Hearts of Darkness: A Valentine's Day Bully Romance Collection

by Joanna Mazurkiewicz

  A what?

  Then I saw the familiar green and gold border of a Radwell City police report... oh how familiar I’d become to seeing those. But this one didn’t have my childish scrawl across the signature line like before. No, this statement was written in Jerry’s neat clipped print.

  My heart sank. What had I done?

  “Oh, no, you don’t understand.” I wiped my tears away. “This is all just a big misunderstanding. Please, let me explain.”

  Mr. Campbell shook his head slowly and leveled me with the most pitying gaze. “We take these allegations very seriously, Elizabeth. I want to assure you the company is behind you in this trying time. If you need anything from us, anything at all. Don’t hesitate -”

  “But, sir, please, you don’t...” I looked back and forth between them, a young deputy doing his job, and Old Man Campbell enjoying his power. I prayed for some way to fix this.

  Three short knocks on the door sent me plummeting back down in my chair. Please no. All eyes except mine turned toward the sound.

  Mr. Campbell smiled reassuringly at me and the officer gave my shoulder a comforting squeeze. Or, what would be comforting if this wasn’t the second worst day of my life. Then Mr. Campbell raised his voice to be heard through the office door. “Mr. Renzo, please have a seat in the conference room and we’ll be with you in a moment.”

  “Sure thing. I’ll grab some refreshments,” Michael’s chipper voice responded. He had no idea what was coming for him and it broke my heart.

  “Please,” I tried again. “He didn’t do anything. I... it was all my fault. I promise. I... I” But what could I say? Their minds were made up. It was plainly written on their faces. And I couldn’t tell them what really happened that night. I was on the fast track to the Management Training Program. I’d lose everything if they knew what I’d done, who I was.

  I sat, silent, as they laid out the process of investigating Jerry’s — my — claims against the poor unsuspecting, innocent, Michael.

  ‘It won’t ruin him,’ I lied to myself. He did nothing wrong and they’ll see that. It’s just a few questions. That’s all.

  If only that had turned out to be all.

  Chapter Ten

  The next time we meet after work, I go on the offensive. I have Henry set the table with a few of Michael’s favorite dishes from local restaurants. If things go well, we can even dip into the stash of wine and beer behind the television stand.

  When Michael enters the room, I’m seated in the exact middle of the long conference table. I have two sets of files laid out next to each other, and Henry, bless him, even put a mint candy atop each stack.

  The sight of all my preparations elicits a tight, “Ha,” from Michael’s lips, but not much more.

  My heart breaks a little, thinking all is lost. However, when he slides past to take his seat, he doesn’t shove or knock into me. In fact, if I’m not mistaken, I think his fingers run along the back of my bare neck, below my hair clip. “You remembered,” Michael says, scooting his chair closer to mine and grabbing the coconut shrimp platter.

  “How could I forget All You Can Eat Night at the Shrimp Shack?” I giggle. And just like that, we’re good. I guess the old saying is true about the way to a man’s heart.

  “You know what I remember?” Michael’s minty breath is warm on my skin. He chewed gum to have nice breath for our meeting. It’s everything I can do to keep from kissing him right then and there.

  Instead, I lower my voice to match his throaty whisper and ask, “What do you remember?”

  “I remember that cop saying I did all these horrible things to you.” His fingers wrap tightly around my hair and he begins to pull.

  At first, I think it’s all part of the flirting. It’s uncomfortable but it doesn’t hurt outright. I almost lean into it, until my brain processes the words he said to me. “What?” I ask, confused.

  “I said...” Michael pulls harder and my head jerks back. “I remember sitting right here in this chair while that cop accused me of the most vile things.” Michael stands over me, with my head pulled back, and pain tearing at my hairline. He turns me by my hair, left and right. “Campbell sat over there, watching with this smug look on his face like he knew it all along. And Jerry... ha, Jerry wouldn’t even look me in the eye. He was so ashamed of what I’d done. What... I’d... done, Elizabitch.”

  He releases my hair and shoves me forward. I jump up and run for the door, but Michael’s there, waiting for me. “Don’t you dare. You owe me this.” The lock clicks and the sound echoes through the room.

  “Owe you? That’s disgusting.” I try to sound defiant but I know he hears the tremble in my voice.

  “No,” Michael says, stepping closer. “Disgusting is the things people said about me behind my back those first few days. Word travels fast in a small office. Being paraded through the halls and interrogated in this very room like a pervert didn’t help.”

  “But... but they love you,” I stammer. It’s true, though. Somehow the tides had turned and everyone loved him and hated me. That should give him some solace.

  Michael laughs. “Yes, they do... now. I tried to tell the guys it was a big misunderstanding at first. They didn’t believe me, of course. Then...” His smile grows wider.

  “I’m so sorry. I tried to -” The slap across my face stops the rest of the sentence.

  “Then...” Michael repeats with a growl, “you went and got yourself a promotion. Didn’t take much convincing after that. They all saw you for the conniving bitch you are.”

  He’s in my face. I can’t breathe. The last lights go out in the hallway and I know I’m alone with him. I place the back of my hand over my cheek, letting the coolness draw out some of the sting from his slap. “Michael, please. You know that’s not what happened.” I try again to move closer to the door but he grabs my arm.

  “I could do it. I mean, I’m already accused of it, might as well.” His fingers dig into my flesh.

  I let out a whimper despite my best efforts to stay quiet, to not give him the satisfaction.

  Something in his eyes changes. He blinks and lets go of my arm. Then, with slightly less venom, he says, “Engineering signed off on the final drawings. Once we nail down the peripherals on the retrofit, we’ll be all set. And I’ll be done with you for good.”

  And with that, Michael take a seat and opens his laptop as if nothing happened. Or maybe, as if we’re even.

  Either way, I’m too shaken to run for it, and honestly I feel silly for wanting to. I can’t run screaming from a conference room where he’s calmly sitting at his computer. Everything the employees think about me would be true. So I take my seat and ask him to email me the updated drawing for the master file.

  Chapter Eleven

  It’s pitch black when I pull into the driveway of my new condo, a promotion present to myself. Though it’s a great neighborhood and mine is by far the cheapest on the block, I can’t help but feel unsafe and shaken. All I want to do is curl up in bed and cry.

  As I walk up the dark walkway and open the old wrought iron gate, my phone rings. The sound startles me and I jump, although I know it’s just Savannah again. I can’t face her right now, so I let it go to voicemail.

  “What the hell, Beth?” comes a shrill voice from behind me. I spin around with my keys in hand to see Savannah leaning against my car. She throws her hands in the air like an angry mom and yells at me. “I called you seven times!”

  Before she can make it to me, I break down and cry.

  Savannah rushes to my side and takes me in her arms. “What’s wrong”? Then she sees the red mark still across my cheek and starts to cry, too. “What happened to you? Do we need to call the cops? Come on, let’s get inside.”

  I relinquish control to my best friend and allow myself to be taken care of. I tell her about my meeting with Michael and the horrible things he said and did.

  “Did you tell anyone?” she asks when I’m done.

  We’re laying on my c
ouch together, wine in hand. My head feels thick with alcohol and anxiety.

  “No, of course not. Not after last time...” I don’t say that I feel like it’s my fault and I deserve it, but I don’t have to.

  “You made a promise to yourself, and to me,” Savannah say. “When you got out away from Eric... away from that life... you promised you’d never let a man treat you this way again. Beth, you gotta do something.”

  “I can’t,” I say, my voice thick with tears. “He really didn’t do anything before and I freaked out. He got into so much trouble and the suspicion and -”

  “And that was terrible. But it doesn’t give him the right to do it to you now. He doesn’t get a freebie!”

  Savannah’s use of Michael’s exact words sends me into a spiral. All the fear I felt in that room, trapped like a caged animal, comes flooding back. It takes me back to that night long ago when I escaped Eric’s harem, bruised, beaten, and terrified he’d find me. I moved in with my Aunt in Philly and doubled up on classes to graduate on time. And I never looked back... at least I tried not to, until that night with Michael.

  “He didn’t actually do anything,” I tell Savannah. “Nothing that would warrant getting him into more trouble. And... he kinda got over it after. We got our work done and he seemed fine. Maybe he just had to get it out of his system.”

  Savannah stares at me in disbelief. “Get it out of — Beth, you need to do something. If you’re not going to call the cops now, at least have a backup plan. Something you can threaten him with if he starts up again. You can’t just take it.”

  “There’s nothing to threaten him with. He lives alone and works all day, just like me. What am I gonna do? Threaten to dent his precious car?” By this time, I’m smiling at the absurdity. “Put fish in his backseat? Let the air out of his tires?”

  “You could make him lose his job,” Savannah says in all seriousness. “If he loves his job so much, he should behave with the threat of losing it hanging over his head.” Savannah gets up from the couch and takes her coat. “I have to go. I promised my mom I’d stay at her house tonight since I’m in the city. She’ll worry if I’m out much longer. But think about it. I’m sure there’s some way you can make him look incompetent. Get him out of your hair without all the public hooplah.” Then she blows me a kiss and she’s out the door.

  I lean back and wonder if I really need this back up plan to insure Michael leaves me alone. I think about the Senior Sweets file and all its moving parts. It would be easy to make it look like he dropped the ball. But could I do something like that to him? And... I don’t want to admit even to myself, do I really want him out of my hair?

  Chapter Twelve

  “This is unacceptable!” Mr. Canara shouts into the phone. His voice is so loud I have to move the receiver away from my ear. “You need to get someone here now!”

  Before I can speak, the line goes dead.

  “Henry, can you please bring Mr. Renzo to my office?” I smooth the edges of my new suit jacket and tuck a stray curl behind my ear.

  A moment later, Michael is at my door. That was fast. “Yes, ma’am?” Although things have been civil between us, he still can barely bring himself to spit out anything respectful. The ma’am gets stuck in his throat.

  “We need to leave. Something’s wrong at Senior Sweets.” I gather my things and my hands are shaking.

  “I’ll drive,” Michael offers and I take him up on it.

  It’s been a long three months since I last felt the warmth of his heated leather seats. The last time I was in this seat, we had the world before us. A new budding romance and enough chemistry to blow the roof off the car. Now, there’s nothing between us but cold stone hatred in the pit of both our stomachs.

  “He didn’t say what happened?” Michael asks as we pull off the interstate. It’s the first thing either of us has spoken.

  “No... he just... started yelling and... hung up on me.” I keep my eyes on the floor. I rub my hands along my pants leg to give them something to do. I regret my decision to let Michael drive. My mind is racing and I could use the distraction.

  “This is bad, Beth.” Michael must be nervous, too. He forgot to call me by my horrid nickname.

  “What are we gonna do?” I ask. I silently beg him to take control like he always does.

  “I don’t know. You’re the boss.” He could have said it with malice but he sounds genuinely glad I’m the one in charge.

  I take a deep breath. He’s right. I’m the boss now. This is what I wanted. And I will be the one to fix it.

  When we arrive at Senior Sweets, Michael holds the door for me. In the midst of whatever’s about to happen inside, I can’t help but smile. And when I walk past him to enter the office, his hand finds its way to the small of my back.

  As soon as we’re in the building I hear Mr. Canara yelling. “This is a disaster! We’re hemorrhaging money!”

  Michael squeezes my lower back and I am thankful that his hand remains there for the duration of our encounter. Before I open my mouth to say anything or move to get Mr. Canara’s attention, he turns to us with blueprints in his hand.

  “You!” he screams at me, waving the drawings between us. “You said everything was ready. We even gave you an extension and you still couldn’t get it right. You should have said something!”

  “What... We...” I stutter.

  Mr. Canara shoves the drawings in my face. I see my signature at the bottom. I flip through the packet and look up into his wide eyes. “Jorge, these are the final specs we agreed on. I don’t understand.”

  “No!” He points at the large machine in front of us with smoke rising from the top. “Obviously you don’t understand. This is the drawing I approved.” He pulls a similar rolled up drawing out of his back pocket and shoves that in my face. “This is the final drawing. I made sure of it!” Mr. Canara points to his signature at the bottom and the date, three days before my signature on the incorrect drawing. Then he slaps the top of the page where he had circled the RPM and voltage, signing off on the update.

  “I... I never saw this.” I don’t know what to say. “I’m so sorry.” I look toward the large oven with thick black smoke billowing from every bolt hole and rivet.

  Mr. Canara throws his hands in the air and shouts a stream of insults in Spanish. I’m not fluent but I understand enough to know how incompetent he thinks I am. The whole company, even. As he does so, I also feel Michael’s hand, once reassuring and calming, twist the back of my blouse. By the time Mr. Canara finishes his rant, ending with, “... tens of thousands of dollars!” Michael’s pulled my shirt so tight it’s choking me.

  And I realize what he’s done. While I couldn’t bring myself to sabotage him on this project, he was more than capable of doing the same to me. With the large difference in rotation between the gearmotor and Senior Sweets’ ovens, the conveyors would have flown through the racking system until they jumped the tracks and crashed.

  The smell of burnt belts is still strong enough to catch in my throat as Michael begins to speak. “Jorge, I apologize. We will make this right. I will contact the factory as soon as I get back in my car and we’ll rush a full order of the correct spec motor. I’ll even throw in five spares for your inconvenience and send one of my application specialists out here to see what we can do about your oven lines. You have my word that we will cover all costs incurred by this unfortunate incident.”

  I still can’t breathe, from the rubber smoke and Michael’s grip on my blouse, as Mr. Canara’s face calms from the angry red to a more neutral caramel. He smiles despite his obvious distress and shakes Michael’s free hand. And under both their breaths I hear an exchange in Spanish about allowing a woman to do a man’s job.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “I can’t believe you would stoop so low!” I storm out of the building, past Michael’s car.

  “Why? Because you bought some little sandwiches for me? Come on. You’re just mad you didn’t think of it first.” Michael throws hi
s head back and laughs.

  “I did!” I turn to shout in his face. “But I wouldn’t do that to you!” I continue stomping through the parking lot.

  “Where are you going? We came in my car, remember.” Michael stops at the door of his pretentious gold Porsche.

  “I’m not getting in that car with you. Are you crazy? There’s no telling what you’re gonna do to me next!” With my arms folded, I walk out of the parking lot and turn left. The office is miles away. If I make it in these heels, I’ll be drenched in sweat and hobbling like a lame horse. Not that it matters anyway. It’s not like I’ll still have a job by the time I get there. I will never see those people again.

  “You can’t be serious? Do you even know your way back?” Michael’s voice is full of incredulity. As if he thought I’d just take whatever he threw at me and then get in his car like a good girl. No, I’m done following orders. I left that part of my life behind me long ago.

  I continue on, not looking back. Moments later I hear his engine roar to life and tires squeal on the blacktop. There’s no sidewalk on this part of town, so I find myself trudging through tall grass and weeds on the side of the road, with Michael coasting beside me.

  “Get in the car!” he commands. His ruggedly handsome features are twisted into a snarl. He’s stopped pretending now. No use hiding his true feelings. He got what he wanted.

  Still, I say nothing. I don’t even look in his direction. Cars honk as they pass us. Some yell obscenities. But I keep walking and he keeps following.

  Finally, half an hour or so into my walk back to the office, Michael lays on the horn and speeds up. He whips the car into the grass, blocking my path. “This is ridiculous, Beth. I can’t just let you walk on the side of the road. What if you get hit by a car? You’re gonna get yourself killed.”

  “What do you care?” I scream it at him. The first thing I’ve said since he released his death grip on my blouse and the wind rushed back into my lungs. “What do you care if I die!” My voice breaks the second time.

  A shocked look passes over Michael’s face. It’s fast but I catch it before going around his car and continuing on.