Page 69 of Losing Control
I am disgusted with myself that I have become so pathetic. I thought that Tom cheating on me had been the most pathetic moment of my life, but I was wrong. Nothing compares to how I am feeling now.
I may not be the most outspoken person in the world, but I have never been scared to voice my feelings or opinions before. I’m ashamed that I have let a man bring me down this much.
I take a few deep breaths, trying to calm the storm raging within me. A part of me wants to scream, shout, let everyone know what Michael has done. But I know that I won’t do that. I don’t need to make myself a target for pity and sympathy. I don’t want anyone apart from Cal and Kim to realise what I have been through. It would be far too embarrassing.
“Lucy,” Tyler’s voice says, making me jump. I didn’t even notice him making his way over to my desk as I was so focused on watching what Michael was doing.
“Shit,” I whisper, my hands clenching into fists as I try to get a grip of myself.
“Sorry, boss, didn’t mean to scare you,” Tyler says as I look to him and see that he has a small but unsure smile on his face.
“No, it’s fine, my fault, I was miles away,” I reply as I try to pass off my over-reaction. “What’s up?”
I fiddle about with a couple of pens that are lying on my desk, just so that I can look at something other than Michael. I know that he is watching me, I can feel it. The hairs on the back of my neck prickle and I start to feel a little hot.
“I was just going to see if you wanted to come and see what I have done in the last couple of days on our project? With you and Michael out of the office, I carried on getting the presentation in order.”
“Oh, right, yes, presentation,” I waffle, my mind a jumble of thoughts. “Uh, sure, let’s go and look at it now.”
“Cool.” Tyler clearly has no idea that I am struggling, and for that I am glad. At least he isn’t treating me any differently than he usually does.
I stand up, even though my legs feel shaky, and I follow Tyler to the conference room. He explains how he has it all set up and he is hoping that he has captured the vision that I was going for, but I barely take in what he says as Michael’s eyes follow me across the room.
We have to walk past his desk to get to the conference room, and every bone in my body wants me to turn around and run away, but I can’t. I need to work.
I stupidly let my eyes connect with his as I reach his desk. His eyes are hard, cold. A shiver makes its way up my body and I wrap my arms around myself as a form of protection. But my body isn’t the issue here. Unfortunately, the issue is my heart and I have no idea how to get Michael out of it. He may have treated me badly, he may have hurt me, upset me, made me feel worthless, but my stupid goddamn heart can’t just stop loving him.
Why can’t I just hate him?
Why can’t I just ignore him?
Is this part of his game? Make me love him no matter what?
“Lucy,” he says as I pass his desk. I should keep walking, I should just march right past and forget him, but I don’t. I stop even though my head is screaming at me to show him that he can’t control me.
“Lucy, look at me.” He says it quietly enough so that no one else can hear around us, but I don’t miss the command in his tone. And of course, I look at him. Good little girl that I am, not wanting to upset him or make anyone else think that there is anything wrong between us. I felt strong with Cal by my side the other night, but Cal isn’t here now, and I revert to my old ways.
“We need to talk,” he says as if we have just had some meaningless lovers tiff.
“We’re at work, Michael, we can’t talk here,” I whisper, keeping my face as neutral as possible.
“Tonight.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Lucy?” Tyler has realised that I’m not behind him anymore and has called my name in question.
“Yeah, I’m coming,” I say, grateful for the interruption.
I can see that Michael is livid as I scurry away. Tyler’s timing was perfect. I dodged Michael’s questioning, and there is no way that he will be able to question me later seeing as I will be with Cal and Kim.
Tyler and I enter the conference room and I allow myself to breathe a sigh of relief. All I have to do is sit here and see what Tyler has come up with. Simple, work-related, and just what I need to distract my mind.
I take a seat at the end of the conference table as Tyler walks over to the projector at the other end of the room and starts to set it up. I sit back, feeling my heart-rate decline with each second that passes. Michael doesn’t have a good effect on me, I know that, and I need to keep that feeling with me when my heart decides it wants to have a wobble and send me straight back to him.
“Right,” Tyler starts as he flicks the projector on and the first slide shows up on the white screen which nearly covers the wall. “So, I took on board what––”
