Chapter 26 More Childish Games
More Childish Games
“Good morning, Jordan.”
“Good morning, Mister Evans.”
The greeting was polite and formal. Their interactions over the last week were always business related. She still refused to speak to him. She’d moved two floors down to the maintenance department and was now sharing an office with her arch nemesis, Mervin.
Tyler had tried to talk to her a few times, but she always politely cut him off and turned the conversation back to work.
This whole situation was killing him. Slowly.
Painfully. He couldn’t get through to her.
He spent his days pining, spent his nights yearning.
He’d hurt her, but she was hurting him more.
Completely shutting him out. And now that she’d moved, he barely got to see her.
He came in every morning and was greeted by an empty desk. It was torture.
“How’s the thirty-sixth floor treating you?” he asked.
“It’s great. Mervin is easier to tolerate when Barbara isn’t around.”
“Good to hear.” He forced a smile. “What needs to get approved today?”
She smiled back and handed him an envelope. “My resignation letter.”
He froze, his throat tightening. “Jordan, this isn’t necessary.”
“I think it is.”
He sat back and crossed his arms over his chest, fixing his eyes on hers. “So you’ll just give this up? You’ll walk away? You’ll change jobs, uproot your entire career, take a pay cut instead of just talking to me?”
“Yes.” He hadn’t taken the letter from her hand so she simply dropped it on his desk. “And my new package is not bad at all.”
“Where are you going?” he asked, trying to keep his tone as neutral as possible.
“Royal Holdings.”
He gritted his teeth, stood up, and walked over to close his office door. He took a calming breath before he turned to face her again. “Isn’t that Timothy Coldwell’s new company?”
“It is.”
One point for Jordan. He took a step towards her and she took a step back. Their eyes locked, his determination clashing with her defiance. It was a long staring match. He took a step towards her and she took a step back.
“Coldwell doesn’t want you as just an accountant.”
“Well, I recently discovered that I can be used as more than just an accountant,” she replied with a sardonic smile.
The way she said it made him feel sick to his stomach, a slow churn brought on by anger, jealousy and pure disgust for what he’d done. Two points for Jordan.
One step forward.
One step back.
“You’re toying with me.”
“Feels like shit, doesn’t it?”
One step forward.
One step back.
She was against his table now with no more room to back away.
“I never meant to hurt you,” he said, keeping his voice low to hide its unsteadiness. “What you’re doing is deliberate.”
And with his slight hint of vulnerability, she faltered. Her eyes softened and in that moment of weakness, he moved closer. One point for Tyler.
“Why won’t you just talk to me?” he asked.
Her wall of strength immediately came up again. “It might be just a hunch, Tyler,” she said, sarcasm in full force, “but I have a feeling I won’t believe a word that comes out of your mouth.” She nudged past him and walked out of his office.
Three points for Jordan.
With a sinking feeling of helplessness, he sat down again. She was trying to hurt him. She was pushing for a reaction and a reaction she would get.
* * * * *
Jordan groaned. She was trying to finish off as much as she could before the end of her notice period.
Her new job would be starting in January and getting everything done was proving to be an impossible task.
She couldn’t wait to get out of this place, get away from Tyler and allow herself some time to heal.
She didn’t see him every day, but when she did, it was a tough pill to swallow.
Her mind was playing cruel tricks on her, torturing her with so many conflicting thoughts.
She knew Tyler liked her, but he wasn’t over Trisha.
He wouldn’t be holding onto so much anger if he was.
And once he got over his anger, would he go back?
Jordan wasn’t willing to be a substitute until that happened. The few months she’d spent with Tyler was nothing against three years and those few months were all based on a pretense.
He’d told her that he’d only used her in the beginning and after mulling that over for a few days, she believed him.
She hadn’t completely forgiven him yet, but it was something she could forgive in time.
That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that she didn’t know how he felt about her.
She didn’t know how he felt about Trisha. Those were things they never discussed.
She was fine with not knowing. She could leave this company, leave all of this behind without ever knowing.
It was the reason why she refused to talk to him.
She was too afraid to find out. She had come to terms with the fact that there were parts of their relationship that were all pretend, but she was afraid to find out exactly which parts those were.
That bit of information would be heartbreaking, yet not necessarily devastating.
But if she found out that he was still in love with Trisha…
That she wouldn’t be able to recover from.
That would mean he had just redirected his feelings for a short space of time.
That would mean he did pretend until it felt real.
She didn’t want to find that out. She could go through life quite comfortably without ever confirming that.
It was better to remain heartbroken and semi-delusional.
It was better to torture herself with the what-ifs than ever know that with certainty.
This was why she needed to leave. Apart from their discussion in his office last week, Tyler hadn’t said one word about her career move.
It seemed to be bothering him but he’d said nothing more on the matter.
Actually, he’d been acting very strange.
Even when she was curt and rude, he simply smiled and countered it with politeness.
There was a part of her that wanted him to be as hurt and miserable as she was, but he refused to give her the satisfaction.
A ringing phone distracted her and when she saw the number, her heart sank a little. Kevin never called and now his number was lighting up her screen.
“Hey, Bink,” she said warily.
“Jo-jo…” His voice shook, trembling as if he’d been crying. That was even more worrying because Kevin rarely cried.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, panic racing through her.
“I need your help.”
“Anything. What do you need?”
More constricted breaths. “I need you to get me back home.”
“Okay.” With quivering hands, she reached for a pen and paper. “Tell me where you are.”
She got his location and hung up the phone.
She spent the next few minutes on the phone with a cab company relaying the information and then she waited.
It was almost four hours later when she got a text from her brother to let her know he was safely on his way back home and finally the tension left her body.
Kevin only told her where he was. He gave no further information and, because he was so distraught, she hadn’t asked.
Worry had her wound up pretty tight and she took a few minutes to just breathe.
She didn’t care why he needed her help. The only thing that mattered was that he was safe.
When she eventually had the brain capacity to focus on work again, she encountered an email. Worry turned to pure rage. This day was going to shit!
She marched up two flights of stairs and stormed straight to Tyler’s office. He stopped talking to Matthew when she barged in.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” she shouted.
“Please elaborate,” he responded politely.
“You know what I’m talking about. I just got an email from Alex Partridge informing me that Royal Holdings has cancelled my employment contract.”
He tried to hold back a smile and she wanted to throw something at him.
“That’s such a shame,” Matt said with fake sympathy.
“You told them I have a drinking problem?!”
“Jordan, you know I would never do anything to sabotage your career.” He was still looking way too amused for her liking.
“Well, Timothy and Alex seem to be under the impression that my problem has gotten so bad, I now take sick days to stay at home and drink.”
“Don’t you?” he asked.
“If I recall correctly, that did happen,” Matthew added. “You’re lucky you work here, Jordan. Most employers would frown upon that behavior…which is probably why you didn’t get the job. But we’re gonna help you through this. The first step is admitting you have a problem.”
She hated them. She hated them with every fucking cell in her body. “I don’t have a drinking problem and you have no proof that I do, so I’m gonna call Timothy—”
“Actually, I do have this…one little drunk voice note.” Tyler couldn’t hold it back anymore. A shit-eating grin curved on those sexy lips and she wanted to strangle him.
“Please tell me you didn’t send that to him,” she said, her words laced with bitterness and humiliation.
“I told you I didn’t send him anything. And Timothy would never believe it if it came from me.”
“That’s why we got Stewart to send it.” Matthew smiled at her then too.
“A letter of non-recommendation and a voice note with you saying such awful things about your boss…it reeks of insubordination. And to get that from the Operations Director with such credibility in the field…Timothy gobbled it up without question.”
“I can’t believe you sent him that voice note!” Jordan shouted with disgust.
“It wasn’t the whole thing,” Tyler assured her.
“There are certain things I wanted for my ears only. I cut it off right before you started talking about how great I am in bed. Sex God, was it?” He was usually a humble guy, but the look he gave her was sheer arrogance, one that left her utterly flustered.
“Wouldn’t want Coldwell getting any ideas. ”
“Are you really a sex God, Ty?