Page 87 of His Temptation
“Bye, Lincoln,” she says with an edge to her voice.
I walk back to the office, where I pace back and forth with nervous energy. This is bringing up so many conflicting feelings that I don’t have the time to acknowledge. Not now, when I’m supposed to be prepping my notes for my next client.
I pull out my next client’s file. I know what I need to be doing, but my brain refuses to focus on anything but what just happened. Ben knows about the stutter I used to have. He’s probably telling Kylie about it at this very moment. My secret that I’ve worked so hard to bury and forget is coming to light, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
Not only that, but Kylie also likes asking questions. She’s a strong, independent woman who is not going to shy away from asking me about my past.
My entire world feels like it’s crashing and burning. I do what I remember from all my years of therapy when I start to feel overwhelmed. I take deep breaths, making sure my stomach is expanding and contracting. I can’t believe I have to do this. I haven’t needed to use techniques in over a decade.
I’m beginning to wonder if the reputation that I’ve worked so hard to create is about to be exposed to the world as a bunch of bullshit.
33
KYLIE
Confused—that is the word that best describes the state of being I am in right now. I’ve ruminated about my run-in with Lincoln yesterday all evening and all this morning.
I can hardly process the information. How did I never catch on to this? I was the one scheduling his events for months. Yesterday marked the sixth time Ben and Lincoln met since Gretchen went on maternity leave. That’s six Thursdays that Lincoln left work just after five without me questioning it.
The only thing I can make of it is that I was so focused on hauling my own ass to the same location that I was just relieved he wasn’t making me work late.
Beyond the logistics of it all, why is he a speech therapist?Howis he a speech therapist? It doesn’t make any sense. He’s one of the wealthiest men in the city. He literally has no reason to do something so … commendable.
After we left, Ben had a million questions for me. Questions I couldn’t answer.
“Why does Lincoln go by his middle name?”
“Why is your boss my speech therapist?”
“If you’re Lincoln’s assistant, why didn’t you know he also was a speech therapist?”
“Why are you not his assistant anymore?”
“Why did he seem so upset to see you?”
I couldn’t handle one more question from him. I ended up stopping to get us ice cream before dinner just to divert his brain. The distraction lasted all of five minutes, and then he was back with the questions.
I finally told him we were going to stop talking about Lincoln. He’s suspicious of me now. Clearly, the days of things going over the kid’s head are gone. He’s smart. He’s older now. He knows there’s more to this story that I am not letting him in on.
“Hey, Kylie.” Roy waltzes out of his office. “I have that meeting with Lincoln in about ten minutes. Can you get some coffee and water in there for us?”
“Sure,” I reply quickly.
“Thanks, Kylie.”
He disappears back into his office while butterflies appear in my belly. I’m like a teenager who was just told she might see her crush. That’s how this feels. Anytime his name is mentioned, anytime I’m CC’d on an email and I see his name, my body reacts like this.
I don’t understand what it’s going to take for me to just move on from it all.
Just when Paris’s and Morgan’s words settled in, making me feel angry with him for not treating me respectfully, he goes and does something like this. Something so genuinely kind and giving. I feel like a pinball in a machine, being constantly thrown from one contraption to the next.
Each knock is a jolt to my nervous system. The lack of sleep now is not helping. It’s making it harder for me to see things clearly and decipher what I truly feel and want.
Do I want to apologize to him and try to work through this? Do I want to push him further to find out what he is hiding? Do I want to make him realize that he is not doing himself any favors by ignoring his past and refusing to let anybody in?
Because that’s what I assume is happening. He has avoided relationships because he is trying to protect something. At the end of the day, I can just let him live in his own misery and do my best to work on myself, moving forward.
That is probably what I should do. It’s what would give me the best chance of keeping this job.
