The Rules (20 page)

I grabbed my head as it began to pound.

That woman was a bitch. I could see why he wasn’t with her. I wasn’t stupid enough to think she lived here with him. I wasn’t even sure she’d ever been to the house before. They were surely estranged.

But that left a pile of damning facts I could not ignore.

The man had a
wife
. He’d failed to mention that detail. And she knew enough about his lifestyle to recognize the significance of the necklace he’d given me not one hour before.

My seemingly perfect world had shattered in two minutes.

He also had a kid. No matter what he thought about his wife, he needed to take care of his own daughter. And if that woman was as crazy as she seemed, he needed to be in court getting custody, like yesterday.

I stomped from the room, searching frantically all over the house. I opened every single door and looked around like a wild woman. I looked through his bedroom and in every hall, even his desk. Not one photo. The wife I could understand, but the man had not one single photo of his own child.

That was crazy.

How could he do that to an innocent kid? Even a stranger deserved better treatment. Hell, if I saw a kid being treated like that walking down the street, I would do everything in my power to extricate the poor soul from the situation.

This was Cade’s own flesh and blood.

I slumped to the floor in his office, tucking my head between my knees and heaving for oxygen.

I wasn’t going to be able to fix this or rationalize it. There was no way for Cade to fix it, either. Nothing he could say would make me see his side in this. He’d lied to me. By omission, but still. This was huge.

I pulled myself to standing and headed for the kitchen. I grabbed my purse and called a taxi. I waited by the front door, staring at my broken dreams on the kitchen table across the great room, fighting the tears that wanted to leak from my eyes.

I’d cried a river in the last day. I could keep these at bay until I got home. I had to. The cab driver would think I’d lost my mind otherwise.

I was taking absolutely nothing I hadn’t come with. I wished I could even leave the clothes on my back, but there was nothing else for me to wear. The only things I held were my purse and my overnight bag filled with my makeup and toiletries.

The cab was fast. Thank God. I stepped onto the front porch, taking a deep breath, and closed the door behind me.

I stepped over the broken necklace on my way down the walkway, nearly jogging as I raced from my ten day break from sanity.

As the cab pulled away from the house, I looked out the window, a tear falling down my face unbidden.
Good-bye, Cade. Have a nice life
.

Part Two: Her Rules

Chapter Seventeen

Five months later…

The incessant beeping dragged me out of a deep sleep. When it registered as my alarm, I groaned and wiggled one arm out from under the covers to slap blindly at the top of my clock without turning my head or exposing any other skin.

I was snuggled and warm. I didn’t need it to be day yet.

I took deep breaths, still burrowed under my covers. After a few minutes, I flipped to my back and unburied my head enough to stare at the ceiling.

I smiled as I remembered what my life consisted of. For the first time in months, it wasn’t a forced smile, either. I finally felt a sense of contentment that had eluded me for so long, I’d hovered on the edge of a black hole.

Cheyenne and Meagan had been with me through it all. They had been the ones to pick up the pieces and glue me back together. I owed them my life, literally.

I finally had my dream job. I took a deep cleansing breath. I’d only been a full-time employee with The Rockwood Group for two weeks, but already I knew it was the right decision.

I hadn’t started at the bottom rung this time. I’d been smart. I’d held out for a position I was qualified for instead of jumping at the first opportunity that came along.

Five months
.

The first week had been spent crying on Cheyenne’s couch. That was all the time I’d given myself to mourn, telling myself I couldn’t dedicate more days to missing Cade Alexander than I’d actually spent
with
him.

I’d gone straight to my apartment after leaving his house, cleared out everything that mattered to me, and headed for Cheyenne’s, never looking back. I sent a brief e-mail to Moriah letting her know I would not be returning to work. That hurt. I’d never been so irresponsible. But I had no other option. I left no opportunity for Cade to find me.

Meagan had been the one to sell my furniture and turn in my keys. I’d broken my lease—a lease I’d only had for a month—but no other choice seemed viable. The financial hit was tough at first. But I managed to make my minimum payments on time and keep my chin above water, barely.

A week after I took up residence on Cheyenne’s couch, I opened the want ads and started looking. Two days later, I switched from Atlanta to Nashville in my search. Leaving Atlanta seemed like the best call. And Nashville was the home of The Rockwood Group, a company that had long been one of my top contenders after graduation.

The Rockwood Group had no openings that were realistic choices. I researched temp agencies and decided that was the perfect route to get myself in the job market.

Instead of fretting over my abrupt departure from Alexander Technologies and how that information would look on a résumé, I left it out. Easy.

I went to Nashville on a Wednesday, ten days after leaving Cade, to interview with a top-notch temp agency. They hired me on the spot. No one questioned what I’d done since graduating a month ago. That short interlude could easily be explained away as a period of job hunting.

The relief over that decision alone had lifted my spirits. I spent the long weekend hauling my stuff from Atlanta to Nashville, securing a small one-bedroom apartment, and purchasing second-hand furniture. On Monday morning, two weeks from leaving my heart in Cade Alexander’s house, I was dressed to kill and working my tail off.

My first assignment had been a two-month position with a mid-sized company that immediately adored me and found me invaluable. I loved them too, but knew that was not my final stop. My sights were high. My sights were still on The Rockwood Group.

My second assignment had been with a smaller business that needed a temporary office manager. I learned so much from them that I should have paid them for their time instead of the other way around.

The day I got the call that I would be placed with The Rockwood Group, a complete fluke, I nearly screamed into the phone. I even treated myself to a new suit that evening. My head was almost clear by then. The fog would slip in when I was alone on my couch in the evening or on the weekend. I tamped it down with ice cream and hot fudge sauce.

I worked my ass off for The Rockwood Group, making an impression in every department I touched. I worked long hours, skipped lunches, and made connections. That hard work paid off.

As of two weeks ago, they’d bought me out from under the temp agency, and I was now a full-time employee on the fourth floor as the manager of a half dozen other employees.

I smiled up at my ceiling once again and dragged myself out of bed—or off the mattress rather. I hadn’t splurged for a frame yet.

Enough traipsing down memory lane. It was real. Every day when that alarm clock went off, I remembered it was real. I was on a path that led to good places. I had a starting salary that made me squeal in delight. Soon, I would be able to move from my dingy apartment to a larger, classier place in a better part of town. I had managed to pay off my credit card debt in the last few months, and for the first time ever, my only outstanding loan was six years of education.

The best part was I had a date tonight.

I’d met Brad Phelps at my previous temp job. He’d flirted with me while I’d worked there, but I’d made myself unapproachable. Dating co-workers was absolutely never going to happen to me again. But last weekend, I’d run into him at Starbucks, and we’d had coffee together.

He was kind, polite, attractive, educated—everything I should have wanted in a man. I hadn’t dated since I’d left Cade, and I knew I needed to put myself back out there. Brad made me laugh. He opened doors for me. He bought my coffee. And he asked me out.

He didn’t cause a tight knot to form in my belly. He didn’t make my nipples stand at attention. He didn’t make me long to have his lips on my skin.

I shook these ridiculous thoughts aside. I needed to move on. And I would. What the hell was wrong with me?

I refused to be ruined by ten days with a man who lied to me, spanked me twice, and made me feel like I had no control over myself. Well, that last part was entirely my fault. Nobody was responsible for the way I felt. That had been on me.

I had a date tonight. It felt good, and I smiled again as I entered the shower.

In half an hour, I stood in my closet choosing an outfit. I wore a navy pencil skirt and the perfect nude pumps. I was on my third blouse, the first two rejected ones draped over the door knob. I finally had “the one” on and made my way to the kitchen.

My furniture made me cringe. Bare bones is how I’d lived for five months. I had purchased only the most necessary items, a second-hand table and chairs, a garage-sale couch, and a bedroom dresser that had seen better days. The two items I had not scrimped on were my mattress and my television. I needed both to maintain my sanity.

I would have four days off next week for Thanksgiving, and I intended to spend them apartment hunting and furniture shopping.

First, coffee.

Then I hit the road.

By seven thirty I was in my office, going over the day’s events. Most of the employees would arrive at eight. I always felt one step ahead of myself if I beat everyone there. I had a team meeting at ten. My assistant, Lisa, would set up the conference room when she arrived.

By the time ten o’clock rolled around, I was ready to roll. My team of six arranged themselves around the conference table, coffee and bagels in hand, and I proceeded to scribble away on the giant white board at the head of the room as we brainstormed ideas for the latest cell phone app we were developing.

My back was to the entrance of the room, but I felt eyes boring into me. I finished what I was writing and turned around only to catch a glimpse of someone walking away. A man. Tall. Lithe. A flash of dark blond hair. Had I seen him before? I paused for a moment, an eerie sensation crawling up my spine. No one else seemed to have noticed. The door was wide open. Anyone could wander by. That wasn’t unusual. Could have been the department head. Could have been a deliveryman, for all I knew.

Several of my employees twisted their necks to glance out the door, but only because they saw where my gaze landed, not because they’d experienced the same weird sensation.

I focused my attention back on the group and smiled. “Where were we?”

Unease ate at me irrationally for several hours after the meeting. I returned to my office, so distracted I barely heard Lisa call my name. “Lillie?” When I didn’t turn around, she spoke again, louder. “Ms. Kingston?”

I jerked her way. “Sorry. My head is elsewhere today.” Combined with the fact I was not used to responding to either Lillie or Ms. Kingston. But Lisa didn’t know that.

I was hiding. I would hide my entire life if I could get away with it. Amelia Kensington had easily become Lillie as a nickname, and somehow I’d managed to slip Kingston onto almost every form without anyone noticing that my real name had a few extra letters. I would do anything to keep Cade Alexander from finding me.

Lisa smiled and rolled her eyes. “I can imagine. You have about fifty projects going on at once, and you just started here. I’d be under my desk if I were you.”

I smiled back.

“Anyway, Mr. Cross from development would like to meet with you in half an hour in the conference room. Will that work with your schedule?”

I glanced at my watch. Three o’clock. I had a stack of work to do before the end of the day, but no meetings. “Perfect. Tell him I’ll be there.”

“Okay. He said to bring the compilation of ideas from this morning.”

“Got it.”

Lisa left, and I scurried to organize that morning’s notes, which ate up the entire half hour.

At three thirty I was already in the conference room setting up several proposals on the easel when Mr. Cross came in with two other men. He headed straight for me and reached out a hand. “Ms. Kingston.”

I shook his hand and smiled genuinely. We’d met several times, but this was the first project we’d be working on together. “Please, call me Lillie.”

“Lillie then.” He took a seat, and I turned to the other two men who’d come in with him. And my eyes went wide.

“Brad.” I shook his hand.

“You two know each other?” Mr. Cross asked.

Brad responded. “We worked together before Lillie jumped to the big office.”

Mr. Cross laughed. “Ah, you temped at Stephen’s Engineering before you came here, right?”

I nodded. “I didn’t realize we were working with your firm on this project.”

“Yep.” Brad took a seat at the table. His smile was huge. Obviously this did not throw him off his game.

The man with him, another man I remembered from Stephen’s, also greeted me and sat.

“Perfect. Show us what you’ve got, Lillie.”

I turned to the easel and lifted a finger toward the upper right corner. Just as I was about to speak, another voice, belonging to no one in the room, crawled up my spine and tore a giant hole in everything I’d spent five months building for myself.

“Yes,
Lillie
, show us what you’ve got.”

I hesitated for what was probably only a second but seemed like a pause in time that lasted an eternity, willing that voice to belong to anyone other than the very man I knew was currently in the doorframe. As long as I didn’t turn around, perhaps the universe would shake itself up and scramble all the inhabitants so that voice changed and transferred itself to any individual alive other than Cade Alexander. Someone short and fat and ugly would be much better.