Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 84442 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84442 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
“Yeah,” she says softly, the word coming out like she’s forcing it out through her teeth. “Sure.”
Disappointment fills me when I hear Cassie agree with her. How could she agree… she didn’t even bother to stick up for me. Not that I can really blame Cassie for wanting to stay out of Sloane’s warpath, but the small sliver of hope that budded when I realized she was here disappears and leaves me with a sinking hole in my gut.
“Whatever,” Sloane bites out, clearly not happy with Cassie’s level of enthusiasm. “I’m getting tired of sharing his attention, but it won’t be long until she’s out of here. Morgan will regret this, and I can’t wait to watch her cry like the baby she is when he fires her.”
Hatred and hurt well in equal measures, making my breaths come in shallow bursts, tears blurring my vision.
I whirl on my heel and stalk back toward the elevator, unwilling to hear any more of the shit she’s spewing. My coffee mug can wait until the next day she decides not to show up, but I can’t keep listening to this. It’s already hard enough to convince myself that I deserve these projects, the new responsibilities I’ve been charged with simply because I didn’t have my sights set on them. I’m so used to working my ass off for everything.
Nick said he gave me these files because I impressed him, but I can’t help feeling like they were handed to me.
The trip downstairs goes by in a blur, elevator walls fading to the darkened lobby and melting into the cold grey cement of the parking garage. My hands shake in a mix of rage and anxiety as I fumble to unlock my car and throw myself into the driver’s seat.
The first breath I manage to suck in hurts. I can’t stop the tears that slip down my cheeks as I tug my phone out of my blazer pocket and rush to call Taylor.
She answers on the second ring, and I blurt everything out before she even has a chance to say hello. The words just spew out like vomit, scraping their way up my throat as I repeat the vile things Sloane said about me, Cassie’s hesitant agreement, my own terrified self-doubt and conflicted feelings of guilt.
“That bitch,” Taylor hisses venomously when I finally pause to suck in a shaky breath. “Both of them can fucking rot.”
I shake my head even though she can’t see me, slumping forward against my steering wheel and squeezing my eyes shut in an attempt to stop my tears from falling.
“I should’ve just stayed in my stupid little cubicle and kept my head down,” I say shakily.
“Fuck that!” Taylor barks, her voice halfway between furious and supportive. “You deserve the office and the important clients and everything else you’re getting because you’ve worked yourself half to death since the day you stepped foot in that company! You can’t let some petty little cunt like Sloane stand in the way of your career, Riley.”
I struggle for air, repeating her words in my brain in an attempt to make myself believe them, but tears still burn behind my eyelids. My worries are so crippling that I can’t even force out a half-hearted agreement.
“Sweetie, you can’t let this overwhelm you,” Taylor says, her voice gentler.
She’s always been the only person who can calm me down when I’m worked up like this—although my mystery man did a pretty alright job of it that night in the bath. This is about a million times more intense. I don’t know if I can handle recounting everything I heard again.
Especially not over text, where I’d have to stare the reality of it in the face as I wrote it. I wish I had the balls to just actually call him. We haven’t exactly gotten to that level of communication yet, and the fact that he hasn’t bothered to try or even ask has me doubting how he’d take it if I simply called him.
“I know,” I whisper miserably.
Taylor pauses for a few seconds, and when she speaks again, she sounds certain of herself. “Let’s get your mind off things for a bit, yeah? You need to chill out for a while.”
I laugh weakly, leaning back from my steering wheel and reaching for the pack of tissues I keep in my center console. I’m not really any more stable than I was a few minutes ago, but I know the structure of how Taylor handles things, and that’s easy to latch onto.
My freakouts always go the same way: I panic, call Taylor, and spew everything. She calms me down enough to function, and then we figure out something to distract me until I can think rationally again. Only then do I make any decisions or plan how to deal with whatever happened. It’s become a foolproof pattern. It’s never failed me before.