Chapter 33
Saturday ended up being a complete waste of twenty-four hours. I woke up at 4 p.m. and ate cereal. Then I followed the girl handbook and ate a full pack of Oreos and a bowl of ice cream, ignoring the rising nausea it caused. My cell had a bunch of missed calls and unopened messages that I couldn’t bring myself to read. The ringer was on silent, but it kept lighting up like the Fourth of July, so I turned it off.
What explanation could there be except that he’d used me to make her jealous? Or get her back. Or even worse, get over her. Jesus, if he’d told me he had a history with Clarissa in the first place, this could have been avoided. Well, not avoided. It would have made me question his life choices but, with time and a lot of neck massages, I could have gotten over it.
Ughhhhhhh, how had I come to be the rebound for Clarissa Darby? The most heinous human on the planet. What had made Jack date her in the first place? It couldn’t be her dazzling personality or down-to-earth vibes.
Yes, I hadn’t admitted to Jack about the business with David, but this almost felt worse. I’ve kissed someone who’d kissed Clarissa Darby. They’d slept together. Ughhhhhhhhhh.
To stave off the nausea, I munched my way through a second pack of Oreos and paced up and down the living room. I buzzed with nervous energy but felt too depressed to get dressed and leave the apartment. Inside, I could be a chaotic mess. I’d become the women I’d lambasted to Viv: a pitiful creature who cried over a man. The first man I’d ever fallen in love with.
By 6 p.m., I was still sniveling, and pacing in front of the TV, where a Jersey Shore marathon played.
Enough, I decided. Crying wouldn’t get me anywhere.
This called for a distraction. I fired up my laptop, and my inbox displayed over three hundred emails that needed replies. That should keep me busy.
We had four units left to sell at The Crystal, according to the floor plan I left open. Four more occasions where I’d have to interact with the man who’d let me think I could be a rainbow in the monochrome world we lived in.
Someone worthy of being loved.
What had transformed into magic would return to mundane as our relationship now needed to remain professional. After that, I could bow out, move on, and never see his dumb silver hair again. The deadbolt on my heart would be made of reinforced steel this time. Protected by motion sensors. Laser beams.
Before I could type a reply to my first email, a sharp knock came at the front door. I held my breath and counted to ten. It rapped again. A familiar staccato I hadn’t expected.
The peephole confirmed it, and I unlocked the two deadbolts to pull the door open. “What are you doing here?”
Denzel looked surprised, as if he hadn’t just shown up at my door unannounced, weeks after breaking up with me. “You never sent my stuff back. We spoke about it at the open house, remember?”
The black trash bag containing his suits still slumped in my hall cupboard, smashed down with the weight of my bulk-buy laundry detergent. “Right, I forgot.”
“Are you all right? Your eyes are red.” He leaned against the doorway.
“I’m good. Allergies.” I disappeared into the hall closet and rearranged the laundry detergent so I could pull out the bag then dumped it at his size-fourteen feet. “Here you go.”
His gaze dropped to the almost empty packet of Oreos and back up to my crumb-covered mouth. “You don’t have allergies, Scar.”
I ignored the hated nickname, but there were worse things he could do. Hell, at least Denzel hadn’t slept with Clarissa.
A little sob escaped my throat, and before I could disguise it with a cough, Denzel enveloped me in a hug, smooshing my face into the familiar crevice in his rock-hard chest.
* * *
“So what do you think, Elise? Big enough for you and little Chico here?” Nuzzled in Elise’s arms, little Chico was an arrogant chihuahua that yipped whenever I tried to impart information about the condo to Elise. Little asshole.
“Not sure. The decor is a little… drab,” she stated, running her hands along the back of the black leather couch.
“This is staging furniture, so try not to focus on it. You can make it your own,” I told her.
This condo listing in the financial district was the monkey on my back. After fixing the cowboy-staging fiasco, a pipe had burst in the kitchen, meaning I’d had to delay showing it to a very interested buyer who’d decided to go with another unit in the building that he could view that day. It had already sat on the market for four months because the owner, a wealthy Chinese investor, had refused to pay for staging.
Buyers in New York didn’t believe you when you told them their U-shaped couch and six-seater dining table could fit into a fifteen-hundred-square-foot living room. You were required to show them it could fit.
My efforts in selling it had fallen a little to the wayside because of The Crystal. I had two weeks left on our listing agreement, and I needed to get rid of this godforsaken thing.
I declined an incoming call from Viv, taking Elise around the kitchen again to show her the custom cabinets. But Viv called again. And again.
“Will you excuse me, Elise? It’s the office.” I pointed to my phone, and she shrugged. Little Chico bared his teeth.
I moved toward the guest bedroom and called Viv back. “I’m in the middle of a showing.”
“I know, but can you wrap it up? We need to get back to the office,” she wheezed.
“Why?” I panicked. “Did something happen to Lacey? Hailey? Was there a terrorist attack?”
“No. Hurry it up.” And she clicked off.
What could be so bad that I needed to cut a showing short to get back to the office? A sense of foreboding followed me as I walked back through to Elise. “Hi, so sorry, but I have an emergency back at the office. Can we rearran?—”
Elise stared down at the street, stroking little Chico’s head. “No need. I’ve decided I’ll take it.”
I clapped my hands, and little Chico barked. “Fantastic, what are you looking to offer?”
“Full ask. I hate the whole back and forth of negotiations. So tiring.” Her Gucci mules slapped against the soles of her feet as we walked to the front door.
I pressed the elevator button for her. “It is. Well, I’ll get right on that as soon as I’m back in the office.”
The doors opened, and she stepped in. “Say bye to Scarlett, Chico.” She lifted his little paw to wave at me.
He bared his teeth and growled. No, he wants to bite my face off. “Bye, Chico.” I forced a smile and a wave until the doors closed.
* * *
“She’s taking it,” I cheered, jumping into the car. “Thank the Lord. So what’s so important?”
Viv bit her lip. “Have you looked at your phone?”
“Since Elise turned up, no. Then you called.” I watched her face pale from tawny brown to light fawn. “Enough with the mystery, Viv—what’s going on?”
She opened Facebook on her phone and handed it to me. “Someone sent me a link to this.”
It was an article about The Crystal with a picture of me taken from the Lacey Group website at the top. The headline blared, “Real estate superstar sleeping her way to dizzying new heights.”
“What the fuck?” I yelled, punching the dashboard. A quick scan of the text confirmed my worst fears. A source suggested the reason I’d got the Crystal deal was because I’d slept with David Steel. It even alleged we’d engaged in an affair while his wife lay in the hospital, dying of lung cancer.
“It’s everywhere: the paper, blogs, Instagram. People won’t stop sending me links,” Viv rasped. “This is bad, Scarlett. There’s a morality clause in your contract. If Lacey thinks?—”
Jack’s name appeared on my cell, and I jabbed decline. I couldn’t focus on him right now. The reputation I’d built over the last five years could be about to implode. I hit decline once more when he called again.
I felt the familiar turn of my intestines and rooted through my bag for the Imodium. “We need to get back to the office and do damage control. Now.”
* * *
Someone had taken the honor of printing the article out and sticking it to my office door. Three guesses who.
“If it isn’t the lady of the hour,” Clarissa said, giggling and spinning in her chair as I ripped it down. “How’s that fall from grace?”
Viv put her hand on my shoulder. “Ignore her,” she said and ushered me into my office.
I fell into my chair. “This is a fucking catastrophe. The entire city is going to think I’m a whore.”
Viv sat down on the seat opposite me. “I need to laugh to keep from crying.”
“I don’t want to cry. I want to break things.” I massaged my stomach. “Is Lacey in her office?”
Viv’s bronzed glow still hadn’t returned. “I think so.”
Before I could go to her, Lacey appeared in my doorway. “Can I speak to you?” A rhetorical question, as she’d already moved to stand in front of my desk before I could answer.
Viv slipped out and clicked the door shut. It sounded like a gunshot.
My hand kept moving in small circles on my belly. “I was coming to see you.”
“I’ve saved you the journey.” Her face remained stoic. Overdoing the Botox or pissed off? “I imagine you’ve seen what’s circulating online?”
“It’s bullshit, Lacey—you know that,” I choked out. “Some reporter is trying to make a name for themselves by writing some titillating article. It’ll blow over if you give it a week. I’ll keep back from the building, and Jack can take over the remaining showings. When the dust settles, we can sue the bastards for libel.”
“There’s not a molecule of me that believes you would ever sleep with a man to land a deal,” she said. “But I’m afraid it’s not as simple as that.” Lacey crossed her arms. “As you know, there’s a morality clause in your contract, and the accusations trigger an automatic dismissal.”
I came around the desk to face her. “You’re firing me? Even when you know I didn’t do it? Please, Lacey, I’ll take a lie detector, anything, but don’t do this.”
“Having you in charge would bring us bad publicity,” she informed me with wet eyes. “I’ve spoken to the lawyers, and yes, as much as it pains me, as of right now, you are terminated.”
“What about The Crystal? I hadn’t finished?—”
“David Steel called five minutes ago and demanded you be removed from the project today. Otherwise, he would be taking his future business elsewhere.” She gnawed at her bottom lip. “Jack Shane will be taking over with the help of Clarissa.”
There was the kicker.
Viv came through the door like water from a burst dam, out of breath.
“There better be a terrorist attack, Viv, or I am going to lose it,” I exploded.
She shook her head. “Robertson Memorial called.”
The bottom fell out of my world. “Hailey?”
She shook her head. “Mr. Anderson.”
My brain couldn’t join the dots. “Why are they calling me? I’m not family.”
“They said he’s had a stroke.” She shifted from foot to foot. “He didn’t have anyone else. You’re down as his emergency contact.”
I choked back bile. “Did they say how bad?”
“I think you need to go now,” Viv half whispered, aware our boss—sorry, my ex-boss—was still in the room.
Lacey spoke to me, but her words blurred around the edges as I tried to process it all. Jack lying to me, being fired, and now being ridiculed in the media.
Then Mr. Anderson, who was so alone in the world that he’d put the girlfriend of a neighbor as his emergency contact. The kind old man I’d promised to meet for brunch but never had because I’d needed to work. And for what? To be fired for a vicious rumor that had no semblance of truth?
“Can you drive me?” I asked Viv.
She nodded and bolted to get her handbag.
Lacey held her hand out for a handshake. “I am sorry, Scarlett. I hope your friend’s okay.”
My arm remained frozen at my side. “So do I.”
And with a last look around my office, I bid farewell to my dream.