"What do you think I did?" He stood and stepped toward me menacingly, but the security guard pressed his shoulder and he stepped back. "I told Asher what a money whore you are. I showed him the bank transaction, told him you got knocked up on purpose… What's your next play, Veda? Are you gonna beg for forgiveness?"
My hand flew without my conscious thought. I smacked him so hard blood sprayed from his nose, splattering the security guard's white shirt. Then I turned on my heel and stomped out. What was I supposed to do? Clayton had all the leverage. I knew I was the one in the wrong here and I knew I deserved all of this.
But Asher didn’t deserve any of it. He was an amazing perfect man whom I had hurt so desperately and now I wanted to get to him before he lost control. But I had no clue where he was.
Penny was gone when I rushed past her desk to mine. I plopped into the chair and pressed the phone receiver to my ear as Idialed Asher's cell phone number by memory. It rang four times and went to voicemail, so I tried again and again. He either left his phone here or he was refusing calls and either thing felt like total rejection.
"Come on, Asher, pick up!" I hissed under my breath as I tried again, but still there was no answer. I knew he would never forgive me, but I'd never forgive me if he drank over this. Given how upset he was yesterday about Clayton's antics in the meeting about the brand company acquisition and how close he came to drinking then, I knew in my heart Asher was struggling.
"You should be ashamed of yourself," I heard, and when I looked up it was Penny, returned to her desk. She sat there with a cup of coffee, scowling at me over the rim. "Pretending to care about him… You know you had me fooled too. You really hurt him."
I did feel ashamed. I felt my entire body weighed down by the thought of the man I loved more than anything hurting so badly he'd throw away his future to drown his current moment.
"This whole office knows, you know. Clayton screamed it at the top of his lungs. Everyone knows what you did."
For the first time in my life I didn't care what people thought of me. I had done wretched ungodly things to Asher, and I deserved their judgment. I hated myself for ever hurting him, but for his sake, I needed her help.
"Please, Penny… Please, forgive me. I …" There was no point in begging for mercy when what I really wanted was to find him. "Where would he go? How can I find him?"
Penny shook her head and set her coffee mug down, still glaring at me. "If you have any decency left, you'll leave him alone. Pack your things and go home, Veda. You don’t belong here."
I understood her emotion. Everyone cared about Asher so much, and they had every reason to. After his wife died they watched him fall apart, and recently they watched him climb out of that hole. To them, I wasn't the one who helped him out of the hole, I was the one who kicked him while he was lifting himself out.
My head hung and I couldn’t think of a single way to contact him. His home in Greenwich was a forty five minute commute. If I went there and he wasn't there, it would be an hour and a half before I was back to the city to look other places. I covered my face with my hands as tears burned the back of my eyes.
I didn't have the right to sit here crying over what I'd done when I had to get to him and help him through this so he wouldn’t drink. But I didn’t know how to find him, and assuming I could find him, I had no way of knowing if he would ever talk to me again, let alone lean on me in his time of need. He wasn't here with Penny, who was his other support I times like this, so where was he? And who else did he lean on?
The torture continued as I sat there racking my brain to think of anyone he'd call or any place he might go, and I remembered the night we were supposed to have dinner. He'd gotten that phone call from a man in his AA group, and he rushed off to help him. A friend in need, he'd said. It triggered my thoughts, forcing me to my feet with my purse in hand before I finished the thought.
Robert Lang was seated at his desk as I walked right past his secretary and opened his door. His eyes shot up at me when I stormed in, and he sat there with his phone pressed to his ear staring at me.
"Honey, I have to go. I'll call you at lunch time, okay?"
"Sir… I'm sorry she just walked right past." His secretary sounded winded as she followed me in, but Robert waved her off.
"She's alright, Barbra." He nodded, but the woman glared at me as she backed out, shutting the door behind herself.
"Mr. Lang, I need to find Asher," I rushed out, clinging to my purse as if it were a shield.
"Veda… What's wrong? Sit down," he said, nodding at the chair. I was too amped up to sit. I wanted nothing to do with any comfort at all until I found him.
"No, Robert, you don't understand. I hurt him…" That was when the tears came, hot and fast, burning my cheeks. "Clayton—he paid me and I didn't know Asher had lost his wife and child, and so I took the deal, and it was the wrong thing but I didn't know it when I took the deal and?—"
"Veda, stop." He stood up and leaned over his desk, clearly confused by my outburst. I was sobbing, swiping at my eyes as I tried hard not to fall apart.
"I'm pregnant, Robert, and Asher thinks I only slept with him because Clayton wanted to hurt him. Please… We have to find him or he's gonna drink. I don't care if he hates me. I just want him to be okay."
Robert stared at me for a long moment as I watched his face. He looked like a concerned father who was tasked with settling the family feud. His fingers steepled on the desk, and he sighed hard and dropped his head. Then he reached for his phone and brought it to his ear after pressing Asher's name on his speed dial.
It rang a few times. I heard every one of them. The man must've been half deaf because his volume on his cell phone was so loud, but when the call connected I heard Asher's voice and immediately I knew he'd been drinking. The tone and the way he slurred his, "hello" was a dead giveaway.
"Asher, it's Bob… Where you at, buddy?"
"Bob," Asher slurred, "Bob, I'm at Murphys… I can't lie to you… I can't do this, Bob."
Murphy's? That was the bar less than two blocks from the office. Asher never mentioned going there, but it made sense. He was so upset and it was the closest place that served alcohol.
Robert started talking to him, but I was already moving. I wasn’t going to stand there while Asher's sponsor talked him down. I was going to that bar and I would drag him out if I had to. Asher was the best thing that ever happened to me and I blew it up by making horrible choices.
