Chapter 8
Lyrical
“Lyrical, there’s someone here to see you.”
After Tiguan left, I went to my office, just like he asked, peeled off all my layers, heated the breakfast he’d brought me, and tried to eat.
The first bite tasted fine, but each one after that was harder and harder to swallow.
My stomach began rolling. It was like my body finally caught up to what I’d just done.
I’d agreed to go on a date with my husband’s teammate.
What the hell was I doing?
You need to get out, sweetness. He’s perfect for you.
I pushed the plate away, similar to how I pushed Jesse’s voice away. I wished it were him speaking to me. I could use his strength and comfort right now.
You don’t need me when he’s available.
Exhaustion swept in, and I shivered. The office was cold, which wasn’t surprising since the doors were constantly opening and closing as people came and went.
“Send them back,” I called out.
There were so many people on the grounds today that it was anybody’s guess who it would be. Hopefully, it was something quick and easy, like signing off on a pickup, because all I wanted to do was put my head down on my desk and take a nap.
The last person I expected to see waltzed into my office.
Jameson Forbes Sr. Fuck me. Didn’t he have somewhere to be today?
“Miss Mewes.”
I felt my face flush. He refused to call me by my married name, as if that made my marriage to his son void. He was such an asshole, but my mother’s parenting kept me from being mean, even to someone who deserved it. Besides, the less I argued with him, the sooner he’d go away.
What the hell is he doing here? I almost laughed at the growl I heard. It was the same tone Jesse always used after we moved to North Carolina.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Forbes?” I certainly knew he wasn’t here to invite me to Jesse’s celebration of life today, so whatever he wanted, it wasn’t good.
He threw a manila envelope on my desk. Déjà vu struck. A memory from years earlier, when he’d thrown a similar envelope at me, that time on a kitchen table, attempting to pay me to leave Jesse. I’d said no.
“What is this?” I asked, refusing to touch it, the same as that day so long ago.
“Inside is a contract. A donation of one hundred thousand dollars to your center.”
“I hardly believe that. You’ve been trying to get rid of me for the last year, any way you can.”
“That’s what’s inside.”
Considering his stiff demeanor and how he looked down his nose at me, it was difficult to hold in the snort I wanted to let loose. “A donation hardly requires a visit,” I pointed out. “You could simply write a check and mail it in. What’s the catch?”
“You resign your position here as director and move away. Far away.”
Oh hell no! You tell him where to stick that envelope!
Leaning back in my chair, my fingers threaded together over my stomach to quell the rolling going on inside, I stared at him. “No.”
“No?”
Shaking my head, I repeated, “No.”
“That’s a lot of money for the center. You’d deny them that just to thwart me?”
Standing up on shaky legs, I squared off against him.
“You see, that’s the problem, Mr. Forbes.
You’ve always seen my presence as something directed against you.
As if I’ve lived my entire life in order to make you miserable.
Well, I have news for you. You take up so little headspace for me that most of the time, I don’t even remember your first name.
“You’ve spent all these years putting distance between you and your sons, and for what?
Some sort of wounded pride over how Jesse chose me—a girl born to poor but hardworking people—over a life of privilege?
That wasn’t spite. He did it out of love.
For me. For himself. So he could hold his head up high, knowing he was doing the right thing.
So he wouldn’t turn into someone like you. ”
Damn straight.
My head swam, and now my gut was churning.
“You sponged off him from the moment he showed you attention. You warped his mind and twisted it with sex, causing him to give up everything we gave him.” He sneered.
“You never loved him. I saw pictures of that disgusting debacle of you kissing his teammate. Did you work your way through his entire team, and now that they’re here in town, you’re making another circle through them?
” He paused, a condescending smirk on his face.
“I wonder what the board of directors would say if they knew their precious director was treating their facility like a brothel.”
Head pounding, I mustered every bit of strength I had to stand as tall as my tiny stature would allow.
“I loved your son. Irrefutably. Not that I owe you any explanations, but Jesse and I were never intimate until he graduated from boot camp.
I was faithful to him from the moment we met to the moment he died, and I still am.
To suggest otherwise shows me just how right he was to go no contact with you and your wife, while standing against everything you stood for.
“Take your envelope, leave, and never come back, Mr. Forbes. I worked hard for this position here, graduated with honors from a college I paid my way through with my job, hard work, and no financial help from your son. If you feel you have any concrete evidence to suggest otherwise to the board, you go right ahead. They’ll see right through you.
For all your money and position, you are a worthless human being, and our facility does not want, nor does it need, your money. ”
His face looked as if he’d swallowed battery acid. “You were nothing as a child. You were nothing as a young adult, and you’re nothing now. Trash. Gutter-born, and you’ll die in the gutter.”
“Well, then I’m higher than you, since your behavior doesn’t even qualify as sewage.”
“One week. Then the offer is void. Think of what that kind of money could do for your precious center.”
“No.”
Even he sensed the finality in my voice.
Red in the face, he turned on his heel and exited my office.
Once again, he left the envelope on my desk, and I knew he’d be back in a week.
More likely, he’d send one of his snooty lawyers, probably even a junior one on his staff, to check whether I’d changed my mind.
News flash to no one. I wouldn’t.
So proud of you, sweetness.
When I heard the outer door slam behind him, all my bravado drained out of me, causing me to sink into my desk chair. The last of my energy went into picking up the envelope and dropping it dramatically into the metal trash can next to my desk.
I shook, my teeth chattering. A hand to my aching head, I felt my skin burning beneath my palm. The next thing I knew, I was face-first in the garbage can, vomiting up what little I’d eaten from Tiguan’s thoughtful breakfast all over the hundred-thousand-dollar offer. How fitting.
That’s when it hit me. While his visit had upset me, it wasn’t what was causing me to feel so ill. My damn assistant had given me the flu.