I get to my feet as the man I love stalks off down the corridor, and Janet shrieks as I make a run for it.
“Miss Martin!” she screeches, but I don’t even slow down.
“Alexander!” I call, but he doesn’t even look at me. He slams the door at the end of the corridor, and I’m all set to charge on after him, be damned with the consequences, but I can’t.
The hand on my shoulder is firm. Alexander Henley Senior’s grip is brutal.
“We need a fucking word, Miss Martin,” he hisses.
And I cry.
Oh God, how I cry.
Alexander
I take the stairs, all sixteen fucking floors of them three at a time with my lungs on fire.
I barge past some catering staff halfway down and don’t even apologise.
I can’t speak. I don’t want to fucking speak.
I don’t even want to be alive.
The world spins as I pace through the lobby. My lungs scream for air as I barge through the main entrance doors.
My lungs scream to be out of this fucking place.
I stumble onto the street and straight into Mr Rand on his way in.
He holds out a hand and I stare mute, as though I’m a fucking lunatic. Because I am. I am a fucking lunatic.
“Are you alright, Henley?” Rand asks, and I brace myself on his shoulder, using him as leverage to walk on by. I stumble down the street with the wind whipping my tie, and the rain feels like acid against my cheeks.
A cigarette. I need a fucking cigarette.
I stumble into a tiny corner shop two streets down, and the assistant is wide-eyed as I bark out an order for anything. Sixty of fucking anything. And a lighter. Make that two fucking lighters.
“Do you need some help?” she asks, and I know I must look like fucking death. “A doctor, or…”
I hand over my credit card as she rings up my purchases. My voice sounds like a crazy man.
“I’m fine,” I say.
She nods politely as she hands over my cigarettes.
I’ve torn into the first pack before I’m even out of there. I smoke it with my back to the wall and light up another straight after.
I’ve been played by a fucking cleaner. My own fucking cleaner.
Of course I’ve been fucking played.
The gemstones, the fucking band, the way Brutus was so fucking fond of her.
Of course he was fucking fond of her. He fucking knew her. He saw her every fucking day.
My hands ball into fists against the pain.
Brown hair to blonde, as though she knew I liked blondes. As though she knew about my teenage fucking crush.
As though she’d peered inside my fucking soul and not the tatty fucking memory box in the storage room.
It takes me three cigarettes before I can trust my legs to take my weight.
Three cigarettes before I feel like I can breathe without screaming my lungs raw.
I hover in the street, contemplating going back to the office and tearing the little bitch a fucking new one.
Scrap that. I should congratulate her fucking prowess and tell her she’d make a damn fucking fine lawyer.
She can have my fucking job if she wants it.
I laugh a bitter laugh as I picture her pretty face.
Oh fuck, she was fucking good.
Good enough that I actually believed she fucking loved me, which is a fucking joke in itself.
Nobody who’s ever truly known me has ever come out the other side still loving me.
I hail a cab to take me home.
I’ve nothing to fucking say to her, and nothing to say to my fucking father, either.
Melissa
I’m stripped of everything – my ID badge and my swipe card and Alexander Henley’s house keys.
I’m even stripped of my stupid scratchy cap and apron.
Mr Henley Snr. laughs as he finds the resignation letter in my apron pocket.
“So close,” he says. “And to think you nearly got away with it.” He laughs again to himself. “Extraordinary. You’re wasted as a cleaner, most likely as a hooker, too. You should be a lawyer.”
I have to cover my mouth to stop myself being sick.
“I’m sure I don’t need to tell you what would happen if you were foolish enough to contact my son,” he says. “Consider your employment well and truly terminated. Please don’t insult me by asking your manager for a reference.”
I can’t speak. I can’t say anything.
His smile is a sneer. “Believe me, you don’t know anything about my boy. If you’ve any sense at all you’ll stay as far away as possible. He has a penchant for asphyxiation games, as I’m sure you well know. Something tells me you wouldn’t come out the other side of the next one.”
I blink away tears, and I don’t care. I don’t care that I wouldn’t come out the other side of the next one.
I really don’t.
The life insurance would be more than enough for Dean to take care of Joseph.