After advising me on several pivots we may need to make for the business as an investment as a whole, I thank her for her time and dismiss her for the day.She smiles and bids me goodnight before closing the office doors behind her.
I finish my drink and study Audrey’s bags tucked in the corner between the couch, chair, and wall.
Certain she won’t leave the office without them, I lean back and close my eyes, hoping a few minutes will ease my headache.
My stomach rumbles so loud it rouses me from a doze.I shouldn’t have skipped lunch but was too distraught to eat.I check my watch and move to my desk.
The security feed shows Audrey waving goodbye to the last of the secretaries as they crowd into the elevator.I unwrap my sandwich, take a bite, and chew as I watch her walk down the hall on wooden legs.She stops in front of her empty desk and skims her fingertips over the barren desktop.
I take another bite before setting down my sandwich, tearing open the bag of chips, and popping a few into my mouth.The crunch reverberates through my skull.
I pause as an off-putting taste hits my tongue, but it dissipates when I chew, so I swallow and crack open my water bottle.
Audrey opens the door mid-chug.She pauses with the handle in her grasp before heading to the couch.
“I apologize, Mr.Diamond.I thought you weren’t here since Ms.Baker left for the day,” she says.
I recap my water bottle and pick up my sandwich.
“We need to talk, Audrey,” I say.
“Yes, we do, but not at the office and not now.”
Her response surprises me.After her reluctance to even be in the same room with me all afternoon, I thought she would completely ignore me.
But I don’t want to dig further without her involvement, and my father’s threat rings in my ears.If she’s worried about her mother, then I have to let her know my father has her information.
“Yes now,” I demand.
The world sways.I set my sandwich down.
She crosses her arms over her chest.
“No.I need a few days,” she says.
“Now, Audrey,” I insist.
Her face blurs.I lift my hand to check if my glasses are still on my face and knock them off kilter.My arm weighs a thousand pounds and grows heavier with every heartbeat.
“Your mom.My father—”
Her shocked gasp as I slump forward barely filters in through the buzzing in my ears.
An unnatural warmth spreads throughout my body, and no matter how hard I fight against the flow, it drags me down into darkness.
Audrey calls my name.Her panicked tone pulls me from the abyss.I pat the back of her hand before it tugs me back under.
Time jumbles, but Carlos Lopez and Liam Brunswick feature in my broken thoughts.Their faces don’t belong against the backdrop of my new office, and Lopez looks weird when he isn’t wearing his security guard uniform, but with Audrey close by, I don’t care.A stranger leans over me and shines a bright light into my eyes.I lie on the couch and subconsciously track my baby doll as she flits around the room.
I rise from the drugged sleep in slow increments.My senses wake one agonizing moment at a time.Disoriented, I stare up at the dimly lit ceiling until my bladder sends urgency through me.I sit up and nearly fall off the couch.
Audrey startles awake in the cushioned chair next to me.
“Don’t move, Brennan.”As my soul soars through the clouds at her concern, my brain takes a truncated trip around the sun before slamming back into my body.Audrey’s pale skin stands out against her dark freckles in the light from the lamp on the side table.“The physician said you’d be dizzy and uncoordinated for a little while.”
I frame her delicate features with my hands and brush my thumb over her cheek.
“You’re here,” I mumble.
