Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
The figure leaned forward, and his smell filled her nostrils. It was a combination of smoke and something faintly sweet, and it made her stomach churn.
“You sure you didn’t take my money, Virginia?”
His features remained obscured, blurry but somehow still familiar. She shook her head, fear and something else rising up in her throat, stealing her words as a second hand landed on her other knee.
“It’s okay if you did. Really. I need you to tell me the truth. Good girls tell the truth, Virginia.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t take it.”
“I think you’re lying to me, Virginia.” The huge hands felt heavy on her thighs as they slid upward, sending her heart into her throat. “Now, what are we going to do about that?”
She bolted upright in bed, cold sweat covering her body. Heart still racing, she drew in several deep breaths and tried to bring her body back under control. What was it with these crazy dreams?
For the past few weeks, they had plagued her incessantly.
It was the same thing over and over—a strange, faceless man who would approach her in the middle of the night.
She could still feel his clammy, fleshy palms on her skin, and she rubbed briskly at the blanket covering her thighs to dispel the sensation.
She felt sick to her stomach, unable to fathom why her mind conjured these images night after night.
And it felt so real. What was wrong with her?
She grabbed her phone where it was charging on the nightstand, and the numbers on the home screen read that it was a little after 3:00 AM.
She wouldn't be able to go back to sleep.
Not yet. She was always too shaken after these episodes to rest easy.
Instead, she slipped from the bed and headed out to the kitchen. On nights like these, she desperately wished she wasn't alone. At almost twenty-four, it was more than a little ridiculous of her. She'd spent several years up north in college all alone. She didn't need a man around.
But sometimes, even she had to admit that it might be nice.
Nearly two years had passed since her last serious relationship ended.
She’d met Brandon while attending college and had immediately fallen for him.
But after almost three years together, things began to fizzle out.
He wanted to settle down, take her home to meet his family.
She wasn't ready for that. Not that it wouldn't be nice… someday.
But then, at twenty-one, marriage and kids weren't in her immediate future. She'd had dreams of doing something big with her life. She hadn't worked out all the details, but she knew she wanted more than what she grew up with.
Like she had told Mason at the hotel, her childhood had been spent mostly in a state of upheaval.
Her mother worked whatever odd jobs she could find, typically cleaning houses or waitressing.
Her father moved around, doing odd jobs.
Sometimes it was citrus, other times avocado.
But he traveled all over the south, working whenever they needed money.
When he moved around, her mother typically followed.
That left her brother and her alone sometimes for months at a time.
And when her parents weren't working, they were partying.
They loved the music scene, reveled in the drink and drugs it offered.
It was as if her parents had never really grown up, only gotten older as the years passed.
They focused on having fun, seeming to forget that they had two children at home.
When she was eight, two officers showed up at the house one evening to inform them that their parents had perished in a car accident.
She didn’t even remember crying for them.
She didn't know them well enough to feel any kind of deep emotion that they were gone.
If Knox felt differently, he never showed it.
He told the officers they had relatives who would step up and take care of them. It was a blatant lie. Their maternal grandparents had disowned their daughter when she married George Castillo, and Vivi had never met her paternal grandparents or any of her father’s family.
Knox had been more a father to her than a brother.
She owed him for taking care of her at seventeen when he should have been out with his friends having fun.
Instead, he’d been raising a nine-year-old girl.
He’d never once complained, and they made it through several months together before the authorities threatened to remove her from his care.
The summer he turned eighteen, Knox enlisted in the Marines and found Vivi a home with Ellen, a friend of her maternal grandparents. Vivi’s grandparents had cut her mother off when she married Vivi’s father, and his parents were God knew where. In the end, they had little choice in the matter.
Though her maternal grandparents were still alive, they had neither the ability nor the desire to take in a nine-year-old girl. Instead, they’d reached out to Ellen, who had welcomed her in with open arms and treated her like her very own.
Ellen had seen her fair share of grief. Her own daughter, Christine, had committed suicide at just sixteen, just a couple of years before Vivi was born.
A few months after Vivi moved in with her, Ellen insisted Vivi speak with a child psychologist. Vivi had thought it silly at the time but, looking back, she was certain Ellen didn’t want a repeat of what had happened with Christine.
Losing one’s parents was bound to do some emotional damage, but as she’d told Dr. Vance then, she was mostly just relieved to finally be in a home with someone who cared for her and was present all the time.
She’d spoken with another doctor as well, but both had apparently told Ellen that she was resilient and well-adjusted.
Though Ellen was still overprotective, she began to relax her guard a bit as time went on.
Still, she mourned her daughter deeply. There was a row of lilies planted along the fence in the backyard that commemorated her life, and Ellen had tended them diligently, almost as if they were a living extension of the real Christine.
Vivi felt like it was her responsibility to take care of the house Ellen had loved so much.
It had never been her plan to stay in Florida, even though it was home. She’d gone to school for computer science, and she’d always wanted to move out west where technology reigned and make a name for herself. But when Knox had offered her a job with Vantage she hadn’t been able to say no.
Honestly, she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do.
She vacillated daily between staying in Florida or staging the house and putting it on the market.
A slice of pain zinged through her chest, compounding her guilt.
Ellen had willed her the house, and it felt wrong somehow to sell it when it seemed to mean so much to her that Vivi stay there.
She felt like she owed both her and her brother for all they’d done for her over the years.
She flipped on the light to the kitchen and looked around the room. It was still so similar to the place where she had grown up, yet different now too.
After the fire last week, the recovery team had scrubbed the entire room and now the smell of industrial cleaning agents hung in the air. The kitchen looked bare without the cabinets, and she rubbed the little space over her heart as a pang of hurt ricocheted through her chest.
She still couldn't believe she hadn't seen the signs of Ellen’s rapid downward spiral. Were they there and she had just ignored them? She didn't want to believe that was the case. Either way, the damage was done and Ellen was safe in the assisted living facility.
She planned to visit Morningside before heading into work in the morning. She wanted to make sure that Ellen was settling in okay. After everything that had happened, even though it was her choice to go, she still felt responsible for her wellbeing.
She moved toward the refrigerator, the one thing in the room that hadn’t been damaged by the fire, and pulled out the pitcher of sweet tea.
She carried it into the adjacent dining room and poured herself a glass of the sweet liquid.
It was exactly the way Ellen had made it, and the reminder of her childhood brought tears to her eyes.
She pulled out a chair and sat, staring at the glass of brown liquid in front of her. She couldn't stem the guilt she felt rising up like a tide inside her. The only reprieve she'd had recently was the night at the hotel. With him. Jerk.
Every muscle in her body went tight as she pulled the memory into focus. It had been… incredible. She could still remember with startling clarity the feel of Mason's hands on her.
She couldn't quite reconcile what had happened the other morning, and she’d spent the past several days ignoring him as much as humanly possible.
He had seemed truly apologetic, and a huge part of her felt bad for shooting him down.
On the heels of that came the immediate self-recrimination.
She couldn't begin to understand Mason’s obsession with her, or why he wouldn't let it go.
He hadn't even kissed her, for Christ’s sake.
He hadn't wanted anything serious a week ago.
Why would it be different now? Just because they worked together didn't mean anything.
She was going to put her time with him behind her and move on.
But she was sure the memory of that night would stay burned on her brain for a long time to come.
She smiled as the words from one of her friends came to mind. The best way to get over a man is to get under a new one. It wasn't her typical way of getting over a breakup—that usually involved P.F. Chang's and ice cream. But in Mason’s case, maybe it was for the best.
For some reason, he had affected her on an unreasonably deep level, and she needed to exorcise him from her brain. At least going on a date might help. God, she needed to do anything other than sitting around at three in the morning, wallowing in guilt and self-pity, thinking of him.
Feeling not much better about herself, but at least no longer unsettled from her dream, she put the sweet tea away, then headed back to bed to get a few more hours of sleep before she went to visit Ellen.
Her alarm jangled at seven o’clock, tearing her from an exhausted, disturbed slumber.
Though she’d been able to fall back to sleep, she hadn’t rested well.
With a sigh, she turned off the alarm and sank back into the cushions.
She was tempted to just close her eyes but she knew if she did, she would fall back to sleep and not resurface until noon.
Forcing her muscles to move, she slid from the bed and practically fell into the shower.
An hour later, clean and slightly refreshed, she pulled into Morningside and steered the car toward the left side of the lot.
Ellen’s favorite place was the garden, and she had a feeling that, even this early in the day, she could find her there.
After signing in at the desk, she made her way through the sunny garden, trailing her fingers over the lush spring flowers blooming brightly in the flowerbeds scattered across the property.
The nurse at the desk confirmed that Ellen had gone outside to enjoy the weather, and she knew she would find her by the fountain.
Although she constantly worried about her, the nurses there were better equipped to help her, and they assured her that Ellen had already made several friends.
Leaving the brick pathway, she cut across the yard, a smile lifting her mouth as she saw Ellen seated on a bench scattering feed for the birds. Her head lifted, and a huge smile split her face as Vivi approached. Her heart swelled. Today was a good day. Thank God.
Ellen welcomed her with a warm hug, and Vivi couldn’t help the grin that covered her face. These moments of lucidity were becoming more and more rare, and she felt incredibly fortunate that she was lucky enough to get a few more precious moments with her.
The minutes quickly ticked away as they reminisced, and Vivi realized with regret that she was already running late. Knox had been extremely lenient with her, allowing her to make up her own hours. She hated to leave him hanging though, especially with everything he had going on.
“I have to get to work, but I’ll stop back in a few days.”
Ellen smiled. “Of course, dear. I have plenty of things to keep me occupied. You go enjoy yourself.”
Vivi hugged her goodbye and headed toward the parking lot.
She climbed into her car and headed to Vantage headquarters.
The whole way, Mason’s face tortured her.
She’d avoided him as much as possible for the past few days, but he was always hovering close by, his eyes locked on her.
She could literally feel his gaze on her. What was she going to do about him?
It still boggled her mind, seeing Mason and Miles side by side. They were so different yet so very much the same. They both had the same cocky tilt to their head, the same dimples. But that was where the similarities ended.
While Miles’s features were slightly darker, Mason’s were a stark contrast with his light brown hair and hawk-like golden eyes. Miles was constantly smiling and flirting. Mason’s face was always set in a harsh line, a cloak of stoicism resting on his expression.
The man was infuriating. Why, then, couldn’t she get him off her mind? She knew the reason, of course. He’d stirred feelings deep inside, made her feel something no one else ever had. The way she’d felt in his arms was… indescribable.
But the way he’d spoken about her, as if she meant nothing…
Tears burned the backs of her eyes. It hurt. She hadn’t dwelled on it, instead focusing on ignoring him and keeping her chin held high. Now, though, the emotions that had taken root curled upward, and a tear slipped free.
He was an egotistical prick. He’d used her just as he’d used the woman at the bar that night.
She’d willingly gone along with it, so she had no one to blame but herself.
She knew the angry tears were irrational, but she couldn’t help them as they fell one after the other.
She wanted a connection like that with someone—someone who would actually care about her.
Not someone who would casually toss her aside once he’d gotten what he wanted.
Now she was stuck seeing him every single day at work, a constant reminder of what they’d shared and how he made her feel. She needed to find a way to get over him, and fast, before she did something stupid—like beg him to do it all over again.