32. Terra #2
“Terra.” Her mother gave her a look—the one that said, “I know you’re lying.”
“Mom, please.”
Lucy’s expression softened.
“Honey, that man looked like somebody shot his dog, and you look like you’ve been crying for twelve hours. Something happened.”
Terra picked up her overnight bag.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Did he hurt you?”
“No.” The answer came instantly—too instantly.
Lucy noticed.
“Did he scare you?”
Terra hesitated.
“Kind of.”
Her mother’s face tightened.
“But not…not the way you’re thinking,” Terra added quickly. “He didn’t force me to do anything. He didn’t threaten me. He didn’t even get angry.”
“Then what happened?”
Terra shook her head.
“I said I don’t want to talk about it.”
Lucy studied her for another moment, then sighed.
“All right. I won’t push. But when you do want to talk, I’m here.”
Terra gave her a brief hug.
“I know. Thanks, Mom.”
She carried her bags inside and went straight to the bedroom that had once been hers as a teenager and had become hers again after her divorce. She shut the door behind her, sat down on the edge of the bed and tried to hold herself together.
She lasted about thirty seconds…then she put her face in her hands and cried.
The thing was, Terra wasn’t even sure what she was crying about.
She was home. She was safe. Her children were right down the hall and her mother was in the kitchen fussing over her new plant. This was exactly what she had wanted all morning.
So why did she feel as though she had left something important behind?
Why did she keep seeing Taurex’s exhausted face when he offered to have another Monstrum fly her home because he thought she was afraid of him?
Why did she keep hearing his voice saying, “Have a beautiful life, Terra,” with that terrible finality?
She cried until she had no tears left, then washed her face, hugged her children again and told herself she had done the right thing.
For the next several days, she continued telling herself the same thing. Then several days became a week. A week became two and the certainty she’d had became harder and harder to maintain.
Taurex didn’t call. He didn’t text. He didn’t show up outside the bungalow or send gifts or try to convince her to reconsider.
At first, Terra was relieved…then she was irritated. Then she began checking her phone far more often than she wanted to admit.
By the end of the second week, she had begun to wonder if she was still employed.
Technically Taurex had never fired her. She hadn’t quit either. In all the emotional disaster of their return to Earth, neither of them had said a word about Intergalactic Imports.
Finally, on Monday morning, Terra dressed in one of the nice office outfits she had bought with her new income, drove downtown in her battered Honda and parked in the Montana Building garage.
The front desk staff didn’t give her any trouble this time. Apparently Taurex’s instructions still stood because they greeted her politely and allowed her to take the golden elevator to the penthouse without question.
The elevator doors opened onto silence.
“Taurex?” Terra called as she walked toward the office but there was no answer.
The penthouse seemed even emptier than she remembered. Without Taurex’s huge presence filling it, the rooms felt sterile and impersonal again—all expensive stone and glass with nothing warm enough to make them a home.
Terra walked into the office and found it was tidy, which should have made her happy.
Instead, it made her heart ache all over again.
The filing cabinets she had bullied Taurex into buying stood along one wall. The conference table was clear and the accounting folders she had created were arranged neatly in their proper places.
Then she saw the envelope—it was sitting in the center of the desk, and her name was written across the front.
Terra.
She stared at it for several seconds before picking it up. Inside was a single sheet of paper which read…
Terra,
Commander Rarev requested that I undertake the mission to Valeria Prime concerning the kethra resin.
I have agreed and will be away from Earth for an indefinite period.
Because I do not wish you to feel obligated to remain in my employ or to return to a workplace where my presence might make you uncomfortable, I am releasing you from your position with Intergalactic Imports.
I have deposited a severance payment into the account you provided for payroll.
I hope it will allow you sufficient time to complete your education and pursue whatever career you choose.
Thank you for everything you did for my business. I wish you and your family happiness and prosperity.
Taurex.
Terra read the note twice…then a third time.
He was gone. He had actually left Earth and now he was far beyond her reach.
“Damn it, Taurex,” she whispered.
Her hands began shaking. What did he mean by severance payment and how much had he given her?
Terra pulled out her phone and opened her banking app. She logged in with trembling fingers.
Then she stared at the balance with wide eyes.
“No,” she whispered, staring at the figure. “No, that can’t be right.”
She refreshed the screen—once then twice but the number remained unchanged.
An electronic deposit from INTERGALACTIC IMPORTS had been made three days earlier for the sum of $100,000.00
Terra actually sat down.
“Oh my God,” she whispered.
A hundred thousand dollars. He had given her a hundred thousand dollars.
Not five thousand…not ten.
A hundred thousand dollars.
Put with the savings she already had in the bank, it was enough to live on comfortably for quite a while if she was careful.
Enough to pay for the rest of her schooling and enough that she could finish her accounting degree and complete whatever additional requirements she needed to become a CPA without dancing at The Doll House ever again.
She ought to have been thrilled…instead, Terra felt like someone had hollowed out her chest.
Taurex had done exactly what he had promised himself he would do from the beginning—at least, she assumed he had. He had made certain she was secure, then removed himself from her life because he thought that was what she wanted.
No pressure…no strings…no demand that she come back. Just a hundred thousand dollars and a note telling her to have a good life.
Terra dropped her head into her hands.
“What did I do?” she asked herself.
The question slipped out before she could stop it. For two weeks she had replayed that night again and again, and every time the memory changed slightly. Not because the facts changed but because the panic had begun to fade enough for her to look at them clearly.
Taurex had told her she was his fated mate and had said they were meant to belong together. He had also told her a Bond would let them hear one another’s thoughts which had seemed really scary and invasive at the time.
But what had he actually done to hurt or scare her?
Nothing.
He had backed away every time she asked him to. He had never touched her without permission. Even when she had kissed him in bed, he had been the one to say they should be careful because she was upset.
When the pleasure-bloom reaction forced them into intimacy, he had repeatedly asked for consent. Then, when she rejected him, he had left. And when she panicked and begged him not to hurt her, he had looked heartbroken, not angry.
And now, instead of using her job or her financial dependence to pressure her into coming back, he had given her enough money to make certain she would never have to depend on him again.
Terra closed her eyes. Maybe she really had made a terrible mistake. Maybe she had taken every awful thing Jackson and Orlov and what countless strip-club customers had taught her about men and projected it onto a male who had never once behaved like any of them.
The thought made her feel sick.
She stood alone in Taurex’s empty penthouse, surrounded by the office she had helped him organize, and suddenly missed the big Monstrum with such intensity that it was difficult to breathe.
She missed the way his ears twitched when he was confused…missed his deep laugh…missed watching him hold absurdly tiny Earth objects in his enormous hands and missed his ridiculous hatred of filing cabinets. She missed the way he called her “lovely one.”
But most of all, she missed the way he looked at her and treated her. He hadn’t treated her like Bunny the stripper or like the woman Jackson had decided wasn’t worth wanting anymore.
Taurex treated her like she mattered…and she had pushed him away in a moment of panic she couldn’t take back. Because he was never going to want her again—not after how she’d acted.