5. Chapter 4
Chapter 4
Kaitlyn
By the time I step through the door of my apartment, I feel somehow a bit more angered by what happened, but also embarrassed by my reaction.
I’m upset the situation even made it that far, but I didn’t have to snap at him the way I did. However, by the same token, he shouldn’t have tried to step in like some accent-having, suit-wearing superhero trying to save a damsel in distress.
I wasn’t in distress and I’m not a damsel.
The shower is good for so many things. It can be a place to cry it out if you need to without anyone noticing. It can be a place to sing Linkin Park at the top of your lungs thinking you're Chester. It can be a place to soothe away the day. Or, it can be all of the above. Today was an all of the above moment.
With my towel wrapped tightly across my chest, I begin brushing my wet hair with the music still blaring in the bathroom, that is until my speaker tells me I have an incoming phone call. I grip the edges of my vanity before looking over to see who it is. I’m in such a mood, I’ll likely only answer for a select few. When I see my sister’s face shining brightly, I know this is a call I’m going to answer, but absolutely deflect off anything having to do with me.
“Hi, Gilly.”
“Hey there, you. How was work today?”
Well, isn’t that the million-dollar question. “Oh…it was…fine.”
“Those pauses between your words would tell me otherwise. Are you sure it was fine?”
I open one of the drawers, pulling out one of the serums I like to slather on to my face every night before bed and use the dropper to add a bit to my hands. “Why wouldn’t it be?” I begin to work the product into my skin. “Hey, how is my favorite little nephew? Is he being just as adorable as ever?”
“You know the answer to that. It’s always yes, but you also know I will only allow you to deflect for so long. Eventually, I’m going to ‘Big Sister Demand’ you tell me what happened.”
The Big Sister Demand is as sacred as a triple dog dare. She wouldn’t pull out the big guns like that… would she?
“Am I allowed to say I don’t want to talk about it because, at the end of the day, it’s really not that big of a deal?”
She sighs through the phone. “Yes. Are you sure everything is all right though? Wilder didn’t do something out of line?”
“Ha. Not this time.”
Fuck. I can’t keep my mouth shut. “Not this time? Okay, who was it this time? If you tell me no one, I’ll go around Big Sister Demand and go right for I’ll tell Dad.”
I laugh. “Wow. Will you ever not pull that? If I swear, will you narc me out too? I’m not nine anymore, Gilly.”
“Kait, I know you’re not, but what I also know is, you’re more stubborn than Dad and me put together. You’d think we were asking you to cut a limb off to ask for help or advice. Honey, I know things haven’t been great since you got to New York. I don’t press you about it because you’re a big girl who can take care of herself.”
“Yeah…that isn’t the general consensus though.”
“Okay, my little pixie, spill.”
I can hear Gillian, like clockwork, shift her phone to rest on her shoulder against her ear, while my nephew is cooing away while he finishes his bottle. “I better not be on speakerphone. I don’t need Jason going all Jason on me.”
“The only one in listening distance is Joey.”
“Fine, okay. I was working tonight at Elliot’s, and I took a table of suits who came in for dinner.”
“All right… I am failing to see the problem here. Continue.”
“Two of them were British, the other two were American and it seemed like they were having some sort of very contentious business meeting. One of them was so curt with me. It was honestly kind of rude, but in the same breath he’d be a little flirty?” I say it as a question because even I’m not sure if what I’m saying is accurate. “Then I had another customer who was a miserable asshole, and the hot, rude British guy tried to come to my rescue and it pissed me off.”
“It pissed you off? Was it because of what he said to defend you or that he defended you at all? Honestly Kait, if this man was, as you put it, a miserable asshole, wouldn’t you want anyone who saw that as threatening to come to your defense? I see that as being a good thing. He did what I or Jason or Dad or even any of your friends should have done. Your Brit wasn’t inappropriate…like he got physical with this other man?”
“No. Elliot would have tossed him if that was the case. He did end up asking the other man to leave.”
“Well then, I still fail to see what the problem is. May I play amateur psychologist for a bit?”
“Oh boy. Here we go.” I slide down the foot of my bed until my backside reaches the floor. “Let’s hear it, Dr. Taylor.”
“Hush you!” Gillian sighs before giving me her next thoughts. “Are you lumping this man in with Wilder? You see someone with perceived power, in a suit, and you immediately react. You think they think you’re incapable of handling things, or even more so, you might think that.”
Her words sink into my brain and I make a face like a petulant child, even though she can’t see me. Ugh. She’s right. “Do you have to be right all the time?”
“I don’t have to be. I just am.”
“I yelled at him, Gillian. He seemed shocked that I did.”
“Wouldn’t you be shocked if someone you thought you were helping yelled at you for it?”
“Well, there’s nothing I can do about it now besides wallow in my self-loathing and eat some comfort food. I may even watch some trash television. Until the brunch shift tomorrow, that is.”
“What’s healthier for your brain than a rot day on the couch? I miss those. Babies change that.”
“I’ll rot extra hard for you then. Have I told you lately how much I love you? I miss you, Gilly. I really do.”
“Oh, honey. I miss you too. Will you have some time off soon to come home? Jason and I can even send you a ticket if money’s an issue.”
“You know I hate that.”
“I know it makes you feel like a child. Don’t think that way. Think of it as familial bribery.”
I roar with laughter. “That sounds like something your husband would say.”
“That’s because it was.”
Griffin
After wandering around Central Park for an hour or two, trying to blend in, I make my way back to the perceived comfort of my hotel suite. The view from up here should be comforting, it’s not. Nothing I seem to do today is right. I went into the meeting with an ace up my sleeve, now I’m still left only at a ninety-percent assurance the deal will close. I never leave the table at less than one-hundred-percent. Of course, I’m not in the habit of making public scenes either. There are too many cameras on me at any given moment for that.
I’ve always received unwanted attention. It’s a downside of coming from a well-known family in London. I played into it, of course, as a rebellious teenager. I acted out, drank too much, partied too hard, and garnered my fair share of media coverage, but that’s lessened as I’ve gotten older. I know how to keep it together.
So, what possessed me to bark at another man in the middle of dinner? My subconscious knows the answer. It wants to tell me and I want to listen, which is why I’m still lying here staring at the ceiling an hour after the hottest shower of my life. I wanted to present myself with what I can only articulate as the heat of shame. I’m ashamed of the way I made her feel.
I’m an arse, to say the least, so I pick up my phone and check the time.
It’s barely after midnight here, so my mother is likely already up with a cup of tea in hand, back home in England. She’s always been an early riser. We have that in common.
I dial her up and she answers after only a few rings.
“Hello?” she says sweetly before I hear her raise her voice. “Charlie! You silly cat. Get down from there!”
“Everything all right?” I ask.
She sighs. “Yes. Charlie is just climbing all over the tops of my cabinets again. It’s too early for these shenanigans, innit?” I hear her rustle around a bit before she seems to finally settle. “Oh, Griffy, it’s so late there for you. What are you still doing up?”
“Mum, I fucked up. Like really fucked up.”
“Darling, I wish you wouldn’t use such language.”
“I don’t know how else to convey the gravity of what happened.”
“What’s the matter? Is everything okay physically? I don’t need to bail you out of jail and this is your one phone call?”
“Good God, Mum. Do you think I’d be this panicked if it were only that?”
“What is it then?”
I pull one of the extra pillows into my arms, fisting the edge. “Along with being unable to close the deal Father wanted me to in one meeting, I nearly punched a random stranger in the face over his poor treatment of a woman.”
“You know I’m not an avid lover of violence, but when it comes to defending someone who needs it, I wish you had socked the bastard.”
I can’t help but laugh. “Mum! You’re supposed to scold me, not encourage this.”
“I’m only being honest. Any man who can mistreat a woman is no man and deserves to be put in his place.”
“I agree with you there, but the woman I helped, she didn’t exactly see eye to eye with me on that front.”
“I need more details than this, Griffy.”
I tell her everything about Kaitlyn’s reaction to my aid and how she had such embarrassment and anger in her eyes. “She was defensive, like I was questioning her ability to handle a situation herself.”
“I have a feeling that is exactly what the issue was. Some women don’t want anyone to come to their rescue, especially not a man.”
“It was the appropriate thing to do. I was an utter ass. No one in the service industry, let alone just in civilized society, deserves being talked to like that. It had nothing to do with gender, I assure you.”
“Since she doesn’t know you, and she doesn’t know this is a moral trigger for you, that would be her immediate conclusion. It would be mine too, honestly.”
“I want to fix it, but I don’t know how.”
“I find a simple apology can work wonders.”