Pull You In (Rivers Brothers 3)

But I couldn't seem to care.

It felt like everything was crashing around me.

Nothing else mattered.

"It was bound to happen," Fee reasoned, her hand pressing down on my shoulder.

I guess a part of me had deluded the other part that if I put enough distance between myself and the calls, as well as the man himself, then there was a chance I could go to my grave without Rush ever finding out about the whole situation.

"He was just surprised," Fiona insisted. "Rush doesn't really get angry like that. It was just the heat of the moment. The surprise. And he's likely putting together the parts about how I trapped you two in a cabin together, so some of that anger might actually be directed at me because I made him feel stupid," she told me. A whimpering sound escaped me, not reassured at all. "Okay. Alright. Go on. Head out," Fee said when I couldn't do anything but stand there, feeling queasy and breathless.

"I'm not done," I told her, waving a hand at the chaos on my desk. I was still trying to catch up after being out for a few days.

"You're done," she told me. "It's fine. Everything will work itself out. But go home. Take a bath. Have a glass of wine. Try to relax."

"Thanks," I said, not waiting for any further conversation, just shoving my phone and book into my purse, grabbing my keys, and rushing out.

I pulled up to my apartment building without having any memory of driving home.

Back in my apartment, I paced.

My normal gut instinct was to call my mother. She was my rock. If there was anyone who could talk me down off a ledge, it was her.

But I couldn't tell her.

About the calls.

About the secrecy.

About the confrontation.

This was the sort of situation you needed to have friends for.

But I found myself wholly lacking any of those.

So until I could get in to see my therapist again, I had to work this out on my own.

I considered all of my options.

Like approaching him like the rational adult I was, explaining, apologizing for crossing the line. I could ask him to forgive me, so we could both move on with our lives.

But, let's face it, there was about a snowball's chance in hell of that one happening. Even if I could find the nerve to approach his desk, I couldn't imagine I could force the words out of my mouth. What if he wanted to know specifics? Had questions that I hadn't prepared to answer in the script I would write in my head?

Worse yet, what if he teased me about it? About being so pathetic that I couldn't get a normal man? That I had to pay for it?

I didn't want to think of Rush as cruel, but you never knew what someone was capable of when they were angry.

So that was out.

Option two was to go about work life as though nothing had happened. It was much riskier. It could all blow up. And in a very public way. But if it didn't, it allowed me to keep my head down, save my pride.

Lastly, I could avoid him entirely. Start going to work earlier, working through lunch, so that I could get out of the office before Rush showed up.

Sure, it was the most cowardly route. But no one had ever accused me of being brave, of looking chaos in the face and saying, "Bring it on."

I was almost universally known for taking the safest route, for sidestepping anything in my path.

I typically tried not to let my personal life or my anxiety issues mess with work.

But Fee would understand.

Especially because she had a hand in the whole situation getting worse.

If not for the whole cabin thing, I might not have ever been found out. Rush and I likely wouldn't have talked so much. He wouldn't have gotten to know my voice so well. He wouldn't have put the pieces together.

But she'd trapped us. We'd talked. He'd noticed something in my voice when I was on the phone with my ex. And he'd figured it all out.

Being the coward I knew myself to be, I, of course, decided on the third solution pretty quickly.

It would just be better all around.

He would cool off while I got to avoid confrontation.

It was the definition of a win-win.

But even coming to that decision didn't help the anxiety that raged through my system, making it hard to stand still, but when I got up to pace, made me feel light-headed and short of breath.

It was just the adrenaline, I reminded myself. Once my body burned it off, I would feel better. I just had to stop feeding it, thinking about it.

But how could I think about anything else?

My phone rang on the counter, making me sigh, walking over to find Blake's name on my screen.