Ten
Natalia
Humiliated.
I’d experienced a wide array of emotions in my life—so many that were not good—and yet, I couldn’t remember one time when I’d ever felt so very embarrassed for being myself.
Ever since I left work yesterday, ever since I’d been screamed at so harshly by Reid, I’d felt nothing but hollow. Dazed. Like I was walking around in a fog. Like I’d do anything never to be screamed at like that again.
“Do you ever shut up?”
I cringed just recalling those words.
It wasn’t lost on me that I talked a lot. I never looked at it as a bad thing. If anything, I thought it was a good trait. I could break the ice in any situation and set people at ease.
Perhaps I’d been wrong.
Apparently, all I did was talk and talk and talk about things nobody cared to hear about. Was that how people saw me? Had Reid really been the only one brave enough, cruel enough, to say it to my face?
Unsurprisingly, after I left yesterday evening, Reid never made the effort to seek me out so he could apologize.
He probably didn’t think it was worth apologizing to someone for something like that, especially not when he believed he was telling the truth, no matter how insensitive his method might’ve been.
I wasn’t sure how I’d ever face Reid again.
And it was that uncertainty, that fear, of how it would go down with him that led to me sticking to my office all day today.
I came in slightly earlier than usual this morning just to lessen the possibility of running into him.
Throughout the day, despite the urge I had to do the opposite, I remained in my office.
I did that to avoid him and to stop myself from seeking out colleagues who might not have wanted to speak to me and were simply too nice to tell me the truth.
I hated having to admit that there was a small part of me that was hoping a knock would come on my office door, though. That Reid would feel some level of regret for how he’d treated me and would want to come to apologize to me.
It never happened.
And now that I’d reached the end of the day without a peep from him, I loathed that I had work-related items that required his attention, things that needed his signature.
I could only hope I’d be so lucky as to get to his office after he had already left for the day.
I was praying he’d ducked out just a touch early.
Maybe, if I were truly fortunate, he hadn’t come in at all today.
Gathering up my things so I’d be able to make a swift exit after I dropped off the documents, I slipped out of my office and made my way to Reid’s.
Hesitantly, I knocked on the closed door. And unlike I’d done earlier this week, I waited until he’d spoken. “Come in.”
I inhaled deeply, curled my fingers around the handle, and pushed inside. My stomach was a trembling mess of nerves, and it was everything I could do to avoid his gaze. I kept my eyes trained on his desk as I made my approach with the file folder.
After setting it down, I spoke softly. “Everything inside that needs your attention is marked accordingly. Feel free to leave it on my desk when you’ve completed it.”
Without another word, certainly without waiting for a response, I turned to leave. I’d taken two whole steps toward the exit when Reid called my name. “Natalia?”
I froze, every muscle in my body beyond tense. Unwilling to look at him, I turned my head just enough to gaze down at the ground over my shoulder. From his vantage point, Reid could see my profile.
“About yesterday, I?—”
“Please,” I said, holding up my hand, as though attempting to physically halt his words. “I think you were right. Let’s not worry about yesterday and just keep our conversations to work-related discussions only.”
“Natalia?”
“I have somewhere to be. Excuse me.”
I could’ve sworn I heard him let out a growl of frustration as I stepped out of his office, but I didn’t let that stop me. And I definitely didn’t consider turning around to look at him.
I never claimed to be perfect. I certainly had my faults.
But I refused to accept the kind of treatment Reid had given me yesterday.
Whether he intended to say something to me now, to even utter an apology, didn’t matter.
He had the entire day. He had all night last night.
Not once had he approached me and tried to make it right.
Even if he believed in what he’d been saying, he couldn’t deny that he’d gone about sharing it the wrong way.
No matter how annoying he thought I was, regardless of how much I talked, I deserved better than being shouted at, and I’d be damned if I allowed him to think he could treat me that way and not even make the effort to fix it.
Given the hour, I wouldn’t have much time left, but I desperately needed some time at the lake. And since I refused to go anywhere near the lake that was situated right outside Reid’s cabin, I decided to do something I told myself I wouldn’t ever do.
Lake Erie.
I was going to go to Lake Erie and skip some stones to help me forget about how badly I’d been hurt by Reid’s words. I didn’t know it was possible for my chest to physically ache with the pain I felt over how he’d treated me.
And at Sandstone Heart, of all places.
For so long, it had been a haven for me.
It was the one place that I’d always felt safe.
Respected. Now, that was gone. And I didn’t think it’d ever be the same again.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have gone to Barrett and Sylvia’s place in an effort to solidify my position at Sandstone Heart.
If I hadn’t, maybe Reid would have already fired me, and I could have avoided the heartbreak that staying had led me to.
I’d made it to the lake and didn’t hesitate to find a few stones to throw. If I were lucky, I had thirty or forty minutes left before the sun would set, so I wanted to take full advantage of my time.
With each stone I tossed out into the water, the emotions bubbled up inside me. The hurt, the loneliness, the overwhelming desire to be loved. I’d lost everything that mattered. All of it. And the only thing I had left was the retreat. The place had saved me, had brought me joy and hope again.
And now it was ruined.
If what I’d experienced today was how things were going to be from this point forward—at least until Barrett returned—then I wasn’t sure how I’d make it. Reid was still going to be there for more than five months. I couldn’t do what I did today for that long.
The sun began to dip below the horizon as tears streamed down my cheeks. I didn’t bother to wipe them, because they just kept coming.
I was convinced things couldn’t get any worse.
Then it happened.
I was down to my last three stones when I heard the chilling voice. “Well, well, well… Look who it is.”
My body froze to a state even more solid than it had when I’d been in Reid’s office not even an hour ago. I didn’t need to take my eyes off the massive body of water in front of me to know who had made their approach.
This couldn’t be happening.
It couldn’t.
But it was. Because I was stupid. I knew better than to come this far off the retreat, especially on my own.
“I’ve been wondering when you’d show up.”
Slowly, feeling like I was going to be sick in the sand beneath my feet, I turned to the sound of that menacing voice.
My knees wobbled at the sight of the man before me, and I regretted not having the guts to face Reid, because on some level, despite how harshly he’d yelled at me, I didn’t think he had it in him to do what I knew the man of front of me did.
It was my abusive ex-boyfriend, Tim Dorsey.
And with one look into those sinister eyes, I didn’t dare dream of making it out of this unscathed. Especially when a quick scan of the surrounding area told me what I knew to be true for far too long now.
I was alone.
Reid
I was the worst kind of asshole.
For someone who hated the things my father did because of how it made me feel, I couldn’t seem to regulate my emotions where that man was concerned. At least enough not to take it out on someone else.
And it led me to such a monumental fuck-up.
Fear.
God, Natalia had cowered away from me that day with such fear haunting her eyes.
After the encounter I’d had with her at the lake on Saturday morning, I told myself I needed to start making an effort to give her the benefit of the doubt.
I had no proof that she was working with my father or partaking in any scheme he might have concocted.
And unless I got that proof, I needed to find a way to be decent to her.
So, when I saw her in the café on Sunday, I decided to try being myself.
I tried being the guy I was whenever my father wasn’t around.
Of course, I had some reservations about what I’d be setting myself—and Natalia—up for when the time came to take down the retreat, but I figured I’d come up with a plan by then.
Sadly, I hadn’t even managed to go a full week without being a dick to her.
I had to fix it.
Yesterday had been awful, and until it happened, I hadn’t realized how much I looked forward to seeing her throughout my day. Sure, I told myself the opposite was true. I portrayed the very definition of irritated whenever she’d walked in up until my recent revelation.
I’d gone the entire morning and afternoon without a single visit from her.
I should’ve expected as much when I screamed at her the way I had, when I’d said the horrible, untrue things that I did about her.
And when she finally made an appearance at the end of the day, it was like I could breathe again.
But that relief had been short-lived.
Because there was no smile. No joy. No hope that she wasn’t trying to hold a grudge against me.
And I’d done it. I’d taken that all away from her.