It was hard to stay in the house. I'd been neglecting my duties at the office, working mostly through my phone. I didn't like going there either. I didn't have it in me to answer everyone's questions on where she’d gone and when she’d be coming back.
Pearl had touched everyone around her. No surprise there.
I found myself wishing I could join one of her classes so I could just sit there and watch her instead of standing outside like a creep.As if watching her inside would make me less so.
Just as I thought I couldn't take it anymore, people started coming out. I ducked behind a corner as I saw her. She was looking at her phone, barely looking at where she was going, navigating her surroundings almost on muscle memory.
So I followed her. Just like the creepy stalker I was trying so hard not to be.
I wonder if the bodyguards will call the cops on me. Or tell Jax. That would be even worse.
This whole thing was my fault. Yes, Pearl had messed up, but if it had really bothered me, I would've said something the first time she had.
I didn't give a shit about her mistakes. Even Derek and Henry got a good laugh about it after the fact. Apparently, it wasn't Henry's first rodeo, and he felt a little bad scaring the obviously new assistant.
She was never meant to be my assistant. I wanted her to be so much more than that. Still, I should have taken the time to prepare her for everything. Like she had pointed out, that was my job as her boss, and I totally failed her.
But the most important thing I should have done was admit how I felt about her. It was simple. I should've just come out and said that I loved her. That's what it was. I loved Pearl Meadows, and there was no changing that.
Instead, I just let her stand there in front of me, telling me how she felt, begging for me to do it too. And then I let her walk out the door.
Everything I’d been through led me to believe loving someone was a weakness. It gave someone else the tools to hurt you. Plus, it could just be taken away in a flash, like it never happened.
No matter how many times Pearl told me she liked me or submitted to me so prettily in the bedroom, I was afraid she would reject me as soon as I opened myself up to her fully.
That’s what had happened my entire life. I’d loved my mom, and she’d left. I’d loved my father—as a kid, you don’t know any better, do you?—and that ended up in violence, self-loathing,and pain. So much pain. And I was pretty sure that if I’d ever told him I loved him, he’d have punched me bloody for it.
I knew my parental trauma shouldn’t apply to my relationship with Pearl, but it had been so ingrained in my body and soul that it was almost second nature to me. Every time I thought of saying those three simple words, panic rose in me. It was like telling my body to take deep breaths of air, even as I was drowning.
Even though my love for Pearl was real, and I knew no other truth.
I followed Pearl home this time, the bodyguards trailing behind us. She liked to walk, much to my dismay. It would have been much safer if she called a taxi or even bought a car. It wasn’t like she didn't have the money. But there was no stopping Pearl as she put her mind to something, so walking it was.
She took the long road home and stopped by her old place of work, pausing in front of the boarded-up shop, confusion spreading across her face.
Is she looking for work again?
Pearl had more money than she would ever need, but that was the way she was. She wanted to make sure she didn’t depend on someone else. It made sense to search for employment opportunities.
She turned to the side as if she were looking for an explanation for the restaurant being closed and almost saw me. Fortunately, I was quick enough to hide in the alley.
It was me, Pearl. It shut down because of me.
I hadn't told her, but after they fired her, I rained hellfire on the restaurant.
I went in there, guns blazing, only to find her dear old manager getting his dick sucked by the waitress I’d met the day I’d eaten there. Unsurprising.
What was surprising was that the piece of shit didn’t want to hire Pearl back. Not after I threatened him, not after I told him I knew the millionaire Pearl supposedly hadn’t smiled at and could get him fired, not even after I promised to make his life a fucking living hell.
So, with one phone call to the owner of the place warning him to pull out and another to someone who happened to know someone in the Health Department, I shut them down pretty fast.
I even made a point of walking by as they were boarding up the place to give him a smirk.
I never wanted him to hire Pearl back. She deserved a lot better than that fucking job anyway. But no one was going to treat her like shit and get away with it.
That’s when it dawned on me.
I did that. I treated her like shit. And she didn’t deserve any of it.
