Chapter 17
It was everything Connor could do to keep his expression neutral as he fled Nate’s office, only one thought echoing in his skull like a pounding drum.
Run.
Run where?
Run away.
Down the long hallway leading away from Nate’s office, past the giggling legal secretaries and their shiny clipboards.
Run. Run. Run.
He could feel his phone vibrating in his pocket. Connor stopped just outside a conference room full of consultants planning a client deliverable, pulling out his phone so he could switch off his location, muting Nate’s incoming call at the same time.
Run.
But where was he supposed to go?
He couldn’t hide, he couldn’t escape this. Nowhere in Alarie was safe. He walked until he found himself outside the elevator, considering his options.
Up? To the roof?
Down? To his car?
There was no way out.
Down was quitting. Quitting before they could fire him, maybe. But quitting. And Connor couldn’t quit, couldn’t let everything he’d sacrificed be for nothing.
But then what?
They were just going to fire him anyway.
Nate was probably in there now, planning out the best way to get rid of him with his dad, the two of them rifling through his laptop for every report he ever made, every email he ever sent, wringing every last bit of value they could from him before he was taken out to be shot like a beef bull.
That proposal of his, it was nothing more than the filet mignon. And now they were coming for the rest.
Connor glimpsed his own reflection in the silver button panel, grimacing. Forget his mask, he looked like a fucking mess, his collar askew, his tie half undone–when the hell had he done all that?
But it wasn’t him–it had been Nate, before Berkshire even stepped inside.
Before Nate sold him out, handed his future on a silver platter to his father–for what, to curry himself some favor?
He’d trusted Nate.
Goddammit, Connor had trusted Nate. Held him worthy of knowing his life, his fucking aspirations, every dream he held of success for his career. And then Connor had gone and thought Nate was who he claimed to be, thought Nate might be different, thought he’d never do what Devore–
Connor pressed the button that would take him up without thinking about it. The elevator chimed, double doors sliding open.
No wait.
He stepped inside and considered the button panel, fingertip grazing over the 1 before he hit R instead.
It wasn’t much of a conscious thought as the doors slid open, what he’d do once he made it up here, but it was a path Connor had walked time and time again, from the elevator doors to the little bench near the railing, just barely shaded by a dying palm tree in a purple pot.
The rooftop garden atop Alarie Inc. was quite beautiful–or, it had been a few years ago. Then some of the assistants who maintained the potted trees had moved on, and no one thought to continue their work.
No one really came up here anymore, not unless they knew about it. So he’d be alone.
The weather was warming up. He could tell as soon as the doors opened that he’d be sweating in his jacket, so he took it off, hanging it over the back of one of the chairs near a couple potted palm trees.
Greens against a pretty blue sky. It was a nice day.
Too nice for how Connor’s life was crumbling to pieces.
He walked to the railing just as he did a dozen times before, gripping the ironwrought and peering downwards. Six stories, that had to be… what, sixty feet?
Was that enough? Did it even come close?
What if he did it anyway?
If Connor tried, he could picture it. He could feel himself balancing on the railing, balancing, and maybe losing his balance. The weightlessness of falling. Maybe panic just before hitting the ground.
That would hurt.
Breaking his spine, his legs, maybe his neck if he got lucky and managed to swandive. Then he’d feel nothing.
If not, he'd lay there in agony until someone found him. If he died–well, that was the better outcome. But surviving–
Fuck.
Surviving would be worse than where he is now.
Connor was well and truly trapped.
He sucked in breath after breath, swallowing down the lump in his throat, something tearing in his ribcage. He didn’t want to be here, and he didn’t want to jump. God, he wanted to be anywhere but here.
His apartment, watching the sun touch down on the verdant green hills of Irvine, listening to his neighbors’ television playing reruns of The Price is Right through thin walls.
The ocean, straddling his surfboard while studying the wave patterns for when to drop in next.
Home, at his parents’ house, glimpsing Lake Erie from their attic window while his dad yelled at him to come down and give him a hand on the boat–
“Hey, Connor.”
A voice behind him yanked Connor back into his body.
Where was he again?
He was standing on the roof of Alarie’s headquarters. It was a warm day, and Nate was going to fire him.
But the young man who came to join him seemed oblivious to all of that as he pulled a cigarette out of a carton and offered one to Connor, which he accepted.
“Ryan Park, right?” Connor asked, trying to play normal, rotating the cigarette between his fingers.
His hands were shaking too hard to do much else with it.
“Yeah.” Ryan pulled out his lighter and lit Connor’s cigarette first before lighting his own, taking a heavy drag. “Fuck, it’s hot today.”
Connor grunted noncommittally, trying to mirror Ryan. Cigarette between his fingers, brought to his lips–fuck, it burned but exhaling felt nice enough, bringing a little rush. He didn’t normally smoke, but the slow draws seemed to be helping… whatever was happening in his chest.
The two men smoked in silence, strangers together, Connor only knowing Ryan because of Liam. But a stranger he wouldn’t jump in front of, at least.
Whether Liam knew it or not, he was Connor’s savior for that, if only for the moment.
“Oh, Junie was looking for you,” Ryan said after a long while.
Connor felt his mouth go dry.
“Junie?”
“She told Liam to tell me to tell you to go find her. Something about how they need a statement from Santos.”
Santos.
Connor took an angry drag off the cigarette, smoke harsh and bitter in his throat.
“What about?”
“I dunno. Go ask her.” Ryan tapped his cigarette off the railing, watching the wind carry the ashes away. “Don’t you guys have phones?”
Connor didn’t say anything smart in response–instead, he pulled his phone out to check for any new messages from Junie.
Nothing.
Instead, all he saw was two missed calls from Nate.
A single text that he dismissed before he could read it.
Fuck. Just seeing Nate’s name on his phone had Connor feeling like he might be sick.
He stuffed his phone back into his pocket, taking a long draw off the cigarette. Sure, it didn’t help his nausea, but it wasn’t like it hurt. And Connor never smoked much before–but why not start?
Why not just throw himself off the roof of Alarie and let them scrape him off the entryway?
A part of him wanted to, genuinely wanted to see Nate's face, wanted to hurt him–
But what could he possibly do? Nate held all the power. He always had.
Connor never stood a chance.
His stomach churned, like he was going to throw up right over the railing.
Maybe that was better than throwing himself off the roof.
“So you gonna see her or not?” Ryan asked, cutting in.
Connor stamped the cigarette out on the railing before tossing it off the edge, watching the smoldering butt disappear into the wind.
No, he wasn’t going to jump. He couldn’t. If not for himself, then because–
“Yeah, I’ll go see her,” Connor said stiffly, playing up more controlled than he felt.
Junie had always been the safest part of Alarie for him. Even if she couldn’t save him, she could bear witness as all he built crumpled into nothing.
He thanked Ryan for the cigarette, then Connor took the stairs down to Thornton’s office, not bothering to knock before throwing open the door.
“Connor? Jesus–you scared the shit out of me.”
Junie had been perched at the edge of Thornton’s desk, her pink Macbook open as she worked, but she was on her feet as Connor stepped inside, the door closing behind him.
He tried to breathe, tried to speak, but all that came out was a wheeze as his knees buckled and Connor crumpled onto the carpet.
“Oh, shit. Connor–”
Junie was on her feet in an instant, almost knocking her Macbook off the table as she rushed to Connor, meeting him on the ground, both her hands at his shoulders.
“Hey, hey, breathe, you’re okay,” she was saying, but Connor sucked in a breath, and then another, and when he could finally speak it all came out at once.
“I’m sleeping with Nate Santos,” he blurted out. Junie stiffened, her eyes widening, but she didn’t release him.
“Oh–okay. Okay, that’s–”
“Nate Santos is Isaac Berkshire’s son.” It felt like ripping knife after knife from his ribcage, but once he started talking, he couldn’t stop. “He’s a bastard or–or something I don’t–but Berkshire brought him in–”
“Brought him in, what do you mean brought him in?”
“He hired him, they must have–they must have stretched his experience or something and he’s having Nate sign these deals, these investor agreements that don’t make any sense–they took–” Connor felt that same lump in his throat and he swallowed it down, fought off the sob building in his chest, “Junie, Nate took my work and he gave it to Berkshire and he–he’s going to fire me, Berkshire told him to fire me.
They wanted me gone, ever since Devore. God.
Junie. I was sleeping with Devore, I never told you, I–”
He tried breathe in but all that sounded was another wheeze, Junie’s face gone ghostly white.
“Connor, that’s really bad,” she said in a small voice.
He knew it was bad.
Fuck, he didn’t need her telling him. This was why he’d never told her, never wanted to see those brown eyes looking at him like this, pitying him worse than when Dawson had left, when she’d slept over for nearly a month because he couldn’t stand to be alone–
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I never told you, I’m sorry. I fucked up, I’ve–”
“What’s going on in here?”
Shit.