Chapter 21
Serena
Frowning, I pick up the phone. It’s an internal ring, which I don’t usually get, so I assume it’s Allison when I answer.
“Mr. Carter’s office, Serena speaking.”
“You’ve got a very distinguished, older man here looking for you and that guy!”
“What guy?” I ask Rue.
“The apple guy,” she murmurs and hangs up.
Blinking, I murmur, “Apple guy.” The penny drops, and my frown deepens.
The phone rings again, and I pick it up. “Rue?”
“He said to bring all your stuff.”
She hangs up.
Gathering up my belongings, I glance at my watch.
It’s four thirty, so I might as well call it a day.
It doesn’t look like Logan is coming back any time soon, so this day has been a nightmare of a slow-moving clock waiting for him.
Cutting my losses, with a heavy sigh, I slip on my coat and head out to the reception.
I can only imagine it’s Uncle Quentin. He’s the only distinguished older man I know.
Apart from Logan, but then she’d have said. The apple guy is a mystery, though.
“Serena,” Quentin says as I approach.
“Hi, Uncle Quen.”
He bends to kiss me on the top of my head.
I wouldn’t say we are close, but we aren’t strangers either.
Flicking my glance to the giant tree man next to him, I raise my gaze up and up and across his broad chest and then press my lips together to stop the smile.
Not being able to resist looking at Rue, I try to give her my absolute approval with my eyes, but she is too busy staring at him, and it’s not for me to wonder why.
He is gorgeous. Pitch black hair and blue eyes that are so clear, they are practically luminous.
Now, I’m a sucker for tall, dark, and blue-eyed, obviously, given my feelings for Logan, but this guy is… wow.
He is utterly oblivious to Rue, me, Quentin, and pretty much everyone and everything, and I wonder who he is.
“Come, I’ll give you a lift home,” Quen murmurs.
I wave to Rue and follow Quen into the elevator. We are quiet on the ride down, and when we head outside, there is an expensive black car waiting at the curb. Quentin opens the back door for me and gestures me inside before he slips in next to me.
“Serena!”
Glancing up at the voice, it’s cut off when Quentin closes the door, and I see Apple guy slam his hand into Logan’s chest.
The driver shoots away from the curb as I turn in my seat to stare at Logan, arguing with the ginormous man on the sidewalk. “Wait!” I exclaim. “I need to speak to him.”
“I need to speak to you first. It’s important.”
Turning back around, I glare at Quen. “What is this about?”
“This is about you and him.”
“Him? Him who?”
“Logan Carter.”
Quentin hasn’t looked at me yet, instead speaking to the back of the headrest in front of him.
Feeling that we’ve entered some dangerous territory, I sit back, almost defensively, pulling my bag onto my lap. “What about him and me?”
He sighs and faces me. “Cilla was worried about you, so I set you up with this job, thinking you’d be safe from a man like Logan Carter.
He has a general dislike for the human race, and I thought he would leave you alone to just get on with your work in a place where you could further your own career.
” He pauses and purses his lips before continuing.
“But I realize now that I made a grave error sending you to him.”
“What do you mean?”
“He is a dangerous man, Rena. He is older than you and not the type of man that you should be associated with on a personal level.”
“I’m still not getting it,” I murmur. “He’s my boss.”
“He has been looking into your life,” he states crisply.
“He has dug up things about you to use to worm his way into your life. You are a conquest to him. Sweet and innocent in his morally gray world. He sees you as a challenge. He will get under your skin with the things he knows about you, use you, and discard you. I will not allow that to happen.”
“Uhm…” That stings. Not so much the fact that Logan has been learning about me through insidious means, I actually find that almost flattering in my fucked-up mind, but Quen’s words are harsh.
A conquest. Use. Discard. These are not words a woman wants to hear about the man she’s just had sex with only a few hours ago.
“I don’t think it’s any of your business,” I say, my temper rising.
“Actually, it is, and I absolutely forbid you to see this man again.”
“What?” I thunder. “Forbid? Who the hell do you think you are? You are not my parent, you cannot forbid me anything, least of all a man that, to be honest, has no interest in me whatsoever.”
“Oh, but he does. And I am well within my rights to forbid this.”
“I’m an adult,” I hiss. “This is ridiculous.”
“That you may be, but you are too innocent to be involved in any way with Logan Carter. He will corrupt you. Destroy you, and I will not allow that to happen while there is breath left in my body.”
“What? What the hell is this?” I look frantically around, but there is no escaping this car.
Not yet. We are headed towards my apartment, still moving through the busy street.
I could open the door and jump out but risk breaking my limbs in the process.
It seems counter-productive, but my mind is reeling, and irrational thoughts are leaping out at me from all over the place.
“This is me looking out for you and fixing the error that I made. You will not be returning to work at Carter it’s absurd that I thought I even had a chance with him.
“I hate you,” I spit out, turning and shoving the car door open.
“You’ll understand one day, Serena.”
“Fuck you!” Slamming the door, I stand on the pavement, watching the car drift off, taking my sanity with it.
With my crushed heart, I slump my shoulders and slope into my apartment, dropping my bag and coat on the floor before kicking my shoes off.
In a daze, my mind almost shutting down, I stumble to the bathroom and strip off all my clothes, throwing them into the hamper.
Quentin has no business being in mine the way he was tonight. But his words are sticking with me, and they hurt.
It makes what Logan did to me worse. Staring at my reflection in the mirror, I pull my hair out of the braid, letting it tumble around my shoulders and down my back as I walk into the kitchen, only vaguely aware of my actions.
He touched me, knowing that he was playing with me.
He fucked me, knowing he was never going to do it again.
I gave it up to him so easily, and now he can’t stand the sight of me.
It’s why he didn’t come back to the office all day.
I’m better off not going back there. I wanted to quit. I should’ve left on my own terms.
Opening the fridge, the pain in my heart is too much to bear.
Stupidity doesn’t cover my actions. Falling for him was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made, and now I’m paying for it.
Snatching up the nearly full bottle of wine I opened yesterday, I remove the cork and press the bottle to my lips.
Gulping back a mouthful of wine, the fumes burning my nostrils, as I swallow half the bottle, I tilt it to drink more, draining it quickly.
This will get me drunk fast on an empty stomach, and that’s what I need.
I need to forget. Dropping it in the sink, I lean down to grab another from the wine rack, fumbling with the corkscrew as I open it.
Placing it to my lips, I drink again, gulping back half the bottle before I stop, feeling sick. My head is already swimming as I stumble backward. Pulling open the kitchen drawer, I grab the sharpest knife I can find before staggering to my bag. Rooting around, I find my phone and call Rue.
“Serena, what’s up?”
Moving over to the bathroom, I don’t answer right away. I’m not sure what to say.
“Serena? You there?”
“Yeah,” I croak, my voice sounding drunk to my own ears.
“What’s wrong?” she asks instantly.
“Everything,” I slur, slumping down on the bathroom floor and leaning against the bath. “Everything.”
“Talk to me, boo. What’s going on?”
“Don’t want to talk.”
“Do you want me to come over?”
“No. Don’t want you to have to clean up the mess.”
“What mess?” Her voice is scared. I can hear it. I don’t want to cause her that fear, but it’s too late now. I’ve dragged her into my shitshow because I didn’t want to be alone.
“I’m sorry, Rue. You’ve been so nice to me. I’m sorry, and tell your friends I’m sorry too.”
“Serena!”
“Bye, Rue.”
“Serena—”
Hanging up, knowing I’m a coward with my cry for help, I bring the knife up to my arm, dragging the blade across my wrist, just shy of where it would kill me.
I don’t even have the guts to kill myself.
I never did.
The old scars are still there—all of them.
Slicing over them, the burn of the knife cutting open my skin makes me choke on the air struggling out of my lungs. The crimson liquid wells up and seeps out, staining my arm, the knife, the floor.
Sticky and warm, it drips over my skin until four cuts show deep and dark red on my lower arm. Lightheaded, I swap hands, the handle of the knife viscous with my blood, I repeat the gashes, another four, eight in total.
“Logan.” I pass out with his name on my lips, from the gory sight, the wine, and the sheer desperation of being such a failure, of being so unlovable, that men just want to use me as a pawn in their games.