“I’m not sure what to tell you, Millie, other than the obvious. You’re making a huge mistake.”
I would have argued, but there was no point. He was probably right. How many girls would have left everything they knew and loved—their city, their dream job, their sister, for a guy who kicked them out when they were eighteen? Not many. Yet I was that girl.
I was everything illogical and reckless, everything stupid and irrational…because I was his.
So I continued standing there, tapping my foot nervously. Brent got up from his seat, pushing from his white desk, and strode over to me. It was different than standing in front of Vicious when he was my boss.
Because now I wasn’t scared, just sad. Sacrifices were like vices. You made them, gave up something good, in order to get something better.
“What will Rosie do?” he asked. He didn’t know my sister all that much, but he’d met her a couple of times and knew our story. I shrugged. That was the most painful part. The part that made me feel like a traitor.
“She met a guy. Hal. She’s staying here in New York. Wants to enroll back in nursing school, anyway.”
Brent gave me a look—that look that said, See? You should stay here too—but I dismissed it by fixing my eyes on the naked-men painting.
“I’m so sorry I disappointed you,” I said. Which was true.
“You didn’t.” Brent leaned into my face, sighing. “I’m just hoping you’re not going to disappoint you.”
I made my way to Vic’s office right after I handed in my resignation. On the subway, I thought about the fact that I’d never resigned from so many good jobs in such a short amount of time. Ever. But I knew what I wanted, and what I wanted was to move to Los Angeles. I’d never been there, but it didn’t matter. He was going there. My parents were there.
LA was my home, and I hadn’t even been there yet.
I sauntered into Vicious’s office, and as usual, his receptionist gave me the stink eye, though at this point she knew better than to try and stop me from getting inside. Over the past few months, I’d walked in that door countless times, and, embarrassingly, produced noises she could hear perfectly while I was there. Noises that clearly gave away the idea that I was engaged in some grueling cardio activity. Vicious didn’t have a treadmill in his office, so she knew exactly what we were doing.
“Hi.” I nodded to the receptionist.
“Mmm,” she answered back, flipping through a glossy magazine with a picture of heavily photoshopped Selena Gomez on the cover.
I missed Patty. I’d only worked there one week, but it didn’t stop me from getting attached. She was fun, even when she’d twisted my arm so I’d ask Vicious to do things for her.
It took the young receptionist exactly three seconds to realize where I was heading, and when she finally snapped from her gossip-induced haze, she jumped from her seat and waved her arms at me.
“You don’t want to go in there!”
I’d stopped knocking on Vic’s door long ago. Since he took me to see the cherry blossom tree, to be exact. It was as if after that, there were no secrets between us.
I arched an eyebrow and stared at her questioningly. “Why?”
She shook her head, looking exasperated and stressed all at the same time. “He’s…he’s with this woman. It’s been loud the last half hour.”
She was kidding me.
“What?” I felt my face whitening. The receptionist pushed her hair back. She was sweating. She looked like she wasn’t sure what she should do. This was serious.
“I don’t know, I hope he’s okay. I…”
Before she could finish her sentence, I twisted the door handle and breezed into his office.
It was loud in there, but he wasn’t the one doing the screaming.
And he was with someone.
The last woman I expected to see.
Jo.
Josephine was standing over his desk, her manicured fingernails clawing at the glass, yelling loudly, while Vicious sat perfectly still in his executive chair. His eyes tore from her to me, and he gave me a private smirk peppered with a wink. It said “nice to see you” and “don’t get too attached to those panties, because I’m going to chew them off you in a second” all at the same time.
His chin rested in his hand, and he got back to staring at Josephine, who turned around and scowled at me.
“Can’t you see we’re in the middle of a conversation?” She jerked her head to me and seethed.
I walked over to her silently and slapped her. Hard.
Violence is never the answer. But it felt good when directed at the woman who orphaned the man I love.
Shocked silence filled the air after the thwack of my palm, before Jo brought her hand up and rubbed the pink flesh of her cheek.