Page 56 of Executive Benefits

I’d be damned if I let another relationship ruin my fucking career. I stormed over to my car, not caring about the ice, and got in. I slammed the door and took off for Nick’s house.

When I got to his place, there was no other car in the drive and I didn’t care if he was still on the phone or not. I parked, got out of my car, and marched up to his door.

I tightened my jacket around myself, figuring that I was going to be out here for a while, and I rang the doorbell. When I didn’t hear footsteps coming to the door, I started knocking.

The living room light was on and I saw him moving around, so I knew he was home. I rang the doorbell again and started knocking at the same time.

The longer I stood out in the cold, the more my anger flared. I couldn’t believe he was going to fuck it all up because of… whatever he thought happened.

David had called me the other day to tell me that Nick was on the verge of messing everything up, something he did pretty much always, and despite the fact that Nick didn’t want to be with me, I did care about what happened.

Not just on a business level, but on a personal one too—one that was based on human decency, not on wanting a romantic anything with him.

Even if I still did.

When he still didn’t come to the door, I knocked harder. “Nicolas Grayson, open this door right now!” I shouted. I went to knock on the door again, but the door flew open.

Nick stood in front of me, staring. A cocktail of emotions flipped through his eyes and they landed on anger. He was in sweats and wasn’t wearing a shirt, and the second my eyes fell on his chest hair and carved muscles, my voice and the cold were swept away. He lifted the phone to his ear and said, “I’ll have to call you back.”

He hit the button and darkness slid over his features. “What are you doing here?” He looked at my dress and gave me a once-over. I was sure I saw desire on his face before he let the hard shield slide over his features. “Why are you dressed like that?” he snapped.

I opened up the screen door and pushed past him, ignoring his protest. “It’s too damn cold to stand outside having you stare at me like I’m an asshole,” I snipped.

Nick closed the door and placed his phone down. “What do you want?” he said, placing his hands on his hips. My eyes caught on the happy trail of hair that disappeared behind his sweatpants.

I mentally slapped my forehead. “Why in the hell would you tell me that something was on for tonight if you didn’t mean that it was? What happened? You even had John lie to me.” I took a step forward, my anger rising.

I swallowed down some heavier emotions, but they all percolated right under my surface.

“Why don’t you go ask fucking Kendra what happened?” His voice grew louder with each word.

“What?” I tried to make sense of what he meant, and I couldn’t. My fingers balled into fists. “What?” I asked again with a little more force, stepping closer.

“Kendra. That’s who you’re really working for, isn’t it?”

“You’re joking, right?” The longer I studied his face, the more I saw that what he said was what he believed. I dropped my shoulders and my anger deflated. Not much, but enough for me to say, “Why would you think that?” I tried to parse through my emotions, but I couldn’t find anything to land on.

His anger didn’t deflate. It grew as he took steps toward me. “The food critic you hired. He came a month ago. He told me you emailed him and asked him to come then. I thought it was a mistake, and when he showed me the email, it had your name signed to it.”

I took a step back. “I did not send him an email.”

“Yeah, right. Get out of my house,” he shouted.

“I won’t,” I said, keeping my tone steady, even though every emotion was on the edge. “You’re not going to accuse me of something I didn’t do and treat me like fucking garbage. I won’tback away from it, either. If you think I'd do something like that, you don’t respect me or my opinions or my work at all.”

I took another step back and saw a new reaction I didn’t understand. “I believed in what we were doing. I worked my ass off, and for you to think the worst about me without even a second guess to it… well, it shows me just what you’re like.”

I took a few angry steps toward him. “I didn’t email him. You’d better get your story straight before accusing me of something like that. If you don’t want to believe me, that’s your problem. Not. Mine. You just ruined something that was going to be incredible for you.”

I pointed at him with the anger I was feeling, even though the sadness was quickly cresting. “Don’t you even think about trying to take my company down with your self-sabotaging ways. I have a ton of other clients who will back me up.” My voice started to quaver. I had to get out of here soon. “I’m good at what I do. I could have been good for your restaurant too.”

I had to get out of here. “You deserve your ex-wife,” I said with a huff, breathing the heartbreak out of me with one long breath. I couldn’t even look at him. I was going to break. I spun on my heel and walked out the door. The tears broke over my lids just as I reached my car. I didn’t stop when I heard Nick call my name. I didn’t look at him when he ran up to my car and knocked on the door.

I flipped him off and backed out of the driveway, hoping I didn’t run over his feet because I didn’t want to feel bad about any of my actions.

And right then, I did.

I was a mess, a quivering, shaking, sobbing mess, and I drove all the way home like that, with blurry vision and trembling hands, and Mia was there for me the instant I threw myself onto the couch.

---