My alarm sounds, it’s seven, I’m supposed to be at work.
Should I go? Will he be there?
I have to go.
I shower twice, I dress and undress and then dress again. I do my makeup but then wipe it off because I just can’t with that today.
Then I head to work, taking Ezra’s car that he loaned to me, wondering how long until he kicks me out of this apartment that I’ve made home.
He needs to give me more than just a note.
To say I’m quick on my feet would be an understatement. I get to our floor knowing he won’t be here because his car wasn’t in his spot. I push open the door anyway and almost sink to my knees when I see the man he hired as his fill-in in his seat, on the phone.
“Miss Sinclair,” he says, smiling gently. His eyes hold a sadness to them that has me on edge. “You’re early.”
“Where is he?”
“Mr. Conti has decided to take his annual leave early.” He picks up an envelope and holds it out. “He also asked me to ensure you get this.”
As I’m reaching for it my phone vibrates. It’s Laurie. I reject the call. I don’t have time right now.
“What is it?” I ask, weighing the manila envelope in my hands.
“Your severance packet.”
“My what?” I gasp, letting my lips part. My heart just burst, shooting sharp fragments through my veins.
“He is terminating your contract, effective immediately.”
“WHAT?” I yell, ripping a hand through my hair, forgetting about my neat bun. “He’s firing me? Do you have his contact number?”
“I was informed not to give it to you.”
“Well, then I suggest you fucking call him yourself and say I am not being fired. I will sue for unfair dismissal.”
He hesitates, looking me up and down, measuring whether I’m a worthy opponent. Oh I am. If Ezra thinks he can get rid of me this easily he has another thing coming.
I just need to speak to him.
He picks up the phone and I watch him dial while burning the number to memory.
His eyes linger on me, brown and uncomfortable. I bet he wishes he never took this job.
“Mr. Conti?” he asks, still watching me as though I’m ready to strike. “She’s here…” There’s a pause. “She’s refusing to accept it, claiming she will claim unfair dismissal and sue.” There’s another pause. “I will tell her, sir.” He hangs up the phone and looks at my bag. “He’s going to call you now.”
Thank God. Maybe I can convince him.
My phone vibrates. I grasp it and put it to my ear.
“Can you give me the office?” I ask and he moves to the door, taking his coffee with him.
“Hey,” Ezra breathes, sounding… different.
“What the hell, Ezra?” I choke, clicking my sore fingers and pacing back and forth. “You’re just dumping and firing me? What did I do?”
“Nothing,” he implores, his tone stronger than before, “you did nothing. I swear. You’re perfect in every way.”
“Then why have you done this? Have you gone back to her? Is that… I just… I’m so confused.” Tears burn trails down my cheeks.
“I had hoped you’d be so mad at me just vanishing you wouldn’t want to talk, and you’d just leave without needing to know.”
Is he insane? “What? Needing to know what?”
He lets out a staggered breath. “Just take the severance money, exit with your shining reference, and find happiness.”
“You make me happy,” I whisper, letting out a sob. “I love you. I want you. I don’t want anybody else. What happened to starting a family and being together? We were so close…”
“I know,” he breathes, sounding as devastated as I am. “I know.”
“Please,” I beg, “don’t do this to me. To us.”
“I don’t have a choice.”
“Is it Maria? Did you not get joint custody? Because we can wait. I’ll wait. There’s no rush for us to be together. We can—”
“She’s pregnant.”
If there were ever words spoken that could tear my world apart, those would be the ones.
“Ezra,” I say, heartbroken at the sound of his anguish.
“She’s pregnant,” he repeats, sounding angry and desperate for something though I don’t know what.
I’m going to vomit. I know what he’s saying. I know who he’s saying it about, but I ask anyway. “Who?”
I guess I just need clarity. I just need to hear it exactly from him.
He throws something and it shatters like my heart did this morning. “Elizabeth.”
Sitting because I feel too weak to stand, I ask, “It’s yours?”
“Apparently so.”
“How can you be so sure? You said you didn’t sleep with her for two weeks before you broke up.” I’m shaking my head, my lips are parted, I just can’t believe this is happening. I don’t want to believe it.
He sounds so anguished and broken, like he doesn’t want this. “She’s three months pregnant. She didn’t want to tell me because she didn’t want it to be the only reason I went back to her.”
So much pain. I can’t handle this amount of pain.
“No,” I breathe, shaking my head and pressing my hand to my chest. “No. No. No. You… you begged me to stay. You told me to stay. You… you convinced me. I stayed. I gave it all up for you.”
This is my karma. I knew it was too perfect. I knew the fates would conspire against us in the end.
“Are you going back to her?”
His words are clipped, bitten out. I don’t know if he’s mad at me or just the situation in general, but it hurts that he’s taking this tone with me when I’m the one he has broken. “She is pregnant, what would you have me do?”
“Be a father and not her husband.”
“I would miss everything.”
I understand his need to be there for his unborn child, but I just can’t stomach this. I can’t lose him. I’m selfish but I love him so much. I can’t comprehend this.
“Does she know about us?”
He pauses and sniffs. “She knows I’ve been sleeping with somebody, but she doesn’t know who.”
“And she’s willing to take you back?”
“She’s pregnant,” he answers quietly. “She’s willing to overlook it with some therapy.”
I raise a trembling hand to my lips as my mind fully works over this that’s happening. I feel achy and shaky and sick. “Did you know she was pregnant when you had sex with me last night? Did you already know you were leaving me?” He doesn’t answer. The coward doesn’t reply. “ANSWER ME!”
“I don’t want to lose you.”
“But you are. You’re leaving me, aren’t you?”
More silence… and then he changes the topic entirely. “You can keep the apartment for as long as you need.”
“Oh my God,” I breathe harshly, feeling my chest constrict and my throat close. “You knew. This wasn’t some last-minute decision. You took me to bed and you FUCKING KNEW you were going to hurt me like this.”
“I told you, I couldn’t do this to your face.”
“You coward. You God damn mother fucking coward,” I spit, clenching my free hand into a fist. My nails bite deep into my palm. “You fuck! How could you? You don’t think I deserve more than this?”
“You deserve the world.”
“YOU JUST TOOK IT FROM ME!”
“I didn’t want that. I never want to hurt you.”
Even in my anger and sorrow I still don’t want him to leave me. I’m a mess of conflicting emotions. “Don’t do this. Please… Ezra. I can’t… I don’t want this without you. What about the getaway? What about pulling the goalie?”
“She’s pregnant,” he repeats sadly. “She’s having my baby. I can’t… we can’t do this anymore. It’s over. It has to be. I have to let you go.”
I’m breaking. I have never felt such a final pain like this. I’ve never felt loss like this.
She has taken back what was hers that I made mine.
“I beg you,” I whisper, gripping the edge of his desk, wondering if this is how she felt when he left her. This man collecting his jar of fucking hearts like they’re nothing more than pebbles and then casting them into the sea. “Don’t leave me. I love you. You made me love you. You make me feel better. I don’t have as many episodes when I’m with you. I hardly count. Without you I’ll regress. I need you. Please.”
He sticks that knife in deeper and twists. “This isn’t about you and me anymore. It can’t be.” He inhales a staggered breath. “This is killing me too.”
“Fuck you,” I spit. “Killing you? You were just waiting for something like this as an excuse to go running back to her.”
“That’s not true!”
“Of course it is. You’ve got it all now. You’ll forget about me by Monday. Whereas I’ll be alone. I’ll have nobody.”
“Don’t say that. I can’t hear it. What would you have me do?”
“CHOOSE ME!” I scream, feeling tears gush down my cheeks like waterfalls. “Choose me. Please. Choose me. Not her. You can still be a father. I’ll help you. I’m willing to be there, for you for this new baby, for Maria. We can all get along and be what they need. Just choose me.”
“You’re not thinking clearly; you’re letting your grief guide you. In a few months when that baby is born, you’ll wish it was yours, or you’ll resent it for taking me away from you, you’ll resent me for putting you in this position. This isn’t a choice between you and my wife anymore. This is the choice between you and my kids. I have to choose my kids.”
“Please…”
“I am so sorry that you’re the one hurt by this. So sorry.”
“I’ll never forgive you for this. I will never come back to you,” I hiss.
“I know and it kills me, but I have to do what’s right for my family.”
“I’m your family too.”
“You will always hold such a large part of my heart and my soul will always be yours.”
Before I can say another word, the line goes dead. Like my soul, the part of me that will always be his.
I bury my face in my arms and cry. This hurts. It’s like physical pain. Searing, burning, aching, clenching pain that I can’t shake.
How can he just throw me away as though I’m nothing?
When my phone rings again I fight the urge to smash it but when I see that it’s Laurie, I answer it and sob so hard none of my words make sense. Yet she hears me anyway.
“I’m coming to get you,” she says simply, “you’ll always have me. Always. You don’t need him.”
I do though. I love Laurie more than the world. But I love Ezra more than myself.
When she disconnects the call, I sit in his office, tapping my fingers against the screen of my phone. I get up to one hundred and eighty-six because thirty-one multiplied by six. But then thirty-one isn’t a multiple of six so I tap up to two hundred and fifty-two because forty-two sixes.
My brain hurts, my fingers ache, my chest feels like an empty void. I can imagine him sitting with his wife and Maria, his hand on her belly, laughing and joking and sharing love and everything he promised me.
But I knew this would happen because he promised it to her first.
I had no right to claim it. To claim him. His promises meant nothing. I should have known that from the second he made them.
Leaning back, I stare up at the ceiling feeling a deep bitterness that I have never felt before. The pain is so unbearable I even consider throwing myself from the roof. Wanting to see his reaction from the other world. Wanting to hurt him as badly as I’m hurting. How weak does that make me? How deluded? Yet I feel it anyway.
But who can blame me for feeling so empty? What do I have really? Laurie, who is moving on with her own life… and the lost promises of a family I’ve always wanted.
I was fine before him, so why do I feel so empty and hollow without him now? Why do I feel as though I simply can’t function without him crawling into my bed each night?
And then I remember that for the past six months I can confidently say he has been my best friend and losing him is derailing my life in a way I was never prepared for. I don’t like change and suddenly I’m in the midst of it in a really bad way.
I leave Ezra’s office while clutching the envelope in a tight grasp.
Laurie and I meet in the middle between her apartment and the office, though it must be said I probably shouldn’t be driving in my current state.
She hugs me immediately, holding me tighter than she ever has in the middle of the street in front of everybody.
“What am I going to do?” I whisper, pained and broken.
She pulls back and while trying to wipe away my tears, she slaps me around the face and then yanks her own hair.
I laugh but the happy feeling vanishes faster than it came.
“First we’re going on this all-expenses paid vacation that you booked for yourself.” Because apparently Ezra changed his ticket to her name. That’s how certain he was that we are ending. “And we’re going to have the time of our lives. SEX ON THE COCKTAIL GLASS!”
“Minus the last part.”
“And then we’re going to come back and you’re going to do one of two things. One…” She clicks her fingers and goes to slap me again. I grab her wrist but otherwise we don’t acknowledge it. I know really she wants to slap Ezra. “We’re going to find you a new job and get you as far away from him as possible. Two… we’re going to stay; keep the job you have and make him see everything he’s missing.”
“His wife is pregnant.”
“One… how do we even know it’s his? Two… so what?”
I level her with a look. “I have morals. She doesn’t deserve this.”
“Again… so what? That’s your man. He loves you. Win him back or move on. Or make his life hell for hurting you. Either one is good. I like the latter. Can we do the latter? DICK IN A BLENDER!”
“I definitely vote that last one,” I mutter, trying to joke but it falls flat when my lips quiver.
“Aren’t you mad? He promised you the fucking world.”
“I’m so hurt I don’t have space for much else.”
She links her arm through mine and guides me to my car. “Drive us home so I can pack, and we can vacation this funk right out of you. We don’t need men to be happy. We don’t need to be normal to be happy. You just have to remember that.”
When I burst into more tears, she hugs me again, and then slaps me. But this time I think it was on purpose.
* * *
Going on vacation with your best friend immediately after a breakup is probably the best thing you can do. The first two days hurt like hell, but after that we got so drunk, I was all, “Ezra who?” Well… for the most part. If I saw anybody kissing or acting all loved up it made me feel irrationally angry and extremely sad.
To say I started sobbing at random times would be an understatement. I’m a weak fool, but I’m in love. Or I was, now I’m just in anger.
And Laurie has talked me into keeping hold of that anger. She thinks I should get revenge; she thinks I should make his life hell. Perhaps she’s right.
I can find another job, but in the meantime, I’m going to make him see what he let go. I think at this point the only thing that will help me move on is hurting him as much as he has hurt me. Reeling him back in and doing something to him so horrific he cries as much as I have.
He can’t fire me. He has no grounds to fire me on.
Maybe I’m being petty, maybe I should just move on, but I don’t want to make it that easy on him.
I’m starting to see now that maybe he’s not as good as I thought he was. He’s a snake, going behind his wife’s back and having unprotected sex with me. Lying to her while planning a future with me.
Robert was right when he said Mr. Conti’s place was at home with his wife. He had no business making me fall in love with him when he was
already taken, just to destroy me in the end.
No…
I’m not this person. I’m not about to ruin a man. I’m not about to become Pax because he hurt me.
Fuck Ezra. Fuck him, fuck his wife, fuck… fuck… fuck.
“Have you decided yet?” Laurie asks as we fly home, both of us tan, both of us glowing. “You look resolute all of a sudden, like a woman on a mission.”
“I’m moving,” I say softly. “Fuck Ezra.”
“I love it when you swear.”
“I don’t like it, it tastes weird.”
“Words don’t have flavors.”
I grin at my friend, ignoring the tingling ache in my chest that reminds me constantly of what I just lost.
Through my smile I allow myself to cry one last time, each tear shelters the broken pieces of my heart.
“You’ll get through this.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
He’s set in my soul.
I decided to take the severance packet which was way more money than what any other employee would get. It felt dirty depositing that check into my bank. It made me feel like a prostitute, but Laurie quickly talked me out of that one.
She was right in saying, when I moved to Seattle, I’d need a car and enough money to get my own place.
Robert Butler has saved my ass. He got me the job I was promised before with the same benefits and apartment. I started Monday and I adore my new boss. He is the sweetest, old, Japanese guy I have ever met in my life. And he has the hottest grandson in the world who visited from New York the day I arrived.
I am now officially the proud office manager and PA to Mr. Watanabe’s firm. Nowhere near as large as WhyTech but wealthy enough to have several branches across the States. They have their hands in every law pool there is. From domestic, to criminal.
Mr. Watanabe is the greatest criminal defense attorney in the country, his shining winning record is proof of that. Though he’s extremely expensive because of it and has very rich clientele and ties to important people all over the world.
“How have you enjoyed your first week?” he asks me, his almond eyes shining with genuine happiness beneath white and black brows.
Becoming His Mistress Page 31