Chapter Two
Charlotte pried an eye open, and nausea roiled through her.
For a moment, she couldn’t figure out where she was and briefly panicked that she’d been drugged.
Then, a breeze blew in through her wide-open patio door, the salt air prickling her senses, and the truth of the last two days came flooding back into her.
Nausea reared its ugly head again, and she ran to the bathroom, dropping to her knees in the nick of time as the contents of her stomach violently left her body, every heave leaving her muscles tired and sore.
When she had the strength, she pushed off the floor and moved to the sink to splash cool water on her face. She stared herself in the eyes and had a hard time not crying at the face looking back at her.
She looked old. Defeated. And like she’d had way too much to drink the night before. She swished water through her mouth several times before reaching for the cheap hotel toothbrush and brushing her teeth. After she took a shower, she felt almost human. But not quite.
Grateful for the hotel assuming the room would have double occupancy, she put on the second robe. The first was soaked in her cold sweat from when she’d thrown up, so she wasn’t putting that back on. Jesus.
She couldn’t believe what she’d been reduced to. Reduced herself to?
Everything about her life felt wrong. She made herself a cup of English breakfast tea using the room’s Keurig, hoping she’d be able to keep it down, and walked out onto the balcony.
She leaned against the rail as she had the night before, but this time, she gripped the paper tab on the end of her tea bag and dunked it up and down, regretting every sip of bourbon she’d had the night before.
Staring out at aqua water that couldn’t be clearer, Charlotte knew she was in paradise. She had a level of financial freedom most people would die to achieve, yet she couldn’t help but wonder, would she trade it all to go back to the life she’d had three days ago?
She wasn’t sure, and that uncertainty sat in her stomach like a boulder. Would she go back to being oblivious to what her firm was doing if she could?
Her skin felt itchy at that idea. She looked back into her room, at the luxury in the small touches.
The complimentary bottles of Fiji water.
The embroidery along the edges of the duvet.
The subtle accents everywhere. She had to get out of there.
But she couldn’t go out naked underneath a hotel robe.
She was going to need to put on her wrinkled suit and Louis Vuitton pumps to go down to the gift shop and purchase whatever she could find.
Thirty minutes later, Charlotte left the hotel wearing gaudy, tropical print Bermuda shorts, a pink tank top with I heart Key West on it, and thin flip-flops.
She wanted to crawl into a hole somewhere, but that had been the best she could find.
The other shirts that were a little less horrible were all either extra-small or double extra-large.
It seemed completely ridiculous that the hotel, nice as it was, didn’t have something classy to wear.
But at least she now had sunglasses and wasn’t trying to walk around in her ridiculously high heels.
She reminded herself that no one knew her as she wandered aimlessly along the water through what appeared to be a historic part of town.
She turned people watching into a game of deciding who was a tourist and who was a local.
Cute tourist families, their kids still wearing their Mickey Mouse ears from Orlando were the easiest to spot.
Then there were the tourists she could identify because of the sunburn lines around their eyes where they’d obviously been wearing sunglasses.
The first time she spotted one, she ducked into the next store and bought sunscreen and a goofy-looking floppy hat.
In New York, she didn’t get much sun—it generally rose and set all while she was at the office—and she knew she’d be a lobster tomorrow if she didn’t take steps to prevent it.
She no longer had a suntan base like when she’d grown up in Florida.
For a moment, Charlotte didn’t school her thoughts, and she was back in Chet’s office, that she could see now was gross in its opulence.
It was massive and at least twice as big as her first studio apartment in New York when she’d moved there after college.
He had a distinct desk area, a small conference area that seated six—excessive because of the number of conference rooms on their floor—a private bathroom, and a cabinet that she was certain was a murphy bed.
She’d never seen it in the down position, but she’d been working late the night it had been delivered and had seen them bringing in the mattress.
Yet, he never spent the night at the office, so in hindsight, she knew what it was for.
Wolf of Wall Street wasn’t her corporate culture—she wouldn’t have stayed long if it had been—yet looking back, her boss had seemed to interview every single attractive female executive assistant at the firm.
Bile rose as she realized how blind she’d been.
She’d once admired his business acumen. He’d seemed a savant at picking companies to bet on, and she’d believed him to be nearly akin to Warren Buffett.
But as she examined the past seven years without the distorting glasses that being his protégé had apparently provided her, she could see who he truly was.
Who he’d always been.
She sat on a graying cedar bench when her legs nearly gave out. She dropped her head between her knees when she thought she was going to lose the tea she’d had that morning.
How could she have been so blind?
Her breath came in quick, sharp bursts as she was overcome with the horror of the blind eye she’d turned toward him and how he’d run the division.
She’d always been so focused on the success of her group—pushing the profit as far as she possibly could—that she’d willfully ignored anything that hadn’t involved her directly.
The blanket of disgust that lay across her body felt so oppressive, she wasn’t sure if she could get out from under it.
Her lungs constricted. Her fingers cramped into tight fists.
Her entire being tightened into a ball. She squeezed her eyes hard and tried to remember the breath work techniques that she’d learned so long ago when she’d prioritized her body and health and had taken yoga regularly.
She couldn’t remember, so she just focused on breathing in slower, holding it for as long as she could, and counting first to five, then seven, then ten on her exhales.
Slowly, her dizziness subsided. She focused on the warm, slightly gritty breeze across her skin.
The feel of the humid, salty air. Everything still felt wrong, but an unfamiliar desire within started pushing her to shed everything she’d known before.
The sensation of rebirth flowed through her, and a need deep in her soul erupted to give the middle finger to every single thing from her past life.
She wasn’t expecting to go back to Wall Street.
Hell, if everyone believed the bullshit story she assumed Chet was going to spin, she wouldn’t be able to even if she wanted.
She needed to get rid of all of it. The thought of driving her ridiculously posh car made her feel ill.
She was glad she hadn’t brought any of her designer clothes or shoes that had cost as much as a small island.
All the excess, everything she’d believed to be the ultimate goal and sign of success, felt tainted and offensive.
The blind eye she’d turned to the shit some of the guys were doing made her feel dirty.
Her hand had been forced, but now that she could see, she had to change if she was ever going to be able to look herself in the eye again and feel like a decent person.
A metallic click and the sound of a doorstop scraping across concrete drew Charlotte’s attention to a tall slender woman in leggings and a flowing cream tank with a teal sports bra propping open a door.
As she watched, the woman placed an A-frame sign with, Hot Yoga, New Students Welcome, handwritten in flowy text on the dark chalkboard.
Charlotte felt a sudden longing for the mental quiet that typically came from the moving meditation she’d never found anywhere other than in a yoga class.
At least, she used to feel it. It had been so long, she wasn’t sure how she’d react to it.
Especially with as much bourbon as she’d had the night before.
The woman must have felt her stare because she turned and waved. “Morning,” she yelled, a smile broad on her face.
Her energy drew Charlotte in. “Good morning.”
The woman’s face was warm and welcoming as she said, “Have you tried hot yoga before? Want to take a class?”
Charlotte shook her head no but couldn’t actually form the words to decline.
Somewhere deep, she felt like she didn’t belong there.
She had no inner peace and wasn’t even sure if she was a good person anymore.
No, that wasn’t true. She knew she wasn’t a good person, but now she’d lost the certainty that she ever had been.
The woman crossed the street. “Your head says no, but your face looks intrigued. I’m Talia, and that’s my studio.” She pointed her thumb behind her. “Anahata. I’m teaching a beginner’s class in about a half an hour. All levels are welcome.”
Charlotte wanted to but still felt nauseous and unworthy. “I really can’t.”
Talia shrugged. “Your first class is free.” She was older than Charlotte had first thought, perhaps in her mid-fifties, but she had a way about her that put Charlotte at ease.
“I’m not wearing the right clothes,” she protested one more time.
“Yoga does not require special clothes. What you’re wearing is fine.” She placed her hand on Charlotte’s arm, “but I do have a little shop if you’d rather buy something more typical.”