Chapter 2
Jackson
Ishould have answered my phone.
Rachel is talking to me as I fight with my pants.
She reaches for me.
I wrench my shoulder away, as disgusted with her touch as I am with myself.
I race after Ellary.
My wife.
I need to catch up to her in the parking lot before she leaves. I have to explain that this was just a mistake.
Something glints on the floor. I hurry past it, ignoring Rachel calling my name. Dashing out of my office, I fumble with my zipper, wincing when I’m not careful enough.
My boss shouts my name. He must have heard our raised voices and stepped out of his office to find out what was going on.
I ignore him as I sprint down the hallway.
She couldn’t have left yet.
Please don’t let her have left yet.
“Jackson, what’s wrong?” Meghan at the front desk asks when I dash past on my way to the building’s entrance.
I could ask her about Ellary, but the longer I take to catch up to my wife, the more chance I have of missing her before she gets into her car and drives away.
I can still catch her and explain.
Bursting out of the front doors and into a warm and bright, blue-skied afternoon, I slow my sprint and sweep my gaze over the quiet parking lot.
There’s no sign of Ellary’s silver Honda Civic.
My godfather’s logistics company is small, with only ten employees, and is situated downtown on Main Street in our small northern Michigan town.
We share the parking lot with the accountant next door, but it’s not so full that I wouldn’t have noticed her car right away.
Desperate, I venture farther out of the building, scanning the parked cars as I cup my hands around my mouth to shout. “Ellary?”
Only the rumble and purr of cars on Main Street answer my call.
Desperation wars with panic as I weave around the parked cars.
Ellary is gone.
Reaching my car, a dark blue Toyota, I stick my hand in my pocket and mutter a curse.
Shit.
My keys and wallet are in the top drawer of my desk, where I empty them every morning when I get to work, right before I head for the morning meeting with my boss in his office, which is a couple of doors away from mine
Ellary would have gone home or to her parents' house, since they’ve always been close. What she walked in would have gutted her; she’ll be hurting and need her family around her.
Five minutes is all I need to explain to her that what happened was a mistake.
Just five minutes.
I hurry back inside the single-story red-brick building, mentally working out exactly what I’ll say to Ellie and how I’ll make things right.
This doesn’t have to be the end of our marriage.
Meghan is on a call. Her curious brown gaze trails me as I rush past her desk and down the hallway.
There’s no sign of Rachel in my office, though the blinds are still closed and the lights turned up to full brightness.
Beside my right leather shoe, silver metal glints at me from the floor.
I noticed it out of the corner of my eye as I rushed after Ellie.
Now I see it.
Now my heart clenches and my stomach twists when I see what it is.
A small silver wedding band, discarded on my office carpet.
Ellary’s.
I’d been so focused on Ellie’s face after literally being caught with my pants down and my assistant under my desk, I’d barely noticed her hands were busy as she retreated from my office.
She’d told me it was over before she rushed out, and she’d been pulling her wedding ring off and dropping it on the carpet.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Bending, I snatch up the ring.
It’s cool to the touch when it’s usually warm.
She never takes it off. Not to sleep, shower, or even cook.
It has lived on her fourth finger since I slipped it on there nine years ago.
We were twenty and intended to wait to get married after we graduated from college in California, where she majored in business and I majored in communications.
But one summer, we came home to Michigan, where we met and started dating in high school.
One lazy Sunday afternoon, we were having a barbecue with family in my parents' backyard. We looked at each other, and I said, "Should we just do it this summer?”
She said yes, making me so damn happy.
I’d proposed a couple of months before. Ellary had said she’d start planning the wedding after we graduated from college, and I was sure where I’d be drafted, since I was a Division I hockey player heading for the NHL.
But it had felt right to do it then rather than wait another couple of years for something we were ready to do right away.
Our friends and family showed up for us. They hustled, and they spent every waking minute putting together a beautiful backyard wedding for us that had both Ellie and me in tears.
That ring holds memories that will never fade. The happiest day of both our lives.
Happier than when my dream hockey team in Colorado drafted me.
None of us predicted a career-ending knee injury would cut my pro hockey career short before a full year as a rookie, and that we would return to Melton, where I started working as a sales manager for an independent logistics company owned by a family friend who was also my godfather.
We figured she’d get pregnant soon, so I told her there was no point in her finding another full-time job after she’d quit the job she’d gotten in Colorado.
Swallowing my rising panic, I pocket the slim silver band.
I can save our marriage. Whatever it takes, I can save it.
Ducking around my cluttered desk, I slide open the top drawer and grab my car keys and cell phone. Glancing at the screen, I curse at the three missed calls and text message from Ellary.
I read the text:
ELLARY
Coming to your office. We need to talk.
She came here to talk to me because she couldn’t reach me. My cell phone was on silent, vibration only. She has only ever texted or called me at work when something has been wrong. Like when her dad tripped and hurt his knee, and she rushed to the hospital to make sure he was okay.
Alarmed now for a completely different reason, I slam the drawer shut and grab my suit jacket hanging on the back of my chair.
I make it five steps down the hallway before my boss’s booming voice slams into my back, stopping me in my tracks.
“Jackson Olsen.”
My godfather, Dennis Cochran, never shouts. It takes a lot of hard work to build a logistics company from the ground up. He put in the work and then some, but he never let Cochran Logistics take over his life. He always made time for his family and me, and he never raised his voice.
Until now.
He’d called after me curiously when I rushed after Ellary. This isn’t my boss being curious. This is an order if there ever was one.
I turn to face him.
He’s not a big man. A little under six feet tall, in his late fifties, with thick black hair dusted with silver. His usually smiling brown eyes are hard, and his lips are compressed into a tight line.
“I have to go,” I say, still mentally rehearsing what I intend to say to Ellie. “Something happened.”
Shoulders tense, he radiates anger. “I know exactly what has happened. Get in here.”
I back up. “I have to speak to Ellary. It’s important.”
“Leave, and you won’t have a job waiting for you, Jackson. I want you in here explaining to me why I’m paying you to have sex with your assistant. In here now.”
Without waiting for a response, he turns around and disappears back into his office.
I hesitate.
A couple of doors swing open, my co-workers drawn by the raised voices. I ignore their curious stares as I debate what to do.
Risk pissing my boss off even more than I already have, and lose a job I need to keep paying the mortgage, or go after Ellie.
Dennis is one of the calmest guys I know. Has been since I was a kid. For him to be this fired up means this is not a situation I can afford to walk away from. This is no idle threat.
Ellary is at home. If she’s not home, she’ll be with her parents or older sister.
I’ll deal with my boss and floor it to get home to Ellie.
I follow my boss into his office.
He’s already sitting at his desk, glaring at me. “Close the door and sit down.”
I close the door and sit in one of the two brown leather chairs across from his desk, tossing my coat onto the other. My answers to his bitten-out questions are mechanical.
No, I do not make it a regular habit to have my dick sucked by my assistant when I should be working.
No, it hasn’t happened before.
Yes, I’m willing to write a statement and sign it so he doesn’t get his ass sued for employing a predator.
I sit up at that. “Predator?”
He glares me into silence. “I’m not done talking yet.”
I feel like I’m a thirteen-year-old boy getting lectured by his parents and not the twenty-nine-year-old man I am today. But I don’t say a word. I need this job, and I can’t afford to fuck things up even worse than I already have.
As my boss chews me out, I stare straight ahead, tuning him out.
In my mind, I’m reliving every excruciating detail of my life imploding.
Rachel’s lips around my cock, the warm pressure of her mouth making me cum.
My eyes fluttering open, relaxed and satisfied as she rises to her feet, grinning impishly at me, making me an offer I know I’ll refuse.
A blow job is one thing, but what she wants is something else. A figure in the doorway catches my eye.
Ellary.
My beautiful wife stands in the open doorway, wearing a knee-length floral dress and brown sandals, her big, beautiful brown eyes wide with horror.
The small, hard bulge in my right pocket is light, but feels heavy enough to weigh me down.
Her wedding ring.
Ellary loves me. I love her. What I did was a mistake. That’s all it was. I just need to make her understand that I can fix this.
“… two weeks. Unpaid.”
My eyes snap up from my boss’s desk to his enraged face.
Suspended.
What the fuck have I missed?
I stare dumbly at him. “You’re suspending me.”