“Something you should have told me by now,” I accused, scanning the letter quickly.
Dear Ni gh, I w anted y ou to hear i t from me, but don’ t k now how to s ay i t, s o I’ m j us t goi ng to w ri te i t. I’ m not c omi ng bac k to B row n. I tal k ed i t ov er w i th an A rmy rec rui ter and I feel that i t’ s the bes t pl ac e for me at thi s poi nt. I k now y ou better than y ou thi nk I do, and ri ght now y ou’ re feel i ng gui l ty. W el l , don’ t. Y ou’ re happy and that’ s al l that matters to me, and that’ s the truth. I’ m s orry y ou hav e to fi nd out i n thi s s tupi d l etter, but ev ery thi ng happened k i nda fas t and I di dn’ t hav e ti me to c al l . Tak e c are of y ours el f, Ni gh. I’ l l thi nk about y ou ev ery day .
Ry an The letter slipped from my hands and fel to the floor, quiet and slow. The numbness was unexpected but welcome; I knew the guilt that would soon wash over me would be unbearable.
“He left.”
Jared touched my hand. “Claire call ed. He’s doing wel .”
“Claire’s gone? ” I wailed, standing up from my seat. Anger was always preferable to pain. Jared took a step toward me, but I stepped away from him. “You didn’t even let me say goodbye to her! To either of them!”
Jared’s eyebrows moved in. “He wanted to do this, Nina. You couldn’t have stopped him, anyway.”
“But you knew it was happening,” I said softly. “You should have told me.” The lack of sleep was already wearing on me, and my body felt heavy. I didn’t have the energy to be angry.
My eyes drifted to the letter on the floor. “This is my fault.”
“Nina, no.”
I nodded. “I did this. I broke his heart, and he couldn’t stay here,” I shook my head. “I should have left him alone. He’s going to die out there.”
“Ryan made his choice,” Jared said.
His dry tone was hardly convincing. He had a right to be angry, watching his fiancé anguish over the man she was meant to be with. To Jared, Ryan being Claire’s Taleh meant that I belonged to someone else, and I used that to drive Jared away when I thought being with him meant putting his family in danger. My bril iant plan had been enough to drive Ryan to join a war halfway across the world. No matter what Jared said, or how much he hated to see me upset, he wasn’t sorry to see Ryan go.
Angry as I was, the only one to blame was me, and we both knew it.
I shook my head. “I have to get going. I have to get those documents faxed by eight.”
Jared sighed. “If I had told you, what would you have done besides worry?”
I pul ed my purse over my shoulder. “I don’t know,” I said, pul ing out my cel phone. I scrol ed through the address book until I found Ryan’s number, and then held the phone to my ear. As I expected, his voice mail immediately answered.
The sound of his voice made my insides wrench, but when the beep cued me to speak, my temper kicked in.
“I need you to call me. call me right now, I mean it. I just got your letter and you can’t do this. You just can’t. You’ve got to call me so we can figure this out. Please.”
Jared took the phone from my hand and let it slowly close. “He’s not going to get that message, Sweetheart.”
“I had to try,” I said, opening my purse for him to drop the phone inside. “Someone had to.”
Jared touched my arm. “He’s the safest enlisted man in the Army, Nina. He has Claire.”
“And how is that going to work, exactly? Has Claire joined the Army?”
Jared smiled. “No. We’ve talked about this. She’s keeps an eye on Ryan the same way we were al owed to train. We have connections.”
“That’s not the point.”
“I know,” Jared said, opening the door.
I didn’t kiss him when I passed through the door, or when he opened the passenger side for me as he always did, or before he left me for the driver’s seat. He didn’t attempt to apologize, which he only did when he felt he was right. Knowing that infuriated me further.
“I’m sorry you’re angry,” he said.
I glared at him. “That’s lame and you know it. You didn’t tel me Ryan had enlisted in the first place! You didn’t let me say goodbye to Claire! Sorry I’m angry….” I muttered the last words and crossed my arms, settling into an unyielding foul mood. When Jared didn’t reply, I peeked at him from the corner of my eye. He was trying not to laugh.
“This is not funny, Jared!”
His mouth immediately flat-lined. “I didn’t say it was, you’re just,” he shook his head as he pul ed to the curb of Titan Mercantile, “trying to be angry, with a series of annoyed expressions on your beautiful face; it’s amusing—I’m sorry.”
“Stop being sorry, and start being…I don’t know! Sorry!”
A corner of Jared’s mouth rebel ed and turned up slightly before he straightened it again. “Have a good day.”
I slammed the door, beyond trying to have an argument with him. At times it was maddening how in love with me he was.
I took a few steps toward the building and then stop. I returned to the Escalade and sighed. Sheepish, I opened the door. “Are you coming in?”
“Not today,” he smiled.
Jared had spent endless hours at Titan Mercantile as a child, and it was his least favorite place to go with his father. It didn’t help that the other employees stared at him as if he were a zoo animal. They couldn’t figure our relationship out, although most of them knew that Jared was Gabe’s son, and my security.
Seeing Gabe shadow my father was just another day at the office when my father walked the hal s, but now that it was apparent that I needed protection, who also happened to be my fiancé, it began more than one string of rumors about my family.
One of my fel ow interns in particular, Sasha, had an immediate interest in Jared. She wasted no time with the saccharine-laced pleasantries; on the contrary, she was downright hateful to me on the subject.
“So…Jared….” she began as I walked into the office we shared. She eyed his Escalade from the window as she spoke.
“I have a lot to do, Sasha.”
“He protects you?” When I didn’t answer, she walked over to stand in front of my desk, tapping on it until I looked up. “From what?” she said, dubious.
I glared at her long nails clicking against the wood, and then up at her. “I’m busy.”
“But he’s your boyfriend, right?”
“No.”
“No?” she said, her voice an octave higher.
“We’re engaged.”
“Isn’t that, you know, a conflict of interest?”
“Not real y,” I said, thumbing through a stack of papers.
“I just don’t get it. I mean,” she puffed an airy laugh, “I realize you’re the princess of Titan Mercantile, but don’t you feel a little ridiculous when you stand next to him? You’re such an odd couple.”
Recognizing what she meant, my head jerked up, and my eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”
Sasha shrugged then, running her finger along the edge of my desk as she slithered around me. “Doesn’t it make you self-conscious? Women must be throwing themselves at him al the time.”
“Not real y, no,” I snapped as she walked toward the door.
Sasha smirked, backing away from my glare. “Hmm. Very interesting.” Her long, red ponytail flicked as she turned the corner, and I felt the heat radiate from my face.
On cue, my phone rang.
“Everything okay?” Jared asked on the other end of the line.
I covered my eyes with my hand, attempting to calm myself before I spoke. “Everything’s fine. It’s…Sasha was just here.”
“Oh. That explains it. Is she leaving her coffee mug on your papers, again?” Jared chuckled. For whatever reason, it amused him that the woman got under my skin in such a way that I couldn’t think straight.
I sighed. “No. She’s…I can’t say what I want to, so I just won’t.”
“You do own the company, you know. You don’t have to work with her.”
“Right now I’m an intern, Jared. And…,” I sighed again, watching her flirt with the human resources manager, “don’t tempt me.”
“Think you could slip away a bit early today?” Jared asked.
“Probably. Why?”
“It’s your first day back to Brown tomorrow. I thought we could get on the bike and head to the Oak tree, have some lunch.…”
“The Oak tree…?”
“The one I’ve wanted to take you to…where my father took my mother.”
I smiled. “That sounds fantastic, but I have a meeting, first.”
“Right,” Jared said, pretending he’d forgotten.
I straightened my skirt at the waist, and then pressed the button for the third floor. My entire last day of freedom could have been spent with Jared, but Mr. Patocka asked that the interns come in for one last meeting before school began. Some of them were leaving, and he needed to redistribute responsibilities. I had looked forward to this meeting al week, only because it was Sasha’s last day. That alone was cause to celebrate.
“Interns,” Mr. Patocka began, looking through the papers in his hand. He always said interns as if it left a bad taste in his mouth.
“Anna, Brad and Evan wil be leaving us, leaving Shannon, John, Nina and Sasha with new responsibilities. I would like to say…”
Mr. Patocka’s words blurred together after I realized he’d put Sasha in the wrong category.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Patocka?”
“Yes, Miss Grey?” he said, obviously irritated. I was wel aware that had any other intern interrupted him they would have been promptly asked to leave the meeting, but everyone knew, including Mr. Patocka, that I wasn’t just an intern.
“I think you’ve made a mistake. Sasha isn’t staying,” I said as professional y as I could manage.
“Stil not paying attention to your briefs,” Sasha snapped. “I’m staying on through the school year.”
“What?” I said, my tone more disgusted than I’d meant. I looked to Mr. Patocka, who nodded while looking incredibly bored with the turn the conversation had taken.
“I…she….” I stumbled over my words, trying to think of a way to save face after I’d made it so clear that I was shocked and dismayed at the news.
“It’s okay, Nina. We stil get to be office mates,” Sasha purred. Her smile was that of a cat being polite to the bird just before she ate it.
“Moving on,” Mr. Patocka continued. “Sasha, you’l be taking over Brad’s duties, Shannon, you’l be taking over Anna’s duties, and John wil be taking over Evan’s. I expect those departing to make sure those staying behind have exact instructions.”
“What about Nina?” Sasha said, glaring back at me over her shoulder.
Mr. Patocka sighed. “Nina wil be training with Grant during the school year, Sasha. Try not to make me feel as though I’m babysitting more than I already do, please.”
“With Grant?” Sasha groused.
Grant was second in command at Titan. When Jack died, he assumed the management responsibilities until I was ready to take over. Working with him was not something I looked forward to; I had spent my teenage years watching Grant suck up to my father and, to Jack’s amusement, shamelessly flirt with me.
Jack saw something in Grant that I couldn’t—or wouldn’t—see. Not only did he give Grant promotion after promotion, he tirelessly tried to persuade me to go out with his up and coming, incredibly intel igent, star employee.
While being within five feet of Grant usual y made me a bit nauseous, Sasha had been scheming to land a job as his assistant since her first day.
Mr. Patocka’s decision to place me in the very position she’d been working for al summer would no doubt push her beyond any irritation she’d had for me before.
I smiled at the thought. This would mean an al -out war.
“Is there a problem, Sasha?” I asked, trying to preserve a bit of respect from my future employees.
“Problem? Not at al ,” Sasha said with the sickeningly sweet laugh that liberated her from most awkward situations she’d created for herself. “I apologize, Nina. I didn’t realize you were so sensitive,” she smiled.
I looked to Mr. Patocka. “Are we finished here?”
“I’m finished with the meeting, but I need you to come to Grant’s office with me, Nina. He needs to brief you on a few things before you start back next week.”
The other interns filed out of the room, shaking hands and saying their goodbyes. I nodded to each of them as they made a bee-line to the elevator, but not before meeting Sasha’s cheap grin with one of my own.
Mr. Patocka escorted me down the hal and into the elevator, punching button four, where my father’s office stil resided. Grant’s office was on the opposite side of the floor, paral el to Jack's. Half of his wal s were covered in degrees and pictures of polo ponies, and the other half al owing the sunshine to pour in from large windows that overlooked Fleet Rink.
Mr. Patocka knocked on Grant’s half-opened door. “Er…Mr. Bristol? Nina’s here to see you.”
“Bring her in.”
I walked into his office, sitting in a puffy green chair, feeling amiable for a change. Grant had worked for my father for ten years, and like every cliché rise-to-the-top story, Grant started at entry level. The only thing that would have made his story any more boring would be if he’d began in the mail-sorting trenches, had we kept a mail room. But Grant didn’t begin his days at Titan as a mail boy.