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  She increased her pace, pushing her box into his chest. “Move.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.” He stumbled over the first descending step leading to the sidewalk, almost landing flat on his ass.

  “Please, just leave me alone.” Her breathing came in ragged pants, the pace of her tears increasing. She gave another halfhearted push of her box, hitting his chest with barely any impact.

  Her agony tore his heart open. His inability to figure out how to fix the problem hurt even more.

  Halfway down the stairs he stopped, needing to get her attention. He braced his footing and grabbed for the box, crushing the Danish in his hand. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  With frantic, jerky movements she tried to pull the box from his grip, but he wouldn’t let up. “You’re causing a scene. Please, just let me go.”

  He stood firm, staring her down, just as stubborn and determined as she had ever been. After a few exhausted efforts to regain the box, he watched Beth’s shoulders sag, the fight leaving her body.

  “I hope it was worth it,” she whispered.

  Her eyes were tortured, sunken and glassy. He’d never seen her like this before and her reactions were hitting him like continual sucker punches.

  “I don’t understand.” He heard his own words and hadn’t realized he’d said them out loud until Beth pushed at the box.

  “That makes two of us.”

  She attempted to wrench the box from his hands again, giving it one hard pull. He didn’t have a chance to grip the edges tighter and the weight escaped his fingers. He watched in a daze as Beth fumbled with the sudden release and it fell to the ground.

  A sob left her lips and he winced at the sound of smashing glass. At his feet now sat a mangled box, the lid half off to display broken photo frames and items he recognized from her desk.

  He glanced back at her in confusion. She stared him in the eye and let out a weary sigh. “What did I ever do to you?”

  “I—”

  She turned to leave, the box still lying on the ground at his feet.

  “Beth.”

  She didn’t answer his call, just continued to walk away. He glanced at the breakage in front of him, then back toward Beth as she fled. If he went after her, the box would likely be stolen, but he couldn’t just watch her leave. He couldn’t shake off the apprehension that she was walking from his life forever.

  In the end he didn’t need to make a decision. She reached the curb and opened the door to a waiting cab. She didn’t even look over her shoulder, or spare a glance at her belongings as the car pulled into traffic and drove out of sight.

  What the fuck just happened?

  He retrieved the phone from his suit pocket and called the office, asking Angela to meet him outside with an empty box.

  “Yeah, I’ll get to it when I can.” The usually bubbly receptionist gave him a dose of attitude, ranting about how busy the phone lines were.

  Fifteen minutes and two pieces of glass embedded in his fingers later, Angela came walking out of the front sliding doors of the building. Not once in all the days of her employment had she ever greeted him with anything but a smile—until today. Now she glared at him as he hovered over the broken pieces of Beth’s possessions, her facial expression making his balls shrink. Without a word she thrust the box forward.

  “Thanks.”

  “Not a problem,” she sneered.

  Picking up Beth’s crumpled box, he watched from the corner of his eye as Angela turned to leave, pausing moments later before turning back to face him. “Have you ever had a heart?”

  He glanced up and knew his frustration must have been evident, but she didn’t seem to notice.

  “I’ve just been pondering the thought lately.”

  Letting his head fall, he sucked in a deep breath. Everyone was talking in riddles. He didn’t have time for this shit. He needed to find Beth and figure things out before his plane flight. The receptionist’s PMS was the last thing he needed to deal with.

  “What?” he snapped, reaching his limit.

  “You know, pondering…like women seem to do more often than men. Does Dean Sutherland actually have a heart underneath all the layers of asshole?”

  He shot her a scathing glare and raised his eyebrows, expecting more of an explanation.

  “How could you bring a staff member into your petty family problems, Dean? I honestly thought you were a good guy deep down, underneath all the arrogance. Not that it’s any of my business, but did you plan for Beth to lose her job when you set out to piss off your father?”

  His heart clenched. Crouched on his haunches, he almost lost his balance. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  She responded by increasing her laser stare of death before turning away in a huff, walking back into the building without another word.

  Damn it to hell. He needed to get ahold of Beth. Pulling out his phone again, he dialed her number. He tapped his foot in a frantic beat on the cement while he prayed for her to answer. The sound of the ringing call was barely audible over the pounding in his head.

  Come on, come on, come on.

  She couldn’t do this to him now. Not after the day they shared. Not after he finally found the balls to tell her how he felt.

  The call went to voice mail. Disconnecting, he dialed again…same result.

  He should have told her how he felt earlier. Why hadn’t he spent Saturday wooing Beth, making her see the real him, not wasting his one chance on sex and seduction?

  He’d even misled her to make himself feel less vulnerable. Apart from his longtime ex, Jessica, no other liaison had taken place in his apartment. It was his rule. But sharing his space with Beth hadn’t required a second thought. She had even asked him point-blank.

  So how many ladies have made the cut?

  Too many.

  He hadn’t lied. Jessica had been one woman too many, but he was stupid to have answered based on his own insecurities without thinking of hers.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  When the third call still went to voice mail, he gave up. He didn’t have much time, and he planned on getting to the bottom of the situation before he left.

  Finally, Dean had laid everything on the line with his father and yet his head still throbbed like a son of a bitch. All the resentment, all the hatred and hostility over Beth being fired had spewed from his mouth like a fountain.

  He’d yelled until his throat grew hoarse, while his father sat behind his desk and waited for him to finish. Throughout his tirade—which could easily have been heard by the entire office—he tried calling Beth. Whenever one call ended he disconnected and tried again.

  Once his anger became containable he stopped pacing, took a seat, and listened to the calm voice of his father. Dean hadn’t anticipated him taking the deep and meaningful route, but he had. The mighty Max Sutherland sat before him at the point of tears, bringing up ancient history and family issues they’d both tried to bury a long time ago.

  His father wanted to make amends, to start fresh and rebuild the damage between them.

  The conversation had come from left-field, completely out of the blue and he found himself unable to handle the additional drama. His father couldn’t expect a rational reply. After the way his family had been torn apart Dean had no intention of making any reconciliation easy.

  He ended up leaving his father’s office with an ultimatum—step down as managing director of Sutherland & Son, or Dean would leave and take the majority of the staff with him.

  The promise had been a senseless move, but one he planned on committing to. They couldn’t work together anymore and dragging Beth into their issues had only made their relationship more unstable.

  Now he raced against time and traffic to make his flight. Beth still wouldn’t answer her phone, so he decided to place his efforts in a different approach.

  The first three florists he called from the online directory on his phone didn’t have the time to go to the extremes he needed,
no matter what the cost. His hopes were now pinned on the final number in her area.

  “Good morning, this is Sunflowers. You’re talking with Mick.”

  Dean didn’t want to lose his optimism, yet the snarly tone of the young man didn’t leave a great impression.

  “Hi, Mick, I’m hoping you can help me. I need a large number of flowers delivered to a house in your area, and if the person isn’t home I want them placed inside.”

  The scenario happened in the movies all the time. The hero would need to make a big romantic gesture to put him back in the game. This was his gesture.

  “Ahh…you want me to go into the house when no one else is there?” The man sounded dubious and Dean could understand his apprehension.

  This was the fourth florist he’d spoken to, and he still hadn’t thought out the finer details of the plan. Damn it, but he was flustered. “Yeah, can you do that?”

  “Is it your house?”

  “No, it’s not, but—”

  “Dude, I can’t break into someone’s house. Do you know what they’d do to a skinny-ass florist in jail? Thanks, but no thanks. I prefer to keep my back-door virginity intact if you don’t mind.”

  Dean stopped at the next set of traffic lights and rubbed his eyelids in frustration, trying not to snap his threadbare sanity. He did know the hiding place of Beth’s house key but he supposed the act would still be illegal. “Okay, fine. If she’s not home, just leave the flowers on the front porch. If she is there, though, I need you to tell her a message. I don’t think she’ll read it if you leave it with the flowers.”

  “Yeah, whatever.”

  The man’s lethargy made Dean want to grab the sucker by the throat and shake him.

  “Great.” He clenched his teeth and pressed harder on the accelerator. “Here’s what I need you to do…”

  Chapter 14

  Beth arrived home twenty minutes after the incident with Dean, and for a long time afterward she didn’t move from her position on the couch. She cried until her breaths came in forced gulps and every time her cell phone vibrated with a silenced call she wept a little harder.

  After an hour and a half the calls stopped and the depression started to seep in. She sat quietly, her sniffles and ragged breathing the only noise filling the living room for another dazed hour and a half. Then her phone vibrated to life again.

  A day hadn’t even passed before her weakness for Dean kicked in. She wanted to pick up her phone and answer, hoping like a naive little girl that he would have an adequate explanation. That he would tell her everything was all a misunderstanding and his father made a mistake. That Dean would apologize for sharing the intimate details of their time together and make her understand why he’d done it in the first place.

  God, idiocy was now one of her personality traits.

  She couldn’t comprehend how her judgment of Dean and Max Sutherland had been entirely inaccurate. They weren’t the honorable men she had trusted for years. The blindfold had been removed from her eyes and the reality of who they really were became painfully obvious.

  Beth had always known Dean to be a womanizer, knew he wasn’t the committed type, but she always thought of him as honest. She was wrong and still couldn’t believe he would be so childish and uncaring toward their friendship.

  She had given him her body, let his lingering caresses sink under her skin to penetrate her heart, and in return, he only thought of her as a way to inflict pain on his father.

  After her tears had dried like sand crystals on her cheeks, she decided she needed time and space to pull the shattered pieces of her life together.

  The first step was to turn off her phone. For the next few days she would be a hermit.

  In her own little cocoon she could be crazy—emotionally psychotic—and not give a damn about the outside world. She would allow herself three days to wallow in self-pity, eat enough double choc ripple ice cream to send her into a sugar-induced coma, then pull up the big-girl panties and get on with her life.

  Her plan had been working, too, until the doorbell rang later that afternoon. She didn’t have a clue who to expect. All her friends were at work and Dean would be out of town. Tiptoeing down the hall, she hoped to figure out who was there without opening the door.

  A rustle of noise came from outside. A male cleared his throat. “Come on, lady.”

  The voice didn’t belong to Dean. She released the lock and slowly pulled the door open. A rainbow of colors greeted her on the other side. A thin, blond man in his early twenties stood surrounded by bright boxes of flowers at his feet. Every color imaginable, every size and shape, and in one hand he clutched a bouquet of balloons while the other held a piece of paper.

  She swallowed. On any other occasion she would have been impressed. This time, however, she just wanted to be left alone.

  “Beth?” The young man raised a brow.

  “Yes.” She wished she lacked the conscience stopping her from closing the door in his face.

  “I have a message for you from Dean.”

  Before he could start she halted him with a motion of her hand. She didn’t want to hear a message. The hours crying this morning had been enough wasted time on Dean.

  He needed to realize no words could redeem what he did. Friends or lovers, it didn’t matter; you didn’t deceive people you cared for.

  “I don’t want to hear it.” She motioned for him to go away with a sweep of her hand. “Take all this stuff back, too. I don’t want it either.”

  She began to close the door, but the little twerp stepped forward to put his foot inside the frame. He huffed in frustration while the balloons bobbed and squeaked around his head. “Look, I get paid a bonus if you listen to the message.”

  “Well, tell him I listened.” She started closing the door again.

  He didn’t take the hint, leaving his foot firmly in place. “Seriously, lady, I might seem like a dude that couldn’t give a crap about your love life, but underneath all this”—he motioned to his face which was now set in a scowl—“don’t-give-a-shit attitude, I’m a deep and emotional guy.”

  She raised her brows, not impressed with his sarcasm.

  “Here.” He handed her the balloons.

  The huge bouquet banged against the door and walls as she yanked it into the house. She didn’t want the damn helium-infused display. The less she had to remind herself of Dean the better.

  As soon as the guy left she would take pleasure in popping every single one of them. Better yet, she would suck the air out as she blubbered and sobbed. At least that would make her depressing situation a little humorous.

  She placed the water balloon holding the bouquet together on the floor behind her, the round colorful mess taking up the width of her hallway. Dean was delusional if he thought flowers and balloons could make up for losing her job and being treated like a fool.

  When she turned back to face the man, he was scrolling through his phone with the unfolded piece of paper in his other hand. He cleared his throat as if preparing to make a formal speech and she could only roll her eyes in frustration. Where did Dean find this guy?

  Clenching her jaw, she stared at the man with impatience. “What are you doing?”

  “I’ve gotta set the mood.”

  This was getting beyond a joke.

  “Okay, I’ve had enough. Either remove your foot so I can close the door, or I’m calling the police.”

  “Wait, wait, wait.” He had the audacity to hush her with his hand. “Got it.” He spoke to himself while he pressed a button on his phone. In the next moment soft music echoed between them.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake.” She rarely swore aloud but the situation deserved an f-bomb. She recognized the first notes to the song immediately—Unchained Melody by the Righteous Brothers. “You’ve gotta be kidding me. Did Dean ask you to play that?”

  “Oh no.” He waved away her comment, taking a step back and straightening the piece of paper. “All part of my high-quality service.” He fixed
her with a snarky smile before clearing his throat again. “Beth, please give me a chance to explain. This morning was all a big misunderstanding.”

  If only. She wasn’t stupid enough to misunderstand being fired. And then there was the retaliation toward Dean’s father.

  He could take his “misunderstanding” and shove it up his finely sculpted ass. She wasn’t a woman who would ignore being treated with disrespect just to get another ride on his thrill drill.

  She couldn’t be bought. She couldn’t be seduced. Well, not anymore, anyway.

  Without warning she slammed the front door, locking out the world and stepping back into the sanctuary of lonely silence.

  Wednesday morning greeted her with a brighter outlook. There would be no more tears, no more obsessive cleaning, no more alcohol or sickly-sweet ice cream. Time for pity would no longer be allowed.

  Taking a sip of her coffee, she turned her phone back on. Last night she decided the best course of action would be to delete all voice messages without a second thought, which she organized immediately.

  The text messages wouldn’t be so easy.

  There were thirty-two messages and she didn’t know how to delete them in bulk without having to open them one by one. If she opened them, she would read them and seeing something from Dean wouldn’t be the best thing for her right now. In the end she decided to ignore them until she regained more strength.

  Next item on her agenda—call Angela to see if her belongings had been returned to the office.

  “Babe, I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for days.” Angela’s tone was a mix of worry and excitement, not entirely what she expected.

  “I’m sorry. I needed time to myself.” Not wanting to allow the conversation to divert to a topic she wouldn’t be strong enough to handle, she continued, “Do you by chance have my box of office items with you?”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah, they’re here. I planned on dropping them off on the weekend, but I’ve wanted to fill you in on what happened after you left on Monday.”

  No.