Chapter 25 Tate #2
“Yes!” I step inside his office. “Do you seriously expect me to work for you after you used me like that? You don’t respect me—”
“I do.”
I snort. “You don’t. You don’t care about my feelings—”
“I do.” His voice is so deep, so sure of himself.
So fucking arrogant.
“Stop talking!” I snap. “You’re a liar! You wouldn’t throw me out like trash if any of that were true. At least admit it. You’re nothing but a selfish jerk with charm. And I fell for it.”
He stares at me, his nostrils flaring as he flattens his hands on top of his desk like he’s fighting to remain calm. “I’m sorry, Tate.”
I walk over to his desk, wanting to make him see what a terrible bullshitter he is, show him I can see right through him.
It all happens so fast. I’m not paying attention, too intent on glaring at him. I slam my hands down on his desk and bring one straight down on top of a letter opener, catching it at an awkward angle.
“Shit!” I yelp as white-hot fire races up my arm.
My finger throbs, bright red blood dripping from it and dropping onto the desk.
“Jesus!” Sullivan barks.
He flies out of his chair. His eyes widen as more blood runs down my finger and onto my hand.
He jabs the desk phone. “Cara! Call an ambulance!” he barks before rounding the desk. “It’s okay. I’ve got you, Baby.”
With one giant sweep of his arm, he sends everything on his desk crashing to the floor, then lifts me up to sit on top of it.
“Tate,” he hisses, taking my hand between his and surveying the bleeding cut. “Fuck.”
He lifts my finger to his mouth and slides it past his lips, sucking it gently. His warm tongue swirls over it, cleaning off the blood, before holding it inside his mouth.
“What are you doing? It’s just a cut.”
He pulls my finger out, grunting something, before sliding it back in and against his tongue again. He yanks his tie free, then slides my finger out again so he can wrap the silver silk around it.
“What’s happened?” Cara appears in the open doorway, her eyes bouncing off the mess on the floor before locking onto us.
Sullivan doesn’t look her way. His attention is fixed on wrapping my finger with his tie.
“Miss Miller cut herself. She’s a hemophiliac. Where’s the damn ambulance?”
“I’ll go and call it.”
“You haven’t fucking called it?” Sullivan roars, snapping his face toward her.
She withers under his death glare. “I didn’t know. I came to see what was happ—”
“You’re fired!” he snaps. “Get your stuff and get the hell out.”
“Sullivan,” I say.
He sucks in a deep breath through his nose, his jaw so tense that his teeth are probably being ground away to nothing.
“It’s okay,” I say, placing my uninjured hand to his cheek and turning his face to mine.
Wild, panicked blue eyes meet mine.
“I’m not a hemophiliac. And it’s just a cut. See?”
I unwrap the silver silk from my finger and show him my finger. It’s bloodied, but the flow is already easing, showing just a small cut on the tip.
He puffs out a ragged breath, studying my finger with a frown. His lower lip has a smudge of blood on it.
“I saw your medication when it fell out of your bag.”
“It was my father’s.”
Sullivan flicks his attention toward a sniveling Cara.
“You can go, Cara. We’ll discuss this later.”
She flees, and as awful as she’s been to me, I feel sorry for her. Being on the receiving end of Sullivan’s wrath is not a place I’d wish upon anyone.
“Your father?” he asks, holding his tie back against my finger to stem the remaining bleeding.
“Yes. It’s why he lost his job at the engineering firm. He got injured and almost died. They fired him saying he was unfit to perform his job. I hired him a lawyer. He’s fighting it.”
“You paid for a lawyer yourself?”
“Yes.”
He blows out a breath. “Jesus, Tate. You should have told me. I’d have helped you.”
“What?”
“I’d have helped you,” he repeats. “Got him the best lawyer. Torn his old company to shreds, if that’s what you wanted.”
I stare at him.
I came in here because of the way he treated me last night. That hasn’t suddenly been made all better because he got concerned over a cut and is talking like this.
“It’s not your problem.”
“It’s affecting you, so it is my problem,” he all but growls.
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
He’s going to give me whiplash, acting like he did last night, then going wild with concern this morning, and saying things like this.
“Keep it there,” he instructs, ignoring me and placing my hand over his tie on my finger.
He walks over to a cabinet and opens a drawer, coming back with a first aid kit. He places it on the desk and opens it.
“Let me see,” he instructs softly.
I remove his tie and hold my finger up. His brow furrows and he curses quietly like the sight of the small cut upsets him as he inspects it.
“It won’t need stitches. It’s not that deep,” he says.
“I know.”
He arches a brow at me, his eyes meeting mine momentarily, before he gets an antiseptic wipe and takes his time cleaning the cut. Once he’s done he unwraps a band-aid and secures it on my skin.
“Teddy bears?”
His eyes flick to mine, the grim line of his mouth softening as he packs the kit away.
“They’re Molly’s. And they’re explorer bears.”
I scan his profile, before looking back at the band-aid. The tiny bears are wearing clothes and carrying compasses.
“Uh-huh,” I murmur.
Sullivan’s jaw clenches and he clears his throat. “I’m sorry about last night. I’ve never… no one’s ever been at the house with me like that since Molly came along.”
Something about his tone and difficulty in getting the words out makes me believe he’s being honest.
“And I’d have understood if that’s what you told me. But you didn’t. You threw me out afterward, saying it meant nothing.”
I turn away, pretending to look around his office, instead of at him. I came here to give him a piece of my mind. Yet here I am again, weakening the moment he’s nice to me. So desperate to cling onto something that isn’t there. To believe the glimpses of the man I thought he is, are real.
They aren’t.
I slide off his desk. Coming here was pointless. It’s time to walk out and not look back.
“I made a mistake. It meant everything,” he says to my back.
I freeze halfway across the room at his choked confession.
“Tate,” he urges. “Look at me.”
If I do as he asks, that could be it. I’ll be sucked into his gaze, never to return.
He exhales slowly when I don’t turn around.
“Molly’s mother is an addict who left her on my doorstep in a peaches delivery box. A fucking box, Tate.”
I move slowly, braving a glance at him over my shoulder first. He’s standing in front of his desk, the room around him chaos where he threw everything off his desk to help me.
His eyes have an emotional sheen to them I’ve never seen before.
“She was three months old. And it’s been just me and her ever since.”
“I thought Claudia—”
“She’s not Molly’s mother. We were engaged. And that ended the night Molly came into my life.”
“She didn’t want to stick around?” I turn to face him, my heart clenching at the way his entire body seems to have lost its fight.
“She wasn’t sure.”
“But now she is? Is that why she came back?”
His face hardens. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t give second chances where my daughter is concerned.”
I stare at him, unsure where this sudden barrage of openness has come from.
“Molly isn’t baggage, Tate. I won’t have her being seen as a catch to being with me. She’s everything to me. She’s the reason I’m still here. After my brother, I—”
“You wondered how you’d keep going,” I say.
He nods. “You understand.”
“After my mother died I knew my father needed someone to make sure he was careful. Make sure he took his medication. His need for me stopped my grief from taking everything from me.” I give Sullivan a weak smile.
He walks over to me slowly, like he’s concerned I might still run out.
“I should never have treated you like I did last night. I panicked when Molly woke up.”
I look into his open gaze. “I don’t know whether to believe you or not.”
His eyes pinch and he presses his lips together as his eyes roam over my face.
“I’ve given you no reason to trust me. But I’m telling you the truth.
I wanted last night to happen. I wanted you.
And even though forgetting it would be easier; I know I can’t do that.
I don’t want to do that. Not if it means you walking out of here and never coming back.
There’s something between us. You can’t deny it.
Not after how we were together last night.
You can’t fake that kind of connection.”
He takes my hands, lifting them to his lips.
Warm breath skates over my fingertips as he gently kisses the teddy bear Band-Aid.
“I can’t let you walk out of here hating me.”
My throat’s too dry to speak easily, so it comes out as an uneven whisper.
“I don’t hate you.”
“Thank you—”
“I did twenty minutes ago.”
Sullivan’s mouth softens. “I hated myself twenty minutes ago too.”
“And now?”
He brings my finger to his lips again.
“That depends on whether you’ll let me make it up to you.”
His eyes warm as he runs the tip of his nose down my fingers and presses a soft kiss into my palm.
“Keep talking.”