Page 21 of Layne Closure Ahead

“I will get you in the door, but you keep things discreet. I don’t want this coming back to haunt me in a week or even a year.”

“Discretion is my middle name.” In fact, they both knew it was not. It was Elliot.

Attempting to circle back to their discussion upstairs, his hand reached out to rest on her thigh. “Layne, I know a lot has happened since last year.”

She looked at her watch seeing that it was time to avoid getting into her mushy feelings. “I have work to do today. I don’t have time to sit and talk about the weather.” Layne stood, allowing his hand to fall away from her leg.

His dark brown eyes were still glued to her trying to figure out how to get past any imperfections in the invisible wall she had constructed around herself. After a resigned sigh and running his hand over the back of his head, he rose from his seat.

“Call me if anything changes.” He didn’t mean just with Eric either. “I’m never far away.”

She simply nodded at him and watched as he walked back inside to see himself out. The second he was out of sight, she flopped right back down into her chair trying to suppress the quiver tugging at her chin. Layne drew her knees up in front of her and buried her face into them as the tears began to leak from her eyes.

After taking a few minutes to coil back up her self-control, she firmly pressed her lips together to start locking her feelings back down. Lifting her head from her knees, pulled out her phone to see a few missed messages.

Eric

Thought about you all last night.

I haven’t been able to focus on anything else this morning except what you’re doing to me.

I will see you again soon, little harpy.

She stared at the screen, her fingers hovering over the onscreen keyboard. She shook her head and locked the screen. That could be dealt with later, just like everything else in her life.

CHAPTER TEN

She blew out a breath harshly. “Bianca, just put him on the phone.” Layne’s fuse was running short as she held the phone to her ear while sitting inside her office at home.

The polite yet stern voice of the woman on the other end repeated itself. “Mr. Corelli is unavailable. I can take a message if you’d like to leave one for him.”

Layne gave a soft growl as she summoned the last of her patience. “Bianca, I swear on all that is holy, if you don’t go get Andrew, I will come down there myself. We both know he’s standing right there next to you. Tell him if he doesn’t get on the phone with me, I will make a special delivery to the New York Times pointing out his inability to properly file taxes because he’s too busy jacking off to underage girls.”

There was a pause as the call was placed on hold. Just when Layne thought she had been disconnected, a male voice came on the phone.

“Hi, Layne.” Andrew almost sounded like he was expecting a pleasant conversation. Oh, how wrong he was if that was what he thought.

She leaned back into her seat feeling partial relief that he had finally grown a pair to talk to her. “Where’s my money, Andrew? I’m all out of patience.”

He began to rattle off the excuses. “There’s been some unexpected business expenses, and I was going to send it to you.”

“The fuck you were. I’m getting tired of the bullshit. If I don’t get it today, I’m going to be pissed that I have to come down there and get it myself in whichever creative ways I come up with.”

There was a long pause followed by a defeated sigh. “Look, I didn’t want to say anything but another, um, business partner approached me.”

She sat up in her chair. “What do you mean someone approached you? When?” Layne didn’t want to jump to any conclusions and needed him to spell it out to her as plain as day.

Andrew cleared his throat on the other end of the line. “I am working with Russell Spencer now. He said if you had any problems with it, to take it up with him.”

Russ Spencer and his crew were one of a few factions that had been not so quiet about speculating on the end of the O’Reilly era. Once word had gotten out that the great Scott O’Reilly was on a massive health decline, Russell began making moves to take advantage of the shift in leadership. The bastard was playing with fire and beginning to pick off their income sources one by one. It seemed that Andrew was the latest acquisition.

Layne didn’t even bother to try to hide her displeasure at this news. “Believe me, I’m going to take it up with him.” She hung up on Andrew without a further word.

“FUCK!” She tossed her phone down onto her desk in front of her. Monetarily, this was a hit they couldn’t afford to take. Layne leaned over, her elbows on the edge of her desk as she put her head into her hands. Her fingers scrunched up and got lost in her silky locks of chestnut hair as she tried to wrap her brain around this devastating blow.

She shook her head and pulled open a drawer on her right, seeing a spare bottle of pills nestled inside. Her eyes stared down at the easy escape that was calling out to her. The image of Joey losing his shit on her was still fresh in her mind.

Layne grunted as she slammed the drawer shut, leaving the pills untouched.

---