Beg for It(68)

“You know, I’m here to listen to you. If you need to talk.”

“I don’t need to talk,” he says, still without looking at her. His voice is clipped. Cold. Distant.

“Reese.” When he still won’t look, she says it again, harder. Firmer. A tone that brooks no disobedience.

He has not so much as given her a glance. “I know you get off on bossing me around and stuff, but just drop it right now, okay? I’m not in the mood.”

This, a role reversal and a tossing of her own words back in her face, stuns her so much she gets to her feet without another word. She can’t find any. A breath hisses out of her, but she presses her lips closed to cut it off.

“Just because I submit to you doesn’t mean you get to tell me what to do all the time or how to live my life,” Reese says. “You don’t always know what’s best for me.”

Corinne blinks back tears. “I didn’t realize you felt that way.”

“Well. I do.”

“I’m sorry.” It’s all she can manage to get out, but the words taste wrong. Everything about this is wrong.

Everything between them has gone wrong, and she can’t do anything about it.

“Will you be home later?” she asks, chin lifted, words gritting out of her, because she refuses to let him see her cry.

“I’m staying here tonight.”

“And tomorrow?”

“I don’t know,” Reese says with a shrug. She’s never seen him be so cold; she didn’t know he was capable of it, though she shouldn’t be so surprised.

“When do you think you’ll know?” She hates herself for asking, for pressuring, but she can’t help it.

“Shit, Corinne. I have no idea, okay? I have stuff to do here.”

She nods, once, sharply. “Fine.”

Downstairs, she puts the takeout in the fridge. The sound of him in the doorway turns her in relief. He’ll apologize, they’ll talk about things…it’s going to be okay.

“Come with me,” Reese says.

Corinne crosses her arms. They’ve talked about this already. He wants to move out of Lancaster, where she’s still going to school. Where she has a job and a place to live. Where she will be working in a few months when she finishes her classes and starts with Stein and Sons, who were good enough to hire her before she got her degree.

“Where will we go?”

“Anywhere we want. Just out of this cow-shit-smelling town.”

“And what are you going to do,” Corinne says, a chill in her voice colder than the temperature outside. “Tap dance on the streets for cash? What?”

“I can get work.”

“You haven’t so far,” she says and knows she’s being cruel.

Reese could take the few steps across the frigid kitchen to take her in his arms, but he doesn’t. “If I could just get out of here—”

“What’s so bad about here?”

“Everything!” Reese’s shout echoes in the kitchen. “Everything here is shit.”

She shakes her head. “Not everything. I’m here. We’re here together.”

“I want more than this, Corinne.”

More than this. More than her. More than them.

She has nothing left to say.

He doesn’t stop her from leaving. He doesn’t call for two days. When finally she breaks down and calls him, leaving a message on the answering machine, she tells him to come to see her at the diner. It will be her last day there, she tells him. She’s going to take the next few weeks before the new job starts to get everything else in order. She’s going to be there for him, is the unspoken promise, though what she says aloud is that if he doesn’t want this to work, if he doesn’t show, then they’re over. If he doesn’t come to meet her at the diner, he should never bother to call her, ever again.





Chapter Thirty-Eight



Corinne’s office door was closed.

Reese didn’t knock, but instead went to his own office and closed his. There wasn’t much for him to do here. The staff that had been in place to handle the production had been doing a great job, and the new staff he’d hired to be in charge of distribution to the new markets would be coming on before the end of the month. The two new specialists who’d take over the creation, testing, and implementation of brand-new specialty products were also due to come onboard in the next couple weeks. At this point, Stein and Sons was going to succeed or fail, and him being on-site in Lancaster was not going to make much of a difference. Not to the business, anyway. Reese thought it would make every difference in his relationship.

At the soft rap on his door, he looked up. “Come in.”

He thought it might be Sandy, but Corinne came through looking as smoothly confident as she always did. She had a stack of papers in her hands. She set them on the desk.

“Résumés for the office manager position. I thought you’d like to see them. I’ve gone ahead and had Sandy schedule the top prospects for next week, but if you want to be around for them, or if you have other suggestions…” She waited, expectant.

“No, I’m sure you’ve done a great job. You’ll be working with them, anyway. Not me.”