Page 3 of Cruel Fate

The joke doesn’t amuse me. I’ve been taking care of myself practically since birth, and I trust no one to take care of me but me. “No, thanks. I’d rather be on my own.”

Good thing, too, because I am. On my own, I mean. I log out, put my computer to sleep, and tidy my space. Elmer wipes down my desk and monitor, and I don’t want to make his job harder. We pass him near Simon’s office, and I say goodnight. He’s already started cleaning.

Zarah watches curiously as he tips his hat to me and says, “Have a good weekend, Stell.”

“Are you nice to everyone?” she asks.

We ride in the elevator to the highest floor I’m permitted. The lift shoots us upward and the glass wall gives us a spectacular view of the city.

“Yes. You never know when you’ll be one of those people.”

Though, after working at Maddox Industries for thirty years, Elmer’s paychecks are enormous compared to mine.

“What an odd thing to say.” Zarah laughs, stepping into a quiet and empty hallway and leading me to another elevator I wouldn’t have access to any other day.

I don’t explain how easily I could have been “one of those people.” I’m lucky I wasn’t born with a disability or with any less intelligence. I would have been screwed, living on government assistance and food stamps. At least I have brains to go along with my better-than-average looks.

She keys in a code I don’t bother to remember. I won’t be back. I’m taking one for the team, and Simon will owe me Monday morning.

“What did you think of payroll?” The elevator zooms upward, and my stomach lurches. This one feels faster, and the car is smaller, plusher, without the view of the city at our backs.

“There’s a lot of math.” Zarah wrinkles her nose.

“Maybe you’ll find something that uses more...creativity,” I say diplomatically. Not everyone understands math, but if Connie can do it, Zarah wouldn’t have a problem.

“Perhaps,” she says as the doors slide open revealing a huge and spacious penthouse.

A skylight is cut into the roof, two stories up, and sunlight sparkles down into the foyer. The closest I’ve ever gotten to living, or being, in a place like this is flipping through a magazine.

A low beat thrums through the ceiling, and my gaze shifts from the skylight to the stairs that lead to a second floor.

“That’s my brother. He’s having a difficult time.”

She doesn’t need to tell me more, and she doesn’t, shrugging out of her blazer and placing her small purse on a table decorated with a jade green vase that probably costs more than what I earn in a year. Everyone in King’s Crossing knows what happened to the Maddoxes. I started in the payroll department two weeks before the accident, and afterward, it was all anyone could talk about.

“I’m sorry.”

Zarah lifts a shoulder and toes off her pumps. She invites me to do the same, and my feet weep with gratitude. I found the pair of scuffed heels on clearance (Do you know how cheap clearance is at a thrift store?), but they were half a size too small. Knowing I could buff off the scuffs, I bought them anyway, believing sitting in them wouldn’t be that bad.

My toes say I’m wrong every time I force them onto my feet.

“We all have our own ways of coping,” I say to fill in the silence.

I wonder what Zane Maddox’s way is.

CHAPTER TWO

Zane

Ipull out of her, my cock still spurting into the condom, twitching with release.

I turned her over so I wouldn’t have to see her face, but I still want to be done as quickly as possible. Bringing her home was a bad idea, and in the middle of the day, no less, but she came on to me at the bar, and I thought, what the hell.

Only, now the scent of her perfume makes me gag, and the musk of our sex mingling with it shames me. I’ve turned into someone I don’t recognize, and I need to get my shit together, but I can’t stop thinking about the news clip, the plane sinking into the Atlantic Ocean, the people who died.

The funeral.

A wave of grief hits me, and luckily, I’m already down on my knees. The woman looks at me over her shoulder and wiggles her white ass. “Do me?”

---