Chapter 9 #2
I glare down at her hand. Her manicure, perfect, blood-red tips, could draw blood. They’re nothing like Margot’s. I think of Margot’s hands: the way they look when she plates lamb, the way she gripped the steering wheel as she drove away from me.
“Stop,” I try to say, but the word is swallowed by the sudden roar of the HVAC system overhead.
The ventilation hums with a mechanical violence, a white noise that drowns out the world.
The office sounds, the distant, rhythmic ringing of a phone in the cubicle farm, the low chatter of the morning staff, vanish.
There is only the blue light, the smell of vanilla, and the predatory heat of the woman leaning over me.
She moves her hand higher, her thumb grazing the knot of my tie. She starts to pull, a gentle but insistent tug that brings my head forward, closer to hers.
“Let go, Ross,” she murmurs. Her lips part, showing a glimpse of white teeth. “For once.”
Her face draws closer. So close I can see the individual lashes of her eyes, the slight shimmer of her lip gloss, the tiny pore of a scar on her chin.
Time seems to speed up, making my movements ineffective. I’m living in slow motion, but she’s on fast forward.
A visceral wave of nausea almost overcomes me. My stomach twists into a hard knot of guilt and disgust.
This is my penance.
This is what I’ve built. By prioritizing the firm, by letting Tabitha into the inner sanctum of my professional life, I’ve invited her into the ruins of my personal one.
I’m thinking about the “nuclear solution.” I’m thinking about the way Chan looked at me.
Resign.
I should have done it already. I should have walked into Arthur’s office and burned it all down.
Tabitha’s breath is warm against my mouth now. Her eyes are closing, her head tilting to the side. She is a second away from pressing her lips against mine. One second away from making the mistake permanent.
My hands grip the armrests of my Aeron chair so hard the plastic groans. Sweat slicks my palms, sending tremors through my biceps. I am a machine trying to override its own programming.
In the corner of my vision, the Dubai project still glows on the monitor. The silver thorn. It looks sharp. It looks like it’s waiting to draw blood.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
She leans in the final inch. Her eyes are shut tight. She’s waiting for the impact.
And for the first time in my life, I realize some buildings aren’t meant to be saved. Some structures are so fundamentally compromised that the only moral act is to let them collapse.
I finally find my voice, but it’s not for her.
“No. I’m done,” I say.
She pauses, her lips brushing the corner of mine. She stays there, frozen in the near-kiss, her breath hitching. “What?”
“I said,” I repeat, my voice rising, “Get away from me. I’m done. With this conversation. With you. And with Arthur.”
I snare her wrist. There is no gentleness in the grip. I pry her hand from my chest, feeling the desperate tension in her tendons before she finally goes slack. I shove my chair backward. The wheels scream against the floor, violently reclaiming the space she’s been trying to erase.
She stumbles back, her eyes snapping open, a flash of shock followed by cold, sharp anger crossing her features.
“Ross,”
“Get out.” I stand, and for the first time in forty-eight hours, I feel the full height of my own frame. “Unlock the door and get out of my office.”
She scowls at me, and the professional curation finally cracks. Her face contorts into a mask of humiliated rage. “You’re making a mistake. You’re going to lose everything. Arthur will,”
“Arthur can have it,” I say, walking toward the door since she apparently won’t. My footsteps are heavy and definitive. Not wanting to wait for her to move, I reach past her and twist the lock myself.
Click.
I open the door wide, inviting the noise of the office back in. The phones. The printers. The life I’m about to leave behind.
“The Dubai project is on the desk,” I tell her, my voice as cold as the glass walls. “It’s yours. Take the specs. Take the partnership. Take it all.”
I grab my jacket from the back of the chair. I don’t look at her or the monitor again.
But I don’t head for the elevator. Not yet.
I turn left, toward the corner suite. Toward the heavy double doors I was too cowardly to yank open and do what needed to be done.
Adrenaline floods my system, hot and sharp. I don’t check my tie. I don’t smooth my hair. I stride down the hallway, a man marching to his own execution, or perhaps his own liberation.
I don’t knock.
I throw the doors open so hard they bounce against the stoppers with a violent thud.
Arthur Keane stands by the window, staring out at the city he thinks he owns. He turns slowly, his face arranging itself into a mask of irritated superiority.
“Ross,” he says, checking his watch. “You’re early. I assume you have the revised core specs?”
“I don’t have the specs, Arthur.” My voice booms, filling the cavernous office. I didn’t know I had this much volume in me. “And I don’t have the patience.”
“Excuse me?” Arthur steps away from the window. “Lower your voice. You sound hysterical.”
“I am hysterical!” I yell, stepping further into the room. “I’m hysterical because I’ve spent five years building your legacy while mine crumbled at home. I’m hysterical because I almost let this place turn me into something unrecognizable.”
Arthur sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Ross, sit down. You look like hell. Is this about the wife?”
He waves a dismissive hand. “Go home. Sleep for six hours. Buy a sports car. Get a mistress. Do whatever you need to handle this midlife crisis, but don’t bring this drama into my office.”
“It’s not a crisis,” I snarl, stepping up to his mahogany desk. I place my hands on the polished surface, leaning in until I see the sudden flicker of uncertainty in his eyes. “It’s a resignation.”
He freezes. “You can’t resign. You’re on contract. You’re six months from partnership.”
“I don’t care about the partnership. I don’t care about the contract. Sue me. Blackball me. I am done.” I push off the desk, standing tall. “I am quitting, effective immediately. Tabitha has the Dubai files.”
“You’ll regret this by lunch,” Arthur warns, his voice turning icy. “You’ll be nothing in this town without me.”
“I’d rather be nothing in this town than everything in this office.”
I turn on my heel.
“Ross!” Arthur shouts.
I keep walking, crossing the threshold and leaving the Emperor shouting into an empty room.
The bullpen has gone silent. Heads pop up over cubicle walls like prairie dogs sensing a predator. They heard the shouting. They heard the crash of the doors.
Unbothered, I walk down the center aisle, my jacket slung over my shoulder.
Near the breakroom, Chan stands in the doorway.
He catches my eye. His expression is unreadable for a moment, then he smiles. It’s a small, sad, proud thing.
Slowly, he lifts his hands.
Clap.
He doesn’t make a sound, bringing his palms together in a silent pantomime of applause.
Clap. Clap.
He nods at me, a salute from a soldier still stuck in the trenches to the one who finally jumped the wire.
I nod back, my throat tight.
I hit the call button for the elevator. The doors slide open immediately, as if the building itself is eager to spit me out.
I step inside and press the button for the lobby.
As the doors slide shut, cutting off the view of the firm, the Silver Thorn Tower, and the life I used to think I wanted, I finally exhale.
I have no job. But for the first time in five years, I have myself.
It’s time to go get my wife and bring her home.