by Emma Quinn
I nodded. “Well, I thought I would work there all week. Pull some overtime, if necessary, just to make sure they don’t fall behind on orders.” I made certain to make and hold eye contact with him. Any slip would alert him that something was up. He was a shrewd man.
Steepling his fingers under his chin, he leaned back in his seat. “Really? You?”
Sighing, unable to stop it before it happened, I nodded. “Yes, me. It seems a waste to have me here in the office when you’ve got two very capable men taking care of things for you and let the warehouse fall behind. I could work there and then start your new schedule here next week.”
He studied me, rocking slightly in the chair. It was a barely perceptible motion, but my senses were heightened because I knew if he found me out, there would be trouble. He mulled over the offer for several long minutes. I assumed he was giving me time to trip up or out myself. It was a tactic he used when I was little, and invariably, I always got nervous, rushed ahead and ended up getting myself into trouble.
Not now, though. I had learned how to control those urges years ago. I sat, hoping my expression was as cool and neutral as it felt.
Sitting forward, he put his hands on the desk and flashed the tiniest smile at me. It was there and gone in a split-second. So quick that I had to wonder if I had really seen it or not.
“Your work has steadily improved. So has your attitude. You seem to have grown up quite a bit over the last few months. You’ve been working hard. Much harder than I had thought you would. I’m glad to see you’ve finally taken an interest in the business, Dylan. I guess I’ll see you bright and early next Monday morning.” The next smile he favored me with was genuine and lasted long enough for me to breathe a sigh of relief.
I stood and we shook hands. “Thanks, Dad. And, yes, I’ve taken a great interest in the business. I just wish I could have done it years ago.”
I left the office and headed straight home. I called Emily’s cellphone as I packed my suitcase.
She answered with, “You’re all set!”
Exhaling my pent-up breath, I laughed. “Thank you so much, Emily. I’m packing as we speak. This is awesome and I don’t know how to thank you!” I wanted to hug her tight and take her with me, but I knew that wasn’t possible. She had school and work to think about.
“You can thank me by making amends with your Mom, Dylan. That’s all the thanks I need, baby.” She practically cooed the words into my ear, and I smiled.
“That’s exactly what I plan on doing, sexy. I’ll be back Sunday night or Monday morning.”
We said goodbye and I hung up the phone, excited to finally be on my way.
The place where my mother was staying was about ninety minutes to two hours away, depending on if I beat the midday traffic. As I drove, I was overcome by an intense feeling of happiness and excitement that I had not known was in me. I was really like a little kid going to see his mom for the first time in a long time. I would never forget that Emily had helped me so much. She was the best thing that had happened to me…ever. That her father agreed to cover for me was great. I owed him one, too.
Continuing through the traffic, my worries about my father finding out I was gone seemed to dissolve and drift away. I had plenty of time to think about it all. I was a grown man; I didn’t really need to ask my father’s permission to see my mother after all these years. But, at the same time I wanted to mend mine and my mother’s relationship, I also wanted to prove to my father that I was reliable and that I had matured over the last months. It was a conundrum that I could see no other way of solving except by keeping my visit a secret from him.
Keeping secrets had never been something I’d had to do. I had always lived my playboy life right out in the open. Hence my father’s sudden restrictions and demands. I didn’t like that Emily and I were keeping our relationship a secret, but I understood how the old man might perceive it and wholeheartedly disagree with it. As he was still in full control of my income, I had to jump through his flaming hoops for a while longer.
Just until I proved myself to him.
12
Emily
D
ylan and I exchanged a few, and by a few I mean five, text messages between Monday night and Thursday morning. I didn’t want to intrude on his time with his mother. They obviously had a lot to talk about and even more to work through, according to all Dylan had told me. I wasn’t about to be any sort of stumbling block for him. I was so proud of him for finally sorting out the mess and reconnecting with her that it never even occurred to me that any of it could be a lie.
That evening, Daddy and I went to work as usual. It was my last shift until the following Monday, and I had my project on my mind. While I took my lunch alone in the upstairs breakroom, missing Dylan’s company and debating on shooting him a text, Daddy stepped to the door.
His face was a mask of worry. “Mr. Rochester just came in.”
“What?” I spun in my seat, sending my cellphone flying to the floor from my hand. I shot out of the seat in a panic. “Oh my god, Daddy, what do we tell him?”
Daddy held out a hand and shushed me. “I will have no choice but to tell him the truth, if he asks. I can’t risk my job, Emily.”
My heart sank. I knew he was right, of course, but it still hurt that he might have to out Dylan to his father. I nodded sadly and turned to pick up my phone. Quickly I cleaned up my mess, thought about texting Dylan again, but thought I would wait to see the outcome of Mr. Rochester’s visit first. I hurried back toward my station, but Mr. Rochester stood with Daddy, a stern look on his face as they greeted each other. I walked over and stood with Daddy.
“Roger, we need to talk.” Mr. Rochester looked absolutely pissed. Like he was barely holding his temper.
Daddy nodded. “Sure, Mr. Rochester. What can I help you with?” His face didn’t register anything out of the ordinary. He looked mildly concerned, which was understandable. He held his hand out to usher Mr. Rochester into the office, but he declined with a shake of his head.
“I think this can be handled rather quickly and right here, Roger. Where is my son? Where is Dylan?” He crossed his arms and stared hard at Daddy.
Daddy looked down at the floor and then back to Mr. Rochester. His sudden crestfallen appearance hurt my heart. He was facing the wrath of his boss, and it was my fault. Thinking Daddy could do a better job talking to Mr. Rochester about it, I remained silent for the moment.
“Mr. Rochester, I’m sorry.” Daddy told him the story about Dylan’s mother, and how recently losing Mama had affected me and him both, he had made a bad decision. “For that, I am truly sorry. But I still think the boy needs to mend his and his mother’s relationship. Every day counts, and your son has been doing great work here. He reports on time, does his job great, I never have any problems out of him. After those first couple weeks when he was adjusting to all this, he’s been an exemplary employee.”
Mr. Rochester rocked back on his heels and made a clicking sound with his tongue. “So, you’ve been covering for him?”
Daddy nodded. “Yes sir, I’m sorry, but I have been.”
“And how long was this supposed to continue? Were you ever going to report it to me as I asked?” Mr. Rochester shifted his weight once again, rocking back on his heels, glaring at Daddy.
Blowing out a deep sigh, Daddy shook his head. “Until he returned Monday, sir.” He couldn’t make eye contact with Mr. Rochester.
“So, you thought you were doing him a big favor, giving him a helping hand to get by his own father…” Mr. Rochester paused, dipped his head down to get Daddy’s attention and then added, “to go see his poor estranged mother, right?”
Daddy nodded again. “Something like that, yes.” His was the voice of a defeated man.
Mr. Rochester pulled out his phone. “Let me just show you what he’s been up to, Roger. Let me show you what you helped him do. It’s the very thing that got him into this trouble with me to start with.” He shoved the phone toward D
addy, waited a second and swiped the screen. He repeated this several times as I edged closer so I could see, too.
Mr. Rochester had no problem letting me see the pictures that had been posted to different social media sites. I saw the last three. That was enough for me. Dylan and different beautiful girls with their arms around each other, smiling for the pictures. The girls were in party dresses, Dylan in a suit. Then the final one with the most beautiful, sexy girl yet. They were drinking champagne and laughing for the camera.
My guts twisted and nausea swept through me. My face grew flaming hot, and a high-pitched ringing filled my ears.
Daddy looked at once furious and humiliated. His cheeks flamed red as he looked slowly to me.
Mr. Rochester smirked, put the phone back in his pocket, and straightened his suit jacket roughly. “Now, the time stamps on these posts prove that he was posting during the days and the nights. Evan brought them to my attention just this morning. Do you know what I did after this revelation?” He arched his eyebrows and looked from Daddy to me and back again. “Anyone?”
We both shook our heads in silence.
“I looked over your nightly reports just to be certain you, Roger, one of my most trusted employees, had not reported his absence. I trusted you with this. You were given a direct order to report everything about Dylan to me immediately.” He visibly poised himself and ran a hand through his hair. “I’m firing you, Roger. I can’t have you working in this position if I can’t trust you.” He patted his coat pocket where his phone resided. “And I obviously cannot trust you anymore.”
Daddy’s jaw dropped and his eyes grew wide. “But Mr. Rochester, please—”
“No, Roger. I want you to collect your personal things and leave tonight at the end of your shift. Don’t come back.” His eyes had turned to burning little coals full of rage.
Unable to stand by silently any longer, I rushed to Mr. Rochester. “Please, Mr. Rochester, don’t fire him. It was my fault that he agreed to do this.”
He looked at me as if I were an insignificant little bug who had deigned to interrupt him. “Well, well, well. If you’re so manipulative that you can turn an honest man into a liar, you should be fired, too. But as I’m unsure of your part in this, I’ll settle for firing him. Thank you for your honesty, Miss Shandon, I take it?”
I nodded, cold all over and tingly. “This isn’t right, though. You shouldn’t fire him for something I caused.”
“Yes, that’s all the more reason I should fire him. I can’t have untrustworthy people working for me.” He turned to leave.
“Well, to be honest, this is your fault. If you hadn’t been so dead set on Dylan never going to see his mother, none of this would have happened. We were only helping him based on what he told us. We never thought he had lied about any of this.”
“And, he chose another pretty face that only had a headful of romantic notions to dupe. It’s his M.O. As for his situation with that woman, his mother, it’s none of your concern in the first place.” He paused, looked at his feet, chuckled, and turned a piercing gaze to me. “And, did I hear you correctly? Did you just blame all this on me?”
Stubbornly, I nodded. “Yes, I did.”
“Miss Shandon, you now share your father’s fate. Dylan obviously lied to you about his mother. He never intended to visit her, you silly girl. Check the pictures for yourself; they’re online for the world to see. That’s not his mother in any of those pictures.”
“You’re firing both of us?” Daddy gawked in disbelief at Mr. Rochester.
“Neither of you seem to have hearing impairment. Yes, that’s exactly what I just did, and nothing will change my decision. Have a nice life.” He tossed a hand up, giving us a backward wave as he stormed out of the area.
I can’t even describe how bad I felt that, because of me, my father had lost his job. The defeated slump of his shoulders as he piled his years’ worth of personal items into a box, the forlorn expression in his eyes, was almost more than I could bear. To know that I had caused it was devastating to me.
I cried as I helped him put his things away. He was tight-lipped and wouldn’t talk the whole time. Finally, he flopped into his seat behind his desk and stared blankly at the open doorway.
I hugged him, still crying, and said, “Daddy, I’m so, so sorry. If I had known…”
He patted one of my hands and shook his head. “But you didn’t, Emily. You’re not to blame, honey. Just…go on and, I don’t know, sort out some orders for the night.”
“Seriously? It doesn’t matter if I do work or not, we’re not employed here after tonight, Daddy. How can you tell me to go sort something out for someone who just fired both of us for something that wasn’t entirely our faults?”
Giving me a somber look, he replied, “But it is our faults, honey. We knew it was wrong, and yet we did it anyway. Anytime you have to lie to someone, it’s wrong. And we are still employed here until the end of the shift. I’ve devoted my life to this place, I don’t want to be remembered as the man who let Warehouse Number One get screwed up on his last shift.”
It sounded lame to me, and that’s when I suspected Daddy wanted me out of the office so he could have a few moments to himself. Maybe he was angry at me. I couldn’t blame him if he was.
It was okay, though, because I needed a few minutes to myself, too. I needed to be able to process exactly what had happened from start to finish. I didn’t go to work, though, I went to the breakroom I knew would be empty. I shut the door and sat in the corner mulling over all that Dylan had said to me.
By the end of the night, I was able to see how he had groomed me into falling in love with him. He had used me as a means to an end. With a silly girl’s heart in his hand, he knew he could be free of his father’s restrictions whenever he wanted. He had intuitively known I would do as he asked and drag my father into the situation, providing more reliable cover for his actions.
In short, I was sickened by my own stupidity. Why couldn’t I have seen what he was up to from the beginning? Because I had been so needy, I had wanted him to feel about me the same way I felt about him. I was the posterchild for desperate women everywhere. I had always tried so hard not to be that person, and yet, here I was.
I had no idea how I would ever go about making this up to Daddy. He had been set to retire from Rochester Industries. He had his path all marked out and planned ahead. And, now? I had successfully been a moron when it came to a guy and some good sex.
I was an asshole.
Dylan was worse than that. I couldn’t even decide what he was besides loathsome and vile. To make up such a good and convincing cover story was monstrous of him.
He had used me for the last time. I was done with Dylan Rochester for good. If I never heard from him again, it would be too soon.
13
Dylan
M
y texts from Thursday night until I returned home on Sunday were left unanswered. At the time, I was so busy, and happy to have worked things out with my mother, that I didn’t think much of it. After all, Emily had told me that she wouldn’t text with me much while I was at Mom’s place to give us uninterrupted time together. She said I should focus on my relationship with Mom.
I was glad she had been so understanding. Without her help and support, I might have put off going to see my mother indefinitely. It was rather late on Sunday night, around midnight, when I parked at the house. I thought about calling Emily to let her know that I had returned, but I knew she had early classes the next morning. That was fine. We weren’t that clingy couple who can’t stand to be out of each other’s sight. I would see her at work that evening, I thought.
Monday morning, I was running late as I had snoozed my alarm one time too many, and I didn’t call Emily then, either. By the time I was at the office, I knew she would already be in class, so I still didn’t call. Distance makes the heart grow fonder, I once heard. Maybe it was in a love song, or a line from one of my old movies, I’m not sure, but it seemed
to me it was a truism.
I couldn’t wait to see Emily that evening.
My father wasn’t in the office that morning, and when I asked Evan his whereabouts, he looked at me as if confused.
“Well, he’s…um…out on business right now.” He scurried away as if afraid I might bite him. He was an odd character on the best of days, so I let him go, wondering where Father could be on business.
I planned on staying in the office until almost time to go to the warehouse. I was determined to make a good impression on my father after the stunt I had just pulled. I didn’t want him looking into the last week’s reports too closely, or god forbid, visiting the warehouse.
Emily would be thrilled at the developments between me and my mother. I wanted to tell her everything about Mom’s engagement, and all the family I had met while I was there that I had either never met or had last seen when I was young. We had a great time, and the memories floated me along through my office hours.
Before I knew it, it was time to go to the warehouse. I drove a little faster than was safe perhaps, but I was excited to share the last week with Emily. I couldn’t wait to see the smile on her face.
I arrived and didn’t see her car or her father’s little truck. It was a big parking lot and I thought I could have just missed them. Racing to the time clock, I punched in and waited for the machine to print out my little time ticket, stuffed it into my pocket and jogged around the corner to the main floor as I put on my safety glasses.
Roger’s office was empty. It looked different, too, but I couldn’t place what exactly was different. I looked toward the main floor and didn’t see him in any of his usual places. Taking the stairs two at a time, I rushed up to see if he might be on the second floor. Hurriedly, I walked the entire second floor, peeking into every room and every aisle of boxes.
Emily and Roger were nowhere up there. Scratching my head in confusion, I descended the same stairs and stood at the bottom. A couple of the nightshift employees who had just clocked in came around the corner. I didn’t know many of them, but those two guys were at least familiar faces.