that Damien had found the need to hide that part of himself from me. I sincerely wished I could rewind the clock and not react the way I had when I felt his scars. I yearned for him to believe that I accepted his body and him the way that he was. I still couldn’t help but wonder where they’d come from, yet the thought of someone hurting Damien and the agony I felt inside over it overcame my curiosity.
Iris snatched me out of my thoughts when she threw open the door and twirled around. “What do you think?”
“Sexy lady.” I whistled.
She waved her hand at me with a hint of sass as she smirked. “Don’t tease.”
“Iris, you look amazing.”
“Well, that might be, but I can’t breathe.” She yanked at the silk material hugging her center and hips, and it snapped back into place when she let it go. “Seriously, my ass has grown at least three inches in diameter. I think I need the next size up…or maybe two sizes up, or else I’m going to pass out from the lack of oxygen to my brain.”
“Okay, I’ll be right back.” I marched out of the changing room, zigzagged through the racks, and went to the exact location where I’d found the dress to grab the next two sizes.
With the items in my grasp, I spun on my heels and headed back in the direction from where I’d come. When I made a left around a clothing rack, a tall body stepped out in front of me. I instinctively jumped to the side and smacked into the metal bar of the rack on a loud shriek. I tried to regain my balance, but it was too late. I fell straight into the clothes and slammed my right thigh against another piece of unforgiving metal at the bottom of the rack.
A body crouched down before me and attempted to dig through the garments as the person said, “Are you all right, miss?”
My body froze at the sound of the man’s voice. I would know that voice anywhere even though I hadn’t heard it in over nine months.
“Raelyn?” My ex-fiancé’s blue eyes widened in shock when he saw my face.
“Nick.” I heard the despondency in my brief greeting as I clutched Iris’s dresses in my palms, and I began to rise to my feet.
Nick extended his hand to me. “Here, let me help you.”
“No, thank you. I’m good.” I threw my hands forward, splaying the gowns out in front of my body, as though it were a defensive shield, while simultaneously rebuilding the walls around my heart. Any chance that Damien had had of knocking them down was now gone.
“Raelyn, stop. Don’t just run away from me. Talk to me,” he commanded in a stern tone from behind me.
I skidded to a halt and shot him an ominous cold glare over my shoulder. “You lost the right to throw demands at me when you walked out on me. Good-bye, Nick.”
Before he could argue, I ran toward the dressing room just as Iris opened the stall door.
“What happened to you?” Her gaze looked concerned. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
I had, but this was Iris’s day. I didn’t want to burden her with the troubles of my past, so I handed her the dresses and replied, “I’m fine. Here, try these on.”
I was anything but fine though.
The first half of the week I was slammed with managing my accounts and attending to any urgent matters that arose at work. I dealt with taking over Cale’s phone calls from clients, and I met with my attorney to discuss options on how to proceed with my partner. He’d yet to show his face at the office, and I was grateful that he hadn’t because I wasn’t sure how to handle him yet.
Running an accounting firm with many established clients was not a one-man show, and by Wednesday, I was on mental overload.
At ten minutes till lunch, I was organizing my desk and updating my calendar when a knock sounded at my door.
“Come in,” I said, jotting down some minor changes to my schedule for tomorrow to accommodate a potential new client.
Cale ambled into the room and paused. I wasn’t even close to being prepared to see his unruly state. His face was washed out, making him appear as if he hadn’t slept since last Friday. His suit was a tad wrinkled, which was unusual for a man who prided himself on his appearance. But none of that had anything on the shame and sorrow in his eyes.
“Now that you know it’s me, may I still come in?” he asked timidly.
I wanted to say no, adding in that nothing would ever repair the damage that he’d done to our work relationship. But underneath my anger, I felt genuine concern for my friend of many years.
“Yes,” I answered, hoping he wouldn’t make me regret my decision.
Cale continued forward where he went to the chair in front of my desk and sat down. His hands went to his lap, and he toyed with a button on his blue jacket.
He wouldn’t make eye contact with me when he said, “Please don’t look at me like that.”
Tears burned at the back of my eyelids. I refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing he’d hurt me so deeply. He was one of the few people who I’d let into my life. He was supposed to be my business partner and my friend.
“How am I supposed to look at someone who’s deceived me?” I accused.
Cale winced. “I never meant to hurt you. I’d planned to pay it back before Damien noticed the money was gone.”
Out of everything he could have said to me, that wasn’t at all what I’d wanted to hear come out of his mouth. “And that makes it okay to embezzle money?”
“No, it doesn’t.”
I wanted to know what had driven him to such desperate measures to steal from another human being, so I asked, “Why did you do it, Cale?”
Cale sat up and put his hands on either side of his head, hiding his face from me. “Sage was unable to get pregnant on her own. She desired a baby more than anything.” He sighed with anguish. “I ran myself into debt, trying to give her one.”
My expression saddened as the subject of infertility hit home. I’d had no clue that Cale and Sage were trying to start a family, let alone having trouble in doing so. I felt awful for them. However, it didn’t change my perspective. “What you did was still severely wrong, Cale.”
“I know,” he replied, sounding grave. “I’m sorry. I pray that, one day, you can find it in your heart to forgive me.”
“Maybe someday,” I said, hoping for a dear friendship that used to be so strong. Plus, I didn’t think I could ever forget what he’d said to me that night at the bar. “But not today, and I can’t make any promises for the future.”
“I guess I have to accept your answer and stay out of your way.” He rose from his position. “In the meantime, I’m going to fix my mistakes, and I’ll make things right between us.”
I unleashed a small nod in agreement, unsure of what else there was to say between us.
“Good-bye, Raelyn.” He gave me a small smile and left the room.
A sense of loneliness settled over me as I got back to work, knowing one of the two people I cherished in my life was now gone.
All I had left was Iris.
At half past five, I was finishing up a phone call with a client when my second unexpected visitor of the day stormed into my office. It was then I realized that I must have forgotten to lock the front door after closing hours.
Damien crossed the room and tossed strips of paper on my desk.
It was my check, shredded to pieces.
“I-I’m terribly sorry, Mrs. Vickerman,” I stammered as Damien braced his palms on the edge of my desk and leaned forward. “I’ll have to call you back tomorrow morning, so we can finish discussing your accounts.”
“That’s okay. I will be available to speak anytime after eleven thirty in the morning. We have a new gardener coming to make some improvements before our estate sale. He supposedly does phenomenal work,” she informed me.
Other than the time and something about a gardener, I’d barely heard her response on the other end of the line because I was too focused on the man invading my space and glaring at me.
“That’s great news,” I kindly told her. “I will call you after then. Good-bye, Mrs. Vickerman.”
“Bye!”
I became unbelievably nervous as I hung up the receiver, and I inwardly chastised myself. I should have kept Mrs. Vickerman on the phone for as long as possible to avoid what would no doubt be an unpleasant conversation.
“So”—I tried to play it cool, but on the inside, I was practically shaking in my boots—“what brings you here?”
He was quiet for a few seconds, appearing to silently gather his thoughts. “If waking up to you being gone on Saturday wasn’t bad enough, you had to make it worse by leaving me a check. It made me mad, Raelyn, really fucking mad,” he said, completely ignoring my question. “Why did you leave without saying anything?”
“Because I thought it was the best thing to do,” I answered simply. There was no need to elaborate.
“Best for whom?”
That wasn’t easy to answer, so I went for a short but honest explanation. “Me. Us.” I shrugged bashfully. “Especially given our circumstances,” I added as I briefly glanced at the check before redirecting our conversation to safer territory. “That belongs to you.”
“No, it’s not mine,” he countered, looking even more irritated than when he’d first entered my office. “Cale’s debt is not your responsibility to repay.”
He was wrong. It was my obligation. Cale and I were attached at the hip in this predicament—that was, if I wanted to salvage my company without a lengthy lawsuit that would undoubtedly damage my reputation and career.
“Please accept it as a good faith payment, and I’ll give you the rest of the money soon.”
“I don’t want your money, Raelyn.” He stood up straight and squared his shoulders, clearly affronted. “If that was what I was after, I wouldn’t have taken you to my bed. I would have taken you to court.”
Reminiscences of that night rushed through my mind—the way his mouth had felt on mine, his tender touches, the way he’d kissed me when he took my body over the edge, and how it’d felt to wake up while wrapped in his arms the next morning. They were all memories I’d never forget.
Even though I longed to create more of them, I’d never allow myself to. I was my own worst enemy.
I shoved my feelings aside and returned to the topic at hand. “I didn’t mean to offend you,” I said with genuine remorse.
&n
bsp; “Well, you did,” Damien stated. He turned around and walked to the door where he hesitated and glanced back at me over his shoulder. “This is happening between us, Raelyn, whether you like it or not, and I think we’re both powerless to stop it.”
I didn’t have any doubts that Damien Heathman still wanted me. I could see it beneath the hurt in those stunning gray eyes of his. The problem was, I couldn’t let myself be with him again because I already felt like I had let him see too much of me, and there was no way I’d ever give another man the chance to walk away from me again in a time of need. That was heartache that I’d never survive twice.
“You can’t have me, Damien,” I murmured sadly. “No one can.”
“You changed my world the second I laid eyes on you, Raelyn.” A soft smile played at his lips, as if he were recalling the memory. “So, in my mind, you’re already mine.”
Just when I thought he was finally going to leave the room, he added, “Oh, and, Raelyn?”
“Yes?”
“You can make it up to me this Saturday morning. Be at my house at ten o’clock sharp, so we can pick up where we left off. Make sure you pack a bag with a change of clothes, sunscreen, and a bikini.” He revealed a heart-stopping, panty-melting, earth-shifting grin, nearly knocking me out of my chair.
If he hadn’t made me reel by saying I was already his, his demand surely shocked my head into spinning.
Saturday morning came all too fast as I contemplated whether or not to leave in less than ten minutes to be at Damien’s house if I was going to be on time. I was already dressed with my bag packed, yet I couldn’t seem to force my legs to carry me out of my apartment.
I was terrified to spend more time with Damien, knowing the profound effect he seemed to have on me, yet I understood that once the minute past, there would be no way to get it back, and I was tired of feeling like I was holding myself back from having a life worth living. I wanted to be the one to write the next chapter in my life, not watch the days continue to pass me by without feeling as though I’d truly lived.