Girl Crush(77)

Me: Okay.

I tossed my phone onto the desk and stared at the clock. I began to make art with paperclips, bending and shaping them into patterns and weaving them together until they were a jumbled mess. When I grew bored with that, I reorganized the pens in my drawer. Every day became worse than the last. My boss was out of the office more often than not, and there was nothing for me to do. I sang praises to the sweet baby Jesus when twelve o’clock finally rolled around, and I was able to go out for lunch. When I returned at one to continue my death sentence, I found a tiny gift bag on my desk.

I hadn’t seen this much excitement in weeks. I put my purse in my drawer and retrieved the messages off the phone and sent my boss an email to tell him who to call and where. And then, I sat down to pull out the tissue paper. I stuck my hand in and pulled out a bottle of nail polish, remover wipes, and a file. A card fell out at the same time that read, “Until I can keep you occupied. ~W.”

Collier had managed to pick out a color I didn’t already have, and one that coincidentally matched my outfit. It was a small gesture but one that made me giddy. He had heard me when I told him I couldn’t so much as afford my weekly treat, even though he hadn’t commented. I pulled out my phone to send him a text before I got to work on refinishing my nails.

Me: Thank you. I love the color.

He read the message but didn’t respond. I assumed he was in a meeting, and I’d hear from him later. I turned the bottle over, and my heart leaped into my throat. “You Sustain Me.” I doubted he had chosen the color based on the name, but I was going to pretend he had.

I took a quick picture of them when I was done and sent it to him. Again, he read the message but didn’t respond. Collier always returned my messages. It sucked that everyone I knew had something in their lives that kept them busy while I waited for the phone to ring or the occasional client to come by.

At five, I turned off my computer, shut everything down, and walked out to my car. I smiled at my banana boat sitting in the parking lot like a ray of sunshine before I got in. The leather welcomed me, and the radio hummed as soon as I turned the key in the ignition. Fifteen minutes later, I arrived in front of Collier’s building and parked next to the Porsche he’d yet to let me drive. My heels clicked on the cement sidewalk, but before I could get inside, a chauffeur stopped me next to a sleek, black limo.

“Giselle?”

“Yes.” I stared at him, wondering how the hell he knew my name, and looked around for witnesses to my pending abduction.

“Mr. West would like you to meet him for dinner. He got called away from the office.”

This reminded me of a bad after-school special, only who the hell kidnapped thirty-nine-year-old women? No one. I didn’t have a clue how to handle this. Screaming “stranger danger” didn’t seem appropriate, but getting in the car made me uneasy.

“Um. Okay. Let me call him really quickly. This is all just a tad odd.”

He handed me a piece of folded paper. “Mr. West thought you might not be compliant.”

I opened the letter which was written on Collier’s office stationary. “Get in the car, Elle. And give him your keys.”

“I’m not giving you my keys,” I told the man holding the door open.

“As you wish, ma’am. I’ll get them from Mr. West when we get there.”

I huffed out a grunt and dug them out of my purse. “Fine.” And then handed them over.

Once I was securely in the back, the man closed the door behind me and took his seat behind the wheel. He closed the window between us before I could ask any questions, and we started rolling. We were in the heart of downtown, there were tons of restaurants around, but we didn’t stop at any of them. I watched out the window as we left the city limits and started to panic the farther away from town we got.

About thirty minutes after we left civilization, we arrived in a cemetery. Every horror movie I’d ever seen played through my mind on fast forward. This was where I needed to take off my shoe and try to maim the driver, steal his keys, and drive back to safety. But when he opened my door, and I stepped out, I saw Collier in the distance. This wasn’t exactly what I’d had in mind for dinner.

The driver remained silent, didn’t leave me with instructions on what to do, nothing. He abandoned me amongst the headstones and mausoleums. Collier hadn’t turned around, but I was sure he’d heard the limo pull up. There wasn’t a car around, and the only sounds in the air were the birds chirping. The grass went on for miles, a thick, lush green I thought would be a perfect OPI color for St. Patrick’s Day, and flowers dotted the markers with splashes of life.

I took a deep breath and started on the path to Collier hoping I was meant to join him. My heels marked the walkway in time with my steps, and I worried foolishly about how loud I was being. It wasn’t like I was in a library, these people were dead—the sound of my footsteps wasn’t going to bother them. Just before I reached his side, Collier turned around.

My breath hitched at the sight of the man I loved in a tuxedo holding two red roses in one hand and the other stuffed in his pocket. I had not a clue what was going on or why he’d brought me here, but I took the final step to stand in front of him. It was the first time I’d ever seen tears in his eyes, and it ruined me. They hadn’t fallen, but they threatened to, and it was more than I could stand.

“Collier?” I choked his name out on a broken sob. The lump that had formed in my throat hurt, and as much as I wanted answers, I was afraid to ask questions. I couldn’t see the headstones behind him, but I knew he was struggling to maintain his composure.