Chapter 33 Deena
THIRTY-THREE
DEENA
The storms came sooner than I expected. One of my longtime clients, Mr. Wentworth, connected me with the leader of the sales division of a medical device company. They were aggressively expanding their company, and their travel needs would soon be skyrocketing.
Their first task for me was to fly fifty-one medical professionals to a conference in Houston.
The contract was massive; it was a huge bump for my business, and if I made a good impression, they’d likely provide me with a massive amount of work going forward.
They flew reps and doctors around the country constantly.
It would be steady, long-term work. A goldmine.
I got the contract on a Thursday afternoon and immediately got to work.
I settled in one of the living areas in Cal’s penthouse, commandeering a desk and a chair next to a big window.
Then I sank into the myriad logistical problems that inevitably came with organizing travel itineraries for so many people.
The sun was hanging low over the horizon when hands on my shoulders made me jump. Cal squeezed gently, leaning down to press a kiss to the side of my head. “Come have dinner,” he commanded.
I patted his hand and smiled up at him, accepting the kiss he pressed to my lips.
“I just need fifteen or twenty minutes to finish this up,” I said.
The doctor whose itinerary I was organizing was complex for scheduling reasons; she could only make the first day of the conference and had to be back in her home city of San Francisco by sundown.
She had a number of travel requirements and wanted to stay at the fully booked hotel where the conference was happening.
Possible, but I had to be clever about it.
“Fine,” Cal said. “I’ll tell Xavier to fix you a plate.”
It took me longer than twenty minutes to figure it out. An hour after Cal’s first visit, he came back. This time, he came around to the side of my desk and glowered down at me. “You need to eat,” he informed me.
I blinked away from my screen, sighing as I leaned back in my chair. “I know. I just need to—”
“You just need to eat, Deena,” he said.
I huffed. “I’m working on something important,” I said, “and I’m almost done.”
“I don’t care. You’re pregnant, and I won’t have you skipping meals.”
My spine snapped straight. I narrowed my eyes at him, feeling the keen edge of anger sharpen inside me. “You may be my boss at work, Cal, but you are not the boss of me.”
“I’m trying to take care of you.”
“I’m trying to work.”
“I don’t give a shit about your work!” The words exploded out of him, and Cal had the audacity to lift his arm and point at the room’s exit. As if I were a dog, and he could just snap out a command and have me obey.
This wasn’t the bedroom, where I felt safe and connected and I liked being told what to do. This was my business. My life’s work. The thing that had lifted me out of my repressive childhood and given me hope that I could live life on my terms.
And Cal had just said he didn’t care about it.
Rage was a hot cauldron in my gut that had been simmering for weeks. I turned back to my computer, but before I could put my hands on the keyboard, Cal closed the lid.
“Dinner. Now.”
“That’s enough, Cal,” I said, my voice low. I stood, facing him, and I was sure the anger was more than visible in my eyes. “We’ve discussed this before. This won’t work if I don’t have the autonomy to run my business the way I see fit.”
His own anger simmered in his eyes, in the twitch of his muscles, in the clench of his jaw. His fists were tight, and a short huff of breath blew out of his nose.
“Don’t you dare scoff at me,” I said in a low voice.
Cal spread his arms. “Come on, Deena.”
“Come on, what? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“This has gone on long enough. You can’t possibly think I’ll let you work until you’re due to give birth.”
I blinked. Blinked again. “What do you mean, ‘let me’ work?” I asked slowly, fingers tenting on the surface of the desk as I fought to maintain my balance.
“This is ridiculous.” He pointed at my laptop. “I make a hundred times your salary, Deena. You don’t have to work until eight o’clock at night! You shouldn’t be working at all!”
“I’m not giving up my business just because you make more money than me, Cal.”
“Why not!”
“Because it’s everything to me,” I shouted. “Because I’ve worked my whole life to build it, and I’m proud of it!”
“So what?” The words slapped against me, harsh and stinging. Cal saw my reaction and rolled his eyes. Rolled his eyes. “Come on, Deena. You’re in a more privileged position than ninety-nine percent of women who get pregnant. Don’t you think you should be taking advantage of that?”
“By tying myself to a man and relying on him entirely? Gee, that sounds like a great idea!”
“So you don’t trust me now?”
“Not when you barge in here and try to tell me what to do.”
He flinched. But his eyes were hard. “This is it,” he said, slicing his hand through the air.
My breath became shallower. The tension between us grew thicker, and it was hard to see clearly through the haze blanketing my vision. Something was shifting between us. Something big. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m not putting up with this anymore. You’re canceling that client”—he pointed at my laptop—“and you’re shutting it down.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re shutting your business down, Deena. This has gone on long enough.”
My chest felt like it was caving in. Cal stood before me, a pillar of swirling, aggressive, immovable energy. I felt small and weak and terrified before him where before I’d felt safe and cherished.
But that was all a lie, wasn’t it?
He never cared about me. He only cared about possessing me.
My heart cracked, and pain rushed into me. It pierced my chest and stabbed my gut. It sent tingles down to my fingers and toes and pulsed through my skull. Everything hurt.
Cal saw none of it. He’d been so in tune with my every need before, and now I didn’t exist. He just went on in that implacable, hard voice: “There’s no reason for you to work. You’re stressing yourself out, and that could hurt the baby.”
“You don’t think that maybe what’s stressing me out is you?”
“The baby—”
“Is that all you care about? Everything I tell you just goes in one ear and out the other because my needs no longer matter. My wants are pointless and unworthy of even being heard. You’ve decreed that my business is a silly little female hobby, and I should give it up because you say so.
You know best. Am I reading this right?”
Cold chips of ice glared at me. Cal’s mouth thinned, and then he said only one word: “Yes.”
That was it—the end. In one word, he’d confirmed my worst fears.
I’d fallen for the one thing I’d tried to outrun.
I’d forever tied my life to a man—because even if we weren’t together, we’d always be tied through our baby—and shrunk my life down to suit his whims. I’d followed in my mother’s footsteps and unwittingly did exactly what she always wanted for me.
If I called her and told her that Cal insisted I shut down the business I’d spent my entire adult life building, she’d be the happiest woman in the world.
I was invisible. I was superfluous. I was unnecessary.
My movements felt heavy. I dipped my chin and let Cal guide me to the dining room. I ate as much as I could stomach, got ready for bed, and slipped under the covers.
Cal got in behind me and held me close, and tears wetted my pillow. His arms had felt so good for so long, but now I knew the truth; they were a prison.
The next day, I pretended to be asleep as he got ready for work.
I waited an hour, then crawled out of bed and packed.
I only took the necessities: my favorite clothes, my toiletries, my work things, my valuables.
I ran into a housekeeper and one of the many nannies who took care of Lila, and I didn’t answer their questions about where I was going.
Once I was out of the building, I took a deep breath and scurried to the subway to go home.
My home. The only place that was safe now. The place I should’ve stayed all along.