Say the Word(47)

You know you’re curious, the phone beckoned.

Damn. I’d been locked in limbo staring at my phone for so long, I’d begun to hear the voice of an inanimate object calling out to me. When hallucinations began, it was officially time to put on my big girl panties and deal with the matters at hand.

I reached forward and grabbed the phone, took a healthy swig of my wine, and hit a button to play the queued message. It took everything in my power not to flinch when his voice filled the room, echoing loudly off the walls of my small studio and seeming to bounce back at me from all directions. I dropped my phone onto the coffee table, as if holding it might sear the flesh from my hand.

“Ms. Kincaid.” There was a marked pause, as though he were weighing which words to use. “It’s Sebastian…Covington,” he tacked on hastily, either as an afterthought or an unnecessary reaffirmation of the formality that now existed between us. As if I wouldn’t have recognized his voice from the way every hair on my body had stood at attention at the sound of it.

“This call is in regard to your new work arrangements, which I’m sure by now you’ve discussed with Jeanine.” His tone was brisk. “I’m not sure what you’re accustomed to at Luster, but I expect my employees to arrive at eight-thirty sharp for the morning meeting.”

I rolled my eyes. Apparently, I was his personal employee now. And, from the sound of it, he was going to be a real pain-in-the-ass about the whole thing.

The sound of his throat clearing echoed over the line. “We meet in the offices on the fourteenth floor, directly below the studio. I’ll give you your daily instructions then.”

There was a long pause, then a muffled sound I couldn’t quite make out. If he were anyone else, I might’ve thought he’d a held a hand over the receiver and cursed. But that wasn’t possible with Sebastian — he’d illustrated just how unaffected he was by me.

“Well,” he finally said, breaking what had become an uncomfortably long silence. “Until Monday, then.”

The message clicked off.

I stared at the phone like it would offer up something else — some kind of cypher key that might decode his message and explain what it all meant. Perhaps I was reading into things a bit too much, but something didn’t really add up here. On the one hand, he’d called me to issue orders and had sounded like a total jackass. That refined articulation and careful word choice reminded me of the people he’d once so strongly detested — his parents.

Yet, on the other hand, there was the fact that he’d called.

Not an email — which would’ve been the most professional form of communication.

Not a text message — even that might’ve better maintained his aloof conduct.

No, he’d picked up the phone and called me — at eight in the evening no less, and not even on a work night. I couldn’t help but feel there was something strange about that.

One thing was certain: Monday was going to be interesting.

I wished I could say I wasn’t terrified.

I also wished I could say that before the night was through, I wouldn’t re-listen to his message countless times, finish my bottle of wine, and put myself to bed before midnight.

Oh, well. I never claimed to be perfect.





***


Sunday morning, I awoke with a headache and a hangover. My cellphone still clutched in one hand, I turned bleary eyes up to the ceiling and cursed myself for not just deleting the damn message. Not that it would’ve helped — I’d pretty much memorized it by now.

I’d tossed and turned for most of the night, unable to think of anything besides Sebastian and what Monday morning would bring. Though we’d seen one another twice now, we’d barely spoken a single word. And each time, it had taken everything in me not to reach out for his hand, or throw myself at his feet and beg forgiveness.

Not that I would — or could — ever do such a thing.

Regardless, I knew that Monday would be a test unlike any I’d yet endured. I reached up to trace an index finger over the tattooed line of script on my left breastbone. The curving letters were simple and sat just above my heart, unadorned by flourishes or inky embellishments. When I’d gotten the tattoo three years ago, just days after I’d scattered Jamie’s ashes over the ocean, I’d known that the meaning behind the words was beautiful enough to stand on its own.





aut viam inveniam aut faciam


I shall either find a way or make one — that had never held truer than it did now.

I’d somehow summon the strength to work with Sebastian without falling to pieces or crossing any professional boundaries. I’d walk away with my job — and hopefully my soul — intact. My heart, I didn’t even bother to factor into the equation; after all, if I were being honest, Sebastian was still in possession of it after all these years.

I couldn’t blame him for any of it. He’d done nothing to me. For all intents and purposes, I was the villain here, who’d ripped out her own heart along with his all those years ago. I’d made a choice and, though I’d been living with the pain of Sebastian’s absence for years now, it was an altogether different kind of torture to see him every day and interact with him, knowing I could never again have him as my own.

A glance at my cellphone screen informed me that it was already midmorning. If I wanted to get a run in before meeting Vera’s strangely secretive friend at three o’clock, I had to get a move on. After chugging down two Advil tablets with my morning coffee, I changed into sneakers and running attire and grabbed my iPod off the coffee table. Slipping on the headphones, I chose a pounding beat that I could keep pace with and turned the volume up loud enough that I couldn’t hear my own thoughts.