See, there I went again.
I forced my brain to focus on the report I was filling out. No thoughts of Beck for at least another hour. Then maybe I’d call her, hear her voice before she went to bed. Maybe I’d send Roy to pick her up tomorrow and meet her somewhere for lunch. She probably hadn’t eaten at The Land of the Rising Sun yet…
My office door opened and I looked up quickly, annoyed. Everyone knew not to barge in on me—
The irritation turned into a smile at the sight of Beck. But that smile didn’t stay for long. I felt it slip off my face as she stood, panting slightly in front of my desk as if she’d run here. There was no happiness in her eyes, only anger.
“Beck,” I started slowly, “whatever you think—”
“No!” she cut me off. “No, just no! I’m going to talk and you’re going to listen.”
I snapped my mouth shut even though I desperately wanted to talk over her. See what she has to say, Sam. You haven’t done anything wrong.
“Did you just assume I wasn’t going to find out?” she spat.
There was a pause. “Am I aloud to talk?” I asked. It came out way more passive aggressively than I’d wanted, but I didn’t like the accusatory tone she was taking. Did she really think so little of me to just believe whatever lies she’d apparently heard? It looked like it.
Her face twisted in anger. “Fuck you, Sam. Seriously. Fuck you and your money and your lies.” She paused for dramatic effect. “I know about the Blooms.”
The Blooms? What? My face had to look completely blank. “What the hell are you talking about?” I asked.
Her eyes widened. “So you’re just going to deny it?” she asked incredulously. “Don’t think for a minute that I buy it. You couldn’t take the hit, huh? To you or your precious company? You just had to have that building. What gives you the right to bully people into doing exactly what you want? I honestly don’t even know what to believe anymore! Did your mother even die? Or was that just a line to explain your pathetic little temper tantrum?”
The words tumbled out in an explosive torrent, but even in her anger she knew she’d gone too far. Her mouth snapped shut at the look in my eyes, surprised at herself, but only for a moment until they hardened again.
As for me? All the wounded emotion boiling inside at her anger disappeared the moment she brought my mom into it. Then any hurt left me, replaced by rage. “Get out,” I growled.
“Or what?” she asked, but even as she said it, she was heading for the door. “Are you going to blackmail me too? Guess what, Sam. You don’t have shit on me. I’m glad this ended before you realized you couldn’t control me like you do everything else in your life.” Then she turned on her heel and stormed from my office.
What the fuck had just happened? It had all gone by so fast, one moment I was thinking about Beck, fantasizing about seeing her again and now, barely a minute later, I sat stunned in my chair, fists clenched in anger and confusion. Who had gotten to her? What the hell had she been talking about? Why wouldn’t she just give me a chance to explain away whatever she thought I’d done?
Because she doesn’t trust you anymore. If she ever did. She thinks you’re a liar. Yes, but about what? I tried to remember what she’d said moments before accusing me of lying about my mother’s death. I could barely even think. Something about the Blooms? The building? And blackmail?
There was only one person I knew who’d stoop to blackmail and it looked like he hadn’t been quite so in the dark as to the Starling as I’d hoped. And thankfully, he was just as much a workaholic as me so I could count on him answering his phone at this hour of the evening.
“Why hello, Sam,” Tom said before I had a chance to speak. “Having a good time?” He sounded much too happy for my liking.
“And what the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“I mean I hope you’re enjoying the time you have left in that office. Because it’s not going to last too much longer.” He sounded practically giddy and I wished I could punch him through the landline.
I sighed. “Why don’t you just come right out and say it, Tom. What do you have planned?”
“You thought you were mighty smart, turning poor, stupid Able against me at the vote? Did you really think that I’d just turn over like a dog when it didn’t go my way?”
“What did you do?” I repeated. The gloating could only go on for so long and I’d rather him get to the point.
“I did what you couldn’t or wouldn’t. You want to know why I have such an issue with you, Sam? It’s because I’m dumbfounded that a man like you could make a company that big. You don’t want to do the hard things, the shit that needs to get done in order to pull off a successful project.”
“I’ve done pretty damn well so far.”
“You’ve gotten lucky, kid. Unfortunately luck only takes you so far. No, I’ve been well aware the Blooms haven’t been budging on the sale. Hell, I was nice. I gave you a week to figure this shit out yourself. I even had some guys go put a little pressure on, just to help you out.”
A memory tugged at my sleeve. “The broken window and graffiti? That was you?”
“Well, some guys I know anyway. But even with my help you still weren’t able to cinch the landing. So I had to pull out the big guns. Another buddy with the health inspector seems pretty certain he’ll be able to turn up some shit in the Starling. Asbestos is deadly and a hell of a fine from the city. Once those Blooms became aware of how bad this could get for them, they were rushing to agree to a deal. Of course my offer isn’t nearly the same as the figure you were waving at them, but hey, that’s what happens when you sit on a property. The market is a volatile thing.”
I felt my heart sink in my chest. “And let me guess,” I said. “They think I did this.”
“It’s your name on the building, kid,” Tom said. “Just part of the joys of being a figurehead. But trust me. I’m not going to let the board think you did this all on your own. I wouldn’t worry too much about the Astor. I’d worry more about packing up your desk.”
With a laugh that borderlined on comically evil, Tom hung up, leaving me in my quiet office, all the fragile pieces of my life in shards at my feet.
* * *
I broke the cluster of pool balls with a single powerful shot. They scattered across the felt, rebounding off the sides and off each other.
The good break did nothing to help my mood.
I chalked my cue and lined up a shot. I was done. Done with the company and done with Beck. I fired, catching the nine ball on a spin and shoving it into the corner pocket.
How could she have such a low opinion of me? What had I ever done to make her think that I was capable of blackmail? What did that say about me? Or about her?
I shot again, bouncing a solid off a stripe and sending it crashing into the side pocket.
This was exactly why I’d avoided all this shit for so long. The highs were fantastic, but the lows? Hell, I could do without this sinking feeling of anger and abandonment. I could go after her, I supposed. Tell her the truth, that it hadn’t been me. But what the hell was the point? She obviously saw me as a cold-blooded, ruthless piece of shit. Any time we had left together, she’d just be watching, waiting, looking for any mistake that could justify her view of me or maybe just of men in general. Well I wasn’t getting involved in it again.
This miserable emptiness I was feeling right now? I could happily go the rest of my life without ever feeling it again.
“Why the long face?”
I looked around. Mason was leaning in the doorway. He wore a white undershirt spattered with paint and had his hands stuffed into the pockets of light gray suit pants. A smudge of white paint was wiped across his forehead.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. I really hoped none of the others were at his back. I wasn’t in the mood to see any of them.
“Painting,” he said. “I’m renting a studio upstairs. I find I need a break from the others frequently enough to justify it.”
I gave a short laugh. “So that’s where you’re always off to.”
He didn’t respond, only raised his eyebrows expectantly.
“What?” I muttered, leaning down to make another shot.
“Why the long face?” he repeated.
“Beck,” I stated. “And work. And life.” I aggressively shot another ball toward a pocket, but it banked and spun into another cluster. “Maybe Twain has it right,” I said, straightening. “Maybe I should just be playing pool all day and fucking randoms.”
Mason snorted and came to join me, sitting against the table. “I’d be hard pressed to admit that Twain is right about anything,” he said. “And so would you if you were thinking clearly. Man can write a good story, but he’s not someone anyone should take life advice from.”
I just shrugged and tried again. This time the ball I was aiming for cleared the edge of the table altogether and rolled under a chair.
“Dammit,” I said. I threw the stick onto the ground and leaned over the table, sides heaving, hands gripping into the felt. My friend didn’t flinch at the outburst.
“Sam,” he said patiently. “Destroying shit never got anything done. Talk to me.”
I sighed. Mason was irritatingly right in most situations. He also had the uncanny ability to make me aware of what an ass I was being.
So I told him. I told him about Beck, about how I’d resisted her pull and finally succumbed. I told him how I thought I was falling in love for the first time in my life only for her to so rudely write me off at the first lie she believed. And since I was already talking, I told him about work and the Blooms and the dying mother of twins and then I kept on talking until I was telling him about my mother and her good moments and final days and the walls I kept up from other people. Mason didn’t speak the entire time. He only looked into the fire and nodded.
When I was done, Mason looked me in the eye and said, “I never thought of you as stupid, Sam. Why are you acting stupid now?”
I gaped at him. I’d just poured my heart and soul onto the carpet and he was calling me stupid?
“You’re going to let this girl just pass you by based on a misunderstanding? A girl who, as you’re well aware, just got out of a years long relationship with someone who’d have thrown those people under the bus in a heartbeat? She’s just scared, as scared as you are of putting her heart out there and watching it get destroyed. She shouldn’t have talked to you like that, but it’s not something the two of you can’t get past. Not if you really want this to work.”
“I’m not sure I do,” I said stubbornly.
“Is that what you really want? Or is that just what you’re convincing yourself because you’re afraid of getting hurt? Heartbreak is a part of life, Sam. If you’re avoiding it, you’re not truly living. We only get one shot at all this.” He smiled sadly and I got the feeling there was something he wasn’t telling me. Some deep secret of his own that he wasn’t willing to share. “If you see a future with this girl, you need to make things right. Or at least try to.”
Mason stood from where he sat on the edge of the table and headed for the door. He paused with one foot in the hall and my serious friend fixed me in his steely-eyed gaze. “Additionally,” he said, “I could tell you the solution to your work problem, but I think you’re smart enough to think of it yourself. I don’t care what Tom says. You wouldn’t be where you are today if you couldn’t.”
Then he disappeared into the hall leaving me with my thoughts. I sat against the table, not moving for a long time, twisting the events of the past couple weeks over in my mind. I thought about Beck and about my mother and about the Blooms. And I thought about all the good times and the bad, those of the past and the ones awaiting me in the future.
And when the solution finally came to me, I was shocked that it had taken me this long.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Beck
I spent most of the next day on the couch. Alice had spent the previous evening consoling me through my various stages of grief — namely anger, depression, and regret. She did her best to help, but there was really nothing she could say that was going to make me feel better and eventually she had to go to bed so she could go to work today. That left me with a long, sleepless night on the couch as I turned my fight with Sam over in my head.
I’d been impulsive, bursting into his office like that. Accusing and hostile. As more time passed and I was able to calm down, I wondered if I should have given him a chance to explain. Explain what though? Would you be able to trust anything that came out of his mouth anyway?
I wasn’t sure, but I knew for a fact that it was wrong of me to accuse him of lying about his mother dying. Even if it was a lie, even if he was completely psychopathic and made it all up, I had absolutely no proof and no right to make such an accusation. Alice had thought so too. She hadn’t said as much, but I could see it in her eyes when I told her the story.
So that was why, when my phone rang and I saw that it was Sam calling, I answered instead of ignoring it and blocking the number. I would apologize for being a complete asshole about something he’d confided in me. And then I’d block his number.
“I’m know you’re angry,” Sam said without even saying hello. “But I need to talk with you in person.”
“We can just talk over the phone,” I said. I did not want to go back down to that office.
“Well you need to get your things and we have some paperwork for you to fill out anyway,” he said. His voice was level and unreadable. He didn’t sound angry, but he didn’t sound happy either. He sounded emotionless and the theory of him being a psychopath popped into my head again. But there would be witnesses at the office, right?
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll come in, but I’m not staying long.”
“That’s okay. I don’t need long,” he said. Then he hung up, leaving me confused and angry and nervous.
The nerves heightened all the way to the office, reaching their peak as I traveled up the elevator. In the main office, I walked straight-backed through to the hall to Sam’s office. I could see Harriet whispering and pointing out of the corner of my eye but I ignored her. In a minute, I’d never see any of them again.
I walked quickly down the hallway. On my desk was a cardboard box filled with a few things. Most of them were things left behind by my predecessor that I hadn’t had time to throw out yet. Oh well, this made it easy for me. There wasn’t a single thing in that box that I wanted and it was all going in the first trashcan I saw on the street.
“Beck.”
I whirled toward the door and saw Sam standing there, his hands in his suit pockets, his face grave.
Stay strong, Beck. He’s a liar and a blackmailer.
“I want to apologize,” I said stiffly, saying the lines I’d rehearsed all the way here.
He turned around and closed his office door firmly behind him. Then he faced me and raised an eyebrow. “Oh really?” he asked.
I crossed my arms. “I shouldn’t have brought your mother into that. It was uncalled for and I was wrong.”
Sam nodded. “I accept your apology. But that’s not what you should be apologizing for.” A retort leapt to my lips, but he talked over me. “No, let me talk. You didn’t let me last night. I understand you have trouble trusting me after what happened with your ex, but I deserved at least the benefit of the doubt. You assumed the worst of me with no evidence at all. That was very hurtful.”
I bit my lip. “The Blooms told me—”
“No, Dorthea told you someone came and blackmailed them. Not me.”
“But who else would send them! You told me you were the only one who knew they weren’t selling.”
An understanding passed through Sam’s eyes and he nodded slowly. “I did say that. But what I didn’t say was that it was only a matter of time before other people found out. And guess what? They found out.”
I stood, stunned. Had I been wrong? “Then who…?”
“Tom,” Sam said. “The hea
d of my board of directors. Remember? The one that was influencing Able and who wants me gone? He was behind this and he was also behind vandalizing the property. I had no idea about any of it until you told me last night. That is the truth of what happened. Do you — can you — believe me?”
The growing realization that I had been wrong, completely and utterly and devastatingly wrong, hit me with the weight of a thousand bad decisions. I opened my mouth, ready to apologize, ready to beg for forgiveness, when a sneaky thought twisted its way into my brain. What if this is a lie too?
My mouth set and I stood frozen, conflicted as he stared at me, waiting for my answer. I wanted to believe, but that image of Troy, crying on our kitchen floor, flooded back to me. That was what zero consequences looked like, in the end. That and a young man lying somewhere on a dark country road, bleeding with a broken back.
Would believing Sam be helping him get away with something? I didn’t know. I couldn’t tell because as much as I wanted to believe that fear held me back.
But then I remembered how he’d wrestled with Mac and then talked to him, just as readily, with a low and soothing voice. I remembered how he opened every door for me and never told me how I should be feeling. And I remembered the raw pain in his face as he demanded those twin children be given every chance at a living mother, even though anger would destroy any chance of a deal.
If I couldn’t trust Sam, after every side I’d seen, then I couldn’t trust anyone. And was that any way to walk through life?
“I’m sorry, Sam,” I heard myself say. “I’m so sorry.” I felt tears begin to trickle down my cheeks. “I don’t know—”
But he’d already crossed the room in three long strides and was pulling me into his arms. He held me close to his strong chest and whispered into my ear, “I know, Beck. It’s okay. It’s okay.”
“But it’s not okay,” I said against his shirt. “It’s all messed up and I don’t know how to fix it. How can you ever forgive me?”
The Boss (Billionaires of Club Tempest #1) Page 16