Chapter 27
Calla
I’m a mess. A fucking mess.
My eyes are so swollen and bloodshot I can hardly see out of them and the last place on earth I want to be right now is work.
All week, I made sure to phone in sick like the good little employee I am, but the code red emergency email I got on this dreary Thursday morning, apparently overrides my sick leave.
I don’t even know what I was doing checking my emails in the first place.
Well. I do.
I was hoping to have something sitting in my inbox from Blake after he’d taken to ignoring my text messages, phone calls and knocks on his apartment door.
And I have no idea why.
I think that’s the worst part; I’ve been left hanging, in the air, out of the loop. An unpleasant mixture of confusion and sadness.
All week my mind has been coming up with different reasons, each more ridiculous than the last, as to why the man I’ve fallen in love with is ignoring me.
The only slightly plausible reasoning I can come up with is that it has something to do with me finding out who Blake’s younger brother is and not telling him.
But why does something so trivial matter?
Knowing that Grey Millen is Blake’s younger brother doesn’t change how I feel about Blake.
It doesn’t change my love for him. I feel like I’m missing something.
Something huge. A stepping stone, the reason why Blake reacted the way he did, something, anything.
Not to mention, how on earth he found out that I knew in the first place…
Wiping my nose on the cuff of my oversized hoodie, I tuck myself away into the corner of the tube. I can feel sets of eyes on me, probably wondering what on earth is wrong with me, but I’m too heartbroken to care.
Every part of me aches; my heart, my soul, my body.
My feet feel like they’re made of lead as I step off the dusty tube, beginning the treacherous walk, up what feels like a million concrete steps, to get to the bustling streets of London city.
I squint at the sun pouring down into the underground, retinas burning, wishing I was still back at my apartment with the curtains drawn and the blanket pulled up over my head so I can rot in peace.
I lumber past a baker’s, its doors throw wide open to entice customers with its fresh bread smell, but all it does it turn my stomach sour.
I haven’t been eating properly since Blake shut me out and if it wasn’t for my best friends using the spare key to slip inside my apartment and check in on me daily, I don’t think I’d be eating at all.
But so far, days later, I’ve still only been able to stomach dry crackers, fruit and a single doughnut.
Glancing upwards, I spot the familiar revolving door of my office block, breathing suit wearing businessmen and women in before spitting them back out again.
I cross the busy road, my ID badge already clutched in my grasp ready to show it to the security at the front desk, only for a couple, embraced in a passionate lip lock to block my way.
Huffing, I barge past them, while tears prick my waterline, and bile rises in my throat.
Quickly flashing my ID, I hop on the next lift to my floor, powering up my phone whilst we ascend.
My heart leaps when I see the single text message gracing my notification panel, but it’s not from Blake as I’d hoped.
Carmen: are you still going into the office? I’ll buy you lunch afterwards!
Inhaling the rich scent of expensive aftershave that fills the small space I’m standing in, I thumb out a reply. I love my friends, truly I do, but I can’t help but feel a pinch – or more than a pinch if I’m being honest – when I think about how happy and loved up, they all are.
I was too.
Before everything came crashing down.
I can’t even bring myself to paint a faux smile onto my face as I pass the receptionist desk, treading the familiar path through the sea of cubicles to get to my office block.
Ignoring the bland greetings of my colleagues, and the outright stare of others, probably because of my baggy tracksuit, unwashed hair and puffy, tear-stricken face, I tuck myself into my seat and tug on my top drawer in hopes of finding a stick of gum or a mint, to banish the sour taste on my tongue.
Except, it’s empty.
I try my second drawer and then my third, finding each and every one of them devoid of the personal belongings I’ve been hoarding in my office cubicle for the past three years I’ve been working here.
What the fu—
“Calla. Just the woman I’ve been looking for.” Resting his gold ring encrusted hands upon the top of my office block, Thomas peers down at me.
“Where is all my stuff?” I grit out, done with fake pleasantries.
“Gone.”
“Gone? Gone where? I—”
“They’re waiting for you, in a box, at the front desk.”
“The front desk? Why—”
“You’re fired, Miss Becker.”
I blink up at him in disbelief, hating how shaky my voice is when I reply. “Fired?”
“Here at McAvoy and Fraser we have very high standards for who we employ. Unfortunately for you, Miss Becker, you don’t fit the bill.”
For the first time in almost two weeks, I feel something other than the numbness, confusion and sadness, I’ve been circling through.
Now, poker hot anger bubbles at the surface of my being, exploding before I can stop it.
I stand, the high of adrenaline overriding my brain. “You can’t just fire somebody because they ‘don’t fit the bill’.” I place bunny ears around Thomas’ words. “That’s against—”
“You’ve also broken your contract a number of times. If I hadn’t been so lenient and taken such a shine to you, Miss Becker, you would have been gone a long time ago.”
We’re gathering a crowd, their eyes burrowing into my skin, but I don’t take my gaze away from Thomas.
“Taken a shine to me?” I all but spit, my hands balling into fists. “You’ve done nothing but practically harass me for months now, making lewd comments, touching me inappropriately, making me uncomfortable and my life at work a living hell!”
“Do you have any proof of those things, Miss Becker?”
God, the little C U Next Tuesday. I wish I could wipe that smug smirk from off his lips. Maybe rearrange his nose while I’m at it, too.
Thomas takes my silence and runs with it, turning our argument into a performance. “Is that a no?” He pops his shoulders. “I thought as much. I wish you all the best in the future, Miss Becker. Please hand in you ID card at the desk and—”
“Did you say something to Blake?”
Thomas smiles. “I have no clue what you’re talking about.”
“Stop playing dumb. You’ve fired me already, so just tell me the truth. Did you say something to him?”
Thomas licks his lips before he answers. “It’s not proper to keep secrets in your relationship, Calla.”
“Secrets?! You little conniving motherfuck—”
Before I can even blink, or launch myself at him, Thomas has his phone pressed to his ear. “Security needed immediately, please. Yes, it’s Mr McAvoy…”
With a smug grin, he slides his phone back into the pocket of his perfectly pressed slacks. God, do I want to wipe it from his face with my fists.
Steeling my spine, I place my curled hands on my hips, tipping my chin up until our noses are almost touching.
“Blake is a hundred times the man you’ll ever be. You spend your time beneath your daddy’s shoe and his father before him. Why don’t you grow a backbone, stop harassing women and actually put some good into this world?”
“Maybe I will… when you stop being a little whore for—”
The rest of his shitty sentence is cut off by my scream.
I thought my life couldn’t get much worse after losing Blake, but I know I’ve hit rock bottom when two burly security guards each grab one of my upper arms and begin to hightail me away.
My feet skitter across the marble flooring.
My heart pounds at the base of my throat, but part my lips, making sure the whole office block will be able to hear me when I shout, “You’re nothing but a sad little man with a tiny cock, Thomas. ”
I hear a few snorts and chortles of stifled laughter, but I don’t get to see Thomas’ face because I’m frogmarched into the lift and out into the lobby, my cardboard box of belongings shoved into my chest, ID tag pinched out of betwixt my thumb and forefinger and tossed out into the street beyond.
But it was worth it.
By the time I get back to my apartment, I’m exhausted.
I shoot the quickest, shortest reply to Carmen, telling her what happened and then I slide into bed, beneath the fresh sheets Shelby picked out when she stripped my bed for me, and sob into my pillow.
I lay there, eyes crusted with leftover tears, for what I’m sure is hours, watching the sunlight peering through the crack of my drawn curtains turn to darkness, before I finally swing my shaky legs out of bed.
My muscles creak and crack with hours of disuse and my stomach protests as I shove a slice of buttered bread between my lips, but I push on. I shower even though I don’t feel like it, washing my hair and changing into a fresh pair of pyjamas, before I grab my laptop and settle myself on the sofa.
Thomas McAvoy might have stolen my job from me, but I’m not going to let him steal anything else.