by Lori Wilde
Just as she buttoned the last button, the elevator door slid open.
She peered out to find Thurgood Barrington, Mildred Van Hess, Jannette, and Stanley Whitcomb staring back at her.
15
Later that night, her mother knocked lightly on her bedroom door. “Sophia, are you all right?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” Sophia sniffled into her pillow.
“Honey, please let me come in. I hate to see you hurting this way.”
“You’re just going to say I told you so.”
“Sophia, really, do you think I’m that unkind?”
Sighing, Sophia got off the bed and opened her bedroom door. Her mother wheeled into the room, concern etching wrinkles across her forehead.
She held out her arms. Sophia sank to her knees in front of the wheelchair and let her mother cradle her against her chest.
“It’ll be okay, baby,” Jannette soothed, patting Sophia’s hair. “I promise.”
“You were right,” Sophia said. “Mike caused me trouble. I was such a fool not to listen to you.”
“Listen, sweetheart, don’t be ashamed. You did nothing wrong. You loved with all your heart, and that’s a good thing. Unlike me, you’re not afraid to open yourself up to love.”
“I should have been. I got hurt.”
“No. I was wrong. I’ve been hiding out most of my life, trying to avoid getting hurt. I instilled that same fear into you, but you were brave enough to take a chance. Be proud of yourself, Sophia.”
“Wow,” Sophia said. “I never thought I’d hear you say that.”
Her mother looked contrite. “I know, it’s an about-face for me.” A modest smile curled the corner of her lips. “But ever since I met Stanley, I’ve been thinking a lot. He’s such a sensible man. Honest and sincere and kind. I’ve met no one quite like him.”
“Mom?” Sophia stared. “What are you saying?”
Jannette waved a hand. “Stanley and I are just friends…for now. But he’s the first man I’ve felt comfortable talking to since I was a teenager. That’s a pretty sad thing to admit when you’re forty-six years old. I understand now how I’ve let bitterness run my life for too long. I let one bad experience color my entire outlook toward men and romantic relationships. I hurt myself, and I hurt you too.”
“Mom, you don’t know how long I’ve waited to hear you say that.” Sophia squeezed her mother tightly. “I’m happy for you. Mr. Whitcomb is a great guy.”
“Yes, he is, but enough about me. What’s this about Mike being an undercover boss?”
“It’s true,” Sophia said glumly. “He dyed his hair and got colored contacts and went undercover as the handyman, spying on the employees.”
“It makes sense though. He’s been out of the country for ten years. Few people would recognize him. What better way to check on the company he is about to take over from his father?”
“Mom! He lied to me.”
“Do you love him, Sophia?”
“How can I? I don’t know who he is. I feel so stupid.”
“Not stupid. You were following your heart.”
“And it led me down a dead-end road.”
“You’re twenty-nine years old, Sophia. You should know that it’s okay to make mistakes. That’s how you learn.”
“Boy.” Sophia shook her head. “When I make mistakes, I make them big. And I still don’t know that I learned the lessons.”
“I was wrong in the way I raised you,” Jannette said. “I was much too rigid and judgmental. I see that now.”
“Sometimes you were.” Sophia chuckled. “I still remember the first guy I ever went out with.”
“Clark Clarke.” Jannette smiled. “He had carrot-red hair and ears like a stop sign.”
“But I had a huge crush on him.”
“I know.” Jannette raised her eyebrows. “It terrified me you that you’d go all the way with him. Remember, I was only a year older than you were then when I got pregnant with you.”
“You told Clark if he didn’t have me home by ten o’clock, you’d come after him with a kitchen knife.”
“I was over the top, caught up in my fears for your future.”
“Clark never asked me out again.”
“I’m so sorry, Sophia. I was not always a good mother.” Jannette stroked her hand.
“Oh, Mom, my childhood was fine. You did the best you could, and I appreciate you so much.”
The tightness around her mother’s eyes relaxed. “Really?”
“We might not have had a lot, but I always knew you loved me.”
“I do love you so much. You’ll never know how much until you have children of your own.” Tears misted Jannette’s eyes.
Sophia kissed her mother’s cheek. “Thank you for everything you did for me.”
Jannette smiled sadly and shook her head. “What are you going to do about Mike…um…Rex?”
“There’s no way I can stay on as his assistant. Not after this. The problem is, Barrington Oil and Gas is the best employer in Presidio County. I won’t pull down the kind of money I make anywhere else in Rascal.”
Misery gnawed at her. She still loved Mike. No matter how deceitful he might be, she could not easily discard her feelings. But how could she continue to work for a man who’d lied and spied?
“But you love your job,” Jannette protested.
“I’ll find something else.”
“Are you sure about this? Take your time. Think it over. Can you stay at Barrington and just work in a different department?”
“Mom, I simply can’t be around Rex. I’ve decided. Tomorrow morning, I’m turning in my resignation.”
Rex had blown it.
Big-time.
Actually, a nuclear bomb would have done less damage to his heart than the graceless way he’d revealed his true identity to Sophia. He’d handled the situation poorly. He couldn’t blame her if she never spoke to him again.
He should have told her sooner. It had been a mistake to wait so long.
Rex drove his motorcycle through the TransPecos night, the warm arid winds rippling over his skin. It was three o’clock in the morning, and he’d been riding since leaving the building after that embarrassing episode in the elevator.
He saw now that going undercover had been underhanded. It didn’t matter that his intentions had been to build a stronger workforce. His deception had hurt Sophia.
Swallowing against the fierce ache enveloping him, Rex revved the engine and spurred the motorcycle faster down the desert road, his headlights cutting a thin slice of light through the darkness.
As a businessman, he was accustomed to taking calculated risks and mostly having them pay off. But this time, when he’d become Mike the handyman, he’d gambled big and failed miserably.
And he’d crushed Sophia’s soul.
Sophia was such a tender, loving person. She deserved to be cherished, treated with love and respect. Instead, he’d manipulated her for his own end.
It was not an attractive thing to admit about himself. In his insecurity, he had damaged the woman he loved. His inability to trust had caused his downfall. His father had been right all along.
That’s it, Barrington? A voice that sounded an awful lot like his alter ego Mike the handyman whispered. You will give up on Sophia just like that?
“What can I do?” he growled under his breath. “She doesn’t want me.”
You could change. Stop being all about work. Find a balance.
Hope flickered inside him. Maybe he could convince Sophia to give him a second chance.
There was only one way to find out.
Making a U-turn, Rex headed the Harley for home.
At eight o’clock the following morning, Rex walked into the employee break room to grab a cup of coffee before calling a staff meeting and announcing the official arrival of Rex Michael Barrington from Brazil.
“Surprise!”
Stunned, Rex stared.
The break room was packe
d with people sporting party hats and brandishing noisemakers.
On the wall behind the coffeemaker was a large banner proclaiming: We’ll Miss You, Mike. A multilayered chocolate cake sat on the table spelling out Farewell, Mike in cream frosting.
A lump formed in his throat.
Ah, jeez. He’d never expected this. A going-away party for his alter ego. Gulping, he searched the crowd for Sophia.
She wasn’t there.
“Hey, buddy.” Liam clapped him on the shoulder. “You sure look surprised.”
“I am.”
“Come on in,” Sienna invited, ushering Rex across the threshold. “Have a piece of cake.”
“It will be awfully lonesome around here without you,” Polly said.
“We got you a present,” Jeff offered, holding shiny new handlebars for Rex’s motorcycle, with a bright-red bow tied around them. “We wanted you to have something to remember us by.”
Guilt heaped on top of more guilt. Overwhelmed by their generosity, Rex could say nothing. He accepted the handlebars Nick thrust at him.
“Speech, speech,” someone called out.
“I... I can’t accept this,” Rex said.
The door opened, and Sophia entered the room, her arms crossed over her chest, her blue eyes sparking.
Rex had seen no one so beautiful, so sexy in his entire life. He had to tell everyone the truth. Here. Now. With Sophia as a witness.
“Don’t be silly,” Jeff said. “We all chipped in.”
Huh? Rex blinked. He’d been so busy staring at Sophia he’d forgotten where he was.
“It’s our way of showing how much we love you, Mike,” Polly added.
Rex locked eyes with Sophia, searching for her reaction. Bravely, she did not flinch or blink.
He cleared his throat and spoke firmly. “I can’t accept your generous gift for two reasons. First, I’m not quitting.”
A shout of glee went up from the group.
“That’s great,” Liam said.
“We knew you couldn’t leave us,” an employee at the back of the room shouted.
“You can keep the gift anyway,” Jeff insisted. “A token of our esteem.”
“When I finish what I’ve got to say,” Rex said. “I hope I’ll still have your esteem.” He stared at Sophia.
She didn’t drop her gaze, but she nodded.
Everyone quieted. They looked from him to Sophia and back again. The tension was palpable.
He longed to take her into his arms, to block out what was happening, declare his love for her in front of everyone. He ached to kiss those lips, to run his fingers through those gorgeous blond curls, to hold her tightly and never ever let her go.
Momentarily breaking eye contact with Sophia, Rex glanced around the room at his friends and coworkers. “I’ve got an announcement to make.”
No one spoke.
He took a deep breath and braced himself for fallout. “I’m your new CEO, Rex Michael Barrington.”
Sophia’s gut torqued. Painfully, miserably. In her purse sat her resignation letter. Final and conclusive. Declaring that her work for Barrington Oil and Gas had ended.
Tears collected at the corners of her eyes. Determined not to let Rex see her cry, she spun on her heel and raced from the break room.
“Excuse me, please let me through,” Rex said.
He was coming after her!
Pulse pushing against her veins, urging her faster, Sophia bolted down the hallway.
“Sophia!” His shoes slapped against the tile, echoing in the corridor.
Should she run for the safety of her office or the parking lot? In her office, she’d be cornered. The parking lot offered a clean getaway.
But no matter how tempting the parking lot might be, she couldn’t run away from this. No matter what other faults she might possess, Sophia was not a coward. Eventually she had to face him.
Abruptly, she stopped outside the elevator. The very elevator where they had been so intimately trapped the night before. The elevator where she’d discovered the truth—that the man she loved was a deceitful liar, accustomed to manipulating people for his own purposes.
Exactly the sort of man her mother had warned her about.
She forced herself to breathe slowly.
“Sophia!” His footsteps slapped against the tile floor.
Calmly, she extracted the envelope from her purse and turned to face him. Schooling her features to nothing, Sophia raised her chin.
“Good morning, Mr. Barrington.”
“Sophia, we’ve got to talk.”
He looked so sad, so disheveled with his hair mussed and his tie askew that Sophia had to bite her lip to bolster her resolve. She couldn’t allow his vulnerability to sway her. This man was not what he appeared to be.
On any level.
“There’s nothing left to say.” She handed him the envelope.
“What’s this?”
“My resignation.”
“Sophia,” he said. “You can’t quit your job over me.”
“It’s a free country.” She tossed her head, praying her voice would not crack from the weight of her emotions. “I can do anything I wish.”
“You need your job to support your mother.”
“Don’t worry about us. We’ll survive.”
“Please,” Rex said. “I know things will probably never be right between you and me, but you can’t quit. You’re too good an employee. Losing you would be a blow to Barrington Oil and Gas.”
“No one’s irreplaceable. Especially me. You’ll find someone else,” she said.
How much it took for her to stare into those green eyes and remain solidly committed to her course of action! She wanted to forgive him, but how could she? If he would lie to her about his very identity, he would lie to her about anything. She simply could not be with a man she couldn’t trust.
“I understand that you no longer feel comfortable as my assistant, but that doesn’t mean you can’t continue to work for the company. You’re so smart. You could become an executive yourself.”
She had loved working here, had made many friends. It would be hard to leave. “I can no longer even remain in the same building with you. Not after the way you tricked me.”
“Sophia, I’m so sorry.” Rex reached out for her, but she shied away.
“No.”
There was no mistaking the hurt in his eyes, but he nodded. “All right, I understand, but I had to try.”
From down the hallway, Sophia could see several people poking their heads out of the break room. This was turning into a circus.
“I could recommend you to one of our other branches,” Mike offered. “Or our headquarters in Houston.”
“My answer is still no. Please consider my resignation effective immediately.”
16
“Sophia,” her mother called out from the other room, “there’s someone here to see you.”
Rex?
Her crazy heart leapt with joy then just as quickly plummeted. For the last three days, her spirits had ridden the same wild roller coaster ride, one moment hopeful for the future, the next plunged in deep despair.
Sophia opened her bedroom door. “I don’t want to see anyone.”
“It’s not Rex,” her mother said.
“Oh. Okay. Just a minute.” She darted to the bathroom to put on some lipstick. Her eyes were puffy and red from crying.
She’d never been so miserable. How long would it take for the hurt and betrayal to go away? How long before she could sleep at night? How long before she could eat more than a few bites at mealtimes? How long before she stopped seeing Rex’s face every time she closed her eyes? How long before she forgot about his kisses and the feel of his hands on her skin?
Taking a deep breath, Sophia forced herself to greet her guest. To her surprise, she found Mildred Van Hess sitting on the sofa chatting with her mother.
“Hello, Sophia,” Mildred said.
“Nice to see you, Mildred.”
> “I’ll leave you two alone,” Jannette said and wheeled herself from the room.
“Have a seat.” Mildred patted the sofa cushion beside her.
Tentatively, Sophia sat. “Did Rex send you?”
“No, he did not. He has no idea I’m here, but I think you should see this letter of recommendation he wrote for your file.”
“Mildred,” Sophia said. “This will not change my mind about anything.”
“Please, just read it.” Mildred held out the letter.
Hesitantly, Sophia took the envelope Mildred passed to her. Her fingers shook slightly as she opened it and began to read.
To Whom It May Concern,
For the past five months, Sophia Shepherd has been employed by Barrington Oil and Gas. Her work has been excellent, her organizational skills impeccable. Ms. Shepherd is kind, considerate, hardworking, and dedicated.
But most of all, she is a moral person who holds herself and others to the highest standards. She is trustworthy, honorable, open, and sincere. In the past five months as my assistant, she has taught me a lot about people…and myself. Most of all, I have learned from her the importance of honest and open communication. We will sorely miss her at Barrington Oil and Gas.
Sincerely, Rex Michael Barrington
Tears burned the back of her eyelids, but Sophia willed them not to trickle down her cheeks and soil the paper. She’d never read such a glowing recommendation letter. And all the personal stuff! How she’d taught him the importance of honesty.
“It came as quite a shock to most of the employees when they learned that Rex and Mike were the same,” Mildred murmured. “Just as it did for you.”
“I’m sure everyone felt deceived and spied upon.” It must have been hard for Rex too.
“Some yes. Others were glad to have a boss that was interested in the inner workings of the corporation. Rex apologized for his deception. He realizes now it was the wrong approach. He’s changed, Sophia. He’s not consumed with work the way he once was. He’s changed because of you.”
“I’m not sure I believe that.”