Chapter 19 – Grant
NINETEEN
GRANT
His capacity for delusion was a tremendous advantage.
The wait was excruciating. I hadn’t slept at all the night before in preparation for this moment. This agonizing, excruciating moment.
I’d even fucking practiced it in the mirror.
“Good morning, Flowers.”
Over and over again, like some juvenile with his first crush.
“Good morning, Flowers,” I said again to my empty office.
No tone, no drama. Nothing that would hint at my inner turmoil. A turmoil that hadn’t subsided since Saturday night. I considered my behavior from every angle, and in the end, there had been only one conclusion.
I’d behaved like an unmitigated ass.
It wasn’t Flowers’ fault I preferred the numbness. It wasn’t her fault that there were suddenly all these cracks in the walls I’d built around myself.
It certainly was her fault for the cracks in the first place. I’d let my guard down, yes, but she’d been the one to hammer away at the stone.
M&M machines.
Hot dog restrictions.
Couch songs.
All of it probably some elaborate ruse to make me smile again. To make me feel again. To make me…live again.
I didn’t want to live again. I’d done that. I’d lost everything that mattered and I’d nearly been crushed to death by the weight of my grief. In what universe did I want to do that again?
Care about someone? The thought was disgusting.
Not that I was thinking about Flowers as some kind of romantic partner.
The idea was absurd.
Forget the nearly twelve-year difference in our ages, I was her boss, for fuck’s sake.
Her fucking livelihood depended on the paycheck I provided.
Her food, shelter, transportation. She owed it all to me.
It was a massive power imbalance. Which was why workplace fraternization was so fraught with complications and needed to be avoided at all costs.
When I’d run my company, the policies had been clear about manager, employee relationships. I didn’t allow for it. There’d been a couple of instances where it hadn’t mattered, but those couples had left the company on good terms.
Not that what we’d shared on Saturday night was any kind of fraternization.
We had a moment. That was it. An acknowledgement that we’d gotten too close to one another. Too personal. There were supposed to be lines, only when I tried to imagine them in my mind, I couldn’t see them.
She shouldn’t have texted me to help. I shouldn’t have called in a favor to get her in the club. I shouldn’t have known she was even going to that club on Saturday.
Yes, I’d lost some of my normal self-imposed willpower, but I’d gotten it back before things had deteriorated.
It’s not as if I’d kissed her.
Absurd.
I hadn’t pressed her against the wall, taken her mouth and swallowed her whole.
Ludicrous.
I certainly hadn’t ripped apart that red blouse, that she probably thought was sexy, but was so damn conservative a nun could wear it and captured her breasts in my hands and sucked her hard little nipples between my teeth until she screamed.
Delusional.
Shit.
I had to fire her. Not because I couldn’t control myself. I wasn’t such an asshole that I would ever put someone who wasn’t receptive to my advances in a compromising position. The problem was, I knew she would be.
Might be.
Was.
I needed to fire her now, while she still had the chance to escape me. Because I knew myself too well and I had unusually singular focus when I wanted something.
Wanting someone wasn’t something I got to do anymore. I’d had Allison and she’d been enough. She’d been everything. I hadn’t needed other people, because I had her.
It was something Allison used to…complain about? Fret about? She’d always been on me to expand my circle of friends. My connections with other people besides her. She didn’t think our relationship was always healthy. On my part.
Except I never saw the point. Allison had been my friend, my lover and my wife. What else did I need beyond that in a world filled with people who didn’t really understand me?
There’d been nothing left for me after she was gone, so I’d resolved myself to live a smaller life.
A quiet life.
Except now, here was little orphan Anna with her hammer and chisel, taking aim at my stone heart.
How frightened would she be if she knew I had the potential to swallow her whole?
One stupid text had been enough to trigger all those old tendencies inside me.
Find her. Protect her. Take her someplace safe. Don’t let Derek know where she lives.
All of that sounded mostly reasonable until you looked a little deeper under the surface. What my instincts were really saying.
Mine. Mine. Mine. Don’t touch.
Only she wasn’t, and I had to stop myself from even having the thought. I didn’t want another person. And Flowers should have the life she imagined the day she left the state home.
She has to go.
“Fuck,” I said into the empty office, dropping my head into my hands.
There. It was done.
I didn’t have to pretend we could go back to normal.
I simply needed to find her a new job. It wouldn’t be hard now.
She had a resume, a list of accomplishments and experience.
Hell, she’d survived me for nearly nine months.
That alone was an achievement. Any HR department would snap at the chance to hire her, but it would have to be the right fit.
A perfect fit for her.
Decision made, I turned in my chair so I could look out the window at the rest of the buildings in the complex, all gleaming silver against the sun.
How stupid I’d been. All that energy spent yesterday trying to put the pieces of a shattered glass back together, when all I really needed to do was acknowledge it was broken, clean up the mess, and find a new assistant.
“Morning, E.G.,” Flowers called out, popping her head into my office. “Just got here. Bus was running a little late. I’ll have your coffee and papers in a few.”
I whirled at the sound of her voice, but she was already gone, off to her own office to get settled herself before getting our day started.
I should do this now. Get up, follow her to her office. Let her know what I’d already worked out in my head. I would pledge to find her a position that paid well, a boss who treated her fairly, better than I did, with all the career ladder climbing she could hope for.
Then I could go back to being the man I was before I met her.
Because that’s what I wanted.
Except, I didn’t leave my chair. After a few minutes, she reappeared.
“Hey,” she said, announcing her presence from the doorway.
Discount slacks, a plain white blouse and navy blazer. Her hair pulled back in a clip behind her neck. A stack of newspapers in one hand, my cold brew in the other.
There was not a single thing remotely special about her.
Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine.
“Ready to start the day?”
Numbly, I nodded.
“Hey, you’re not going to be weird, right?” she asked, circling my desk toward my credenza. “Because we agreed on absolutely no weirdness.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said stiffly. “I’m never weird.”
She smiled over her shoulder. “You’re a little weird. But it’s okay. You’re my kind of weird. Start with these first. Let me go grab my laptop and we’ll go over your schedule for today.”
She dropped off the coffee and the newspapers and left again.
Turned out, I was wrong.
It looked like I was going to try and put the shattered pieces back together again after all, because this morning had been easy.
Besides, I could always fire her tomorrow.