I pick up my phone, open the messenger app, but I can’t think of what to say. I can’t send him some brush-off text. I can’t lie to him. He deserves better than that. He deserves better than being somebody’s secret. But I can’t give that to him.
I drop my phone back into my purse and pull the keys from the ignition.This will be fine.Maybe if I say it enough times it will start to feel true and the wobbling in my knees will stop. I lock my car door behind me and hurry across the parking lot. I left my coat in the car and the wind is brisk. I enter behind a group waiting for a table in the cramped vestibule. Reaching into my purse, I pull out my phone to find the text from Wesley, telling me how to find the private room.
“Corrine.” The voice is deep and self-satisfied. As I slowly raise my head, I hope against hope that anyone else will be standing in front of me. Richard leans in close, his navy blue suit the same one he wore to work today. My heart pounds in my throat.
This. Can’t. Be. Happening.
“Are you following me?” he asks, playful. I plaster myself against the door, trying to find more space and hopefully more time to answer.
The restaurant smells like garlic and grilled meat but it’s overpowered by whatever cologne he’s doused himself in.
“I...I...”
I search behind him. Dear god, please don’t let Wesley leave the private room right now. Richard puts his arm around me, guiding me from the busy waiting area, past the hostess stand, toward the dark wood bar. There’s a hallway just behind the bar leading to the stairs. That’s where Wesley is, just below us in some room decorated with wine bottles and fancy prints. He can probably hear my footsteps above him right now.
My hand shakes in my purse.
Richard leans in close as we approach a small group of older men at the end of the bar, all other Hill City executives and a few senior associates. “Why don’t you have a drink with me?”
His breath is hot and reeks of scotch. I stop, not letting him drag me any farther into this nightmare. “I have to go,” I say loudly.
He frowns, turning his back to the rest of our colleagues to face me. “But you just got here.” He brushes his knuckle against my cheek, over my lower lip, and I jerk away. His touch leaves a mealy shiver in its wake.
“I’m in the wrong restaurant.” I force out a laugh, cupping my forehead in my hand. “So silly,” I say.
He studies me, the charm slowly leaking from his eyes replaced by something more calculating. “I think it would be best if you stayed,” he says. Then, after a long pause, “The rest of the executives would love for you to stay.”
I swallow. My hands are sweating and I can’t seem to catch my breath. “Rain check?” I ask, barely making a sound.
Before he can reply, I turn on my heel, stumbling through people and tables, wrenching the door open and running across the parking lot to my car. I throw myself in just as a text comes from Wesley.
Where are you???
I rest my forehead on the emblem on my steering wheel, sucking in air that was somehow nonexistent in the restaurant.
In my lap, the phone lights up again.
Is everything okay?
“No,” I hiss, jamming my keys into the ignition and peeling out of the parking lot. I throw my phone onto the passenger seat. “Everything isnotokay.”
Chapter 37: Wesley
My last girlfriend, Talia, was unfailingly kind. She said hi to everyone, gave her time and energy to helping others. She was dependable, too, like me I guess. That’s why it was such a shock when she stood me up. We were supposed to meet for brunch after finals in junior year. She was going to meet Amy and my mom, officially. She just never showed, which was embarrassing enough. What was worse was that when she finally responded to my texts, it was to tell me she wanted to see other people.
So maybe I’m just overly sensitive to the whole experience. But somehow, even that rejection can’t quite compare to being stood up by Corrine. I waited in that room for an hour and a half. I texted her, called, but never got an answer.
I throw myself on the couch, loosening my tie and flicking through television channels. Amy won’t be back until at least midnight. But she said she’d probably go out with friends after and I plan to be in my room with the door closed by the time she gets home.
I pick up my phone, my finger hovering over Corrine’s contact information, when it starts to ring. Like I’ve conjured her from thin air. Too bad I didn’t have that power an hour ago.
Instead of Corrine’s face showing up on my screen, it’s a picture of her hand, splayed out on her bed. She wouldn’t let me take a picture of her face to put in my phone. She won’t let me take any pictures of her. At all. Because she says it would be too hard to explain why I have photos of my boss on my phone if anyone ever saw them. So, I took a picture of her hand and her painted red nails because they reminded me of her red lipstick and her red glasses and because I’m a pathetic loser.
“Hi,” she says quietly.
“Hi.”
“Can you let me in?”
