Dirty Rich(26)

I hurry down the hall and move to unlock the office doors …

 … only to find that they're already unlocked. All the lights are on.

I'm not alone.

I pull open the doors and step inside, the hairs on the back of my neck pricking up.

Sandra isn't here, but someone else is.

She's tall and has auburn hair that has been straightened into a shining  wave down her back. It's pinned in place like a work of art.

And she's sitting at my desk.

"Hello," she says with a big smile as I step into the office. "How can I  help you? Ms. Sarzó isn't in yet." She gets up from the desk and comes  around to greet me.

"I'm-" I can't find the words. What the hell? What the hell? "Who are you?"

"My name is Lydia, and I'm Ms. Sarzó's assistant. Did you have a meeting scheduled with her?"

"No, I-" I sputter, then take a deep breath. "I'm Catherine Schaffer.  I'm Ms. Sarzó's assistant. I've been working for her for over a year."

Lyida blushes, biting her lip. "Oh, I didn't-I didn't know that. I got a  call yesterday evening about filling the position this morning, and of  course I took it. I didn't think-"

Just then, Sandra sweeps into the room.

"Lyida," she says. "I have changes to the schedule." Then she reaches  out a hand and beckons for Lydia to come take her purse. The other woman  rushes to Sandra and takes her purse, then shoots me an apologetic  look.

"Sandra," I say. "There's been a mistake."

"There's no mistake," she says in a clipped tone. "Mr. Hunter told me  last night that you're being transferred, effective immediately."

"Mr. Hunter?"

How could he do this to me?

Lydia follows Sandra into her office, and Sandra takes her place behind  her desk and starts rattling off changes. Lydia doesn't even have a  notepad ready.

"Sandra, that wasn't discussed with me. I never wanted-"

"It's done, Ms. Schaffer. Now, if you don't mind, there's a lot of work to be done."

Just like that, my work for Basiqué is over.





Chapter 35

Jax





My head is fogged and tired when I get back to the penthouse. The visit with my mother was harrowing.

The staff is doing everything they can to keep her comfortable, keep her  from harming anyone or herself, but her agitation turns so fucking  quickly to rage.

She's slipping away, and there's nothing I can do to stop it. All the  money in the world can't buy her mind back, and believe me-I've poured  as much of my capital into it as I can. Donations to research labs,  founding my own research labs, fundraising organizations … I've tried all  of it, short of becoming a researcher myself, and it's come to nothing.

When I get to her room, she doesn't know who I am.

It takes half an hour for the staff to convince her that I'm not an  intruder, and I spend several hours after that meeting with her nurses  and doctors, every caretaker available, to come up with a solution.         

     



 

The doctor is a nice fucking guy in his early forties.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Hunter," he says, my mother's file spread out in front  of him on the meeting table. He's being way nicer than he needs to be,  considering I came in here like a blustering asshole and demanded that  everyone meet with me well past business hours. "There's just been too  much brain deterioration. Even with recent clinical trials … " He shakes  his head, his disappointment seeming genuine enough. "We can't reverse  the damage. All we can do is make her more comfortable."

I slam my fist down on the table, then cover my face with my hands.  "She's out of fucking control," I say through gritted teeth. "She  doesn't know who I am. Why isn't more being done to calm her?"

"We're doing everything we can." This is a man who doesn't flinch at the  first sign of an outburst. "We're giving her every relaxation service  we offer, but as you saw tonight, sometimes there's nothing we can do  outside of sedatives."

"I don't want her sedated."

"Mr. Hunter, you have been very clear about that from day one, and I've  made a careful note of each of your requests. But your mother is past  the point where we can keep the possibility of sedatives off the table  if she's going to remain here. She's becoming a danger to our staff  members, and more pressing, she's becoming a danger to herself."

I hang my head, giving myself thirty seconds to feel fucking sorry for myself before I look into the doctor's eyes.

"I want this carefully monitored," I say, trying to keep the quiver out  of my voice. "She's not going to become one of the living dead, drugged  out of her fucking mind until she's barely living."

He nods, acting like my opinion means something in the face of his  medical experience. "You have my word, Mr. Hunter. We will only do  what's absolutely necessary, and no more." He glances through the files  in front of him again. "You should also know that although episodes like  this are becoming more common, she's still having many pleasant moments  throughout the day. She always responds very well to our daily painting  class. Most days, when she paints, she becomes lucid enough to share  stories about her favorite topic."

"What's that?"

"You."

My heart tears in two inside my chest.





It's still torn when the elevator lets me out into my penthouse. I don't  want Cate to see me like this, so shaken up, so fucking weak, but she's  the only one I can even begin to speak to about this.

The moment I see her, I know that's going to be off the table.

She stands in the middle of the living room, shoulders tight and tense,  arms crossed in front of her face, feet planted. Her face is white with  rage.

"Cate."

She lets the silence hang between us for far longer than she needs to before she speaks.

"What the fuck, Jax?"

I run a hand through my hair, over my aching head. "You're going to have to tell me what you're talking about, Cate."

A sharp burst of incredulous laughter escapes her lips. "Are you fucking serious?"

My chest still aches with the state I had to leave my mother in. I can't  even engage with her on this level. For the moment, at least, the fight  has gone out of me. "I'm serious."

"You got me fired from my job, you controlling bastard."

It dawns on me all at once.

The nightmare with my mother kept me away from Cate all last evening,  and this morning … and now I see what that bitch Sarzó has done.

"Cate, that's not what I intended to have happen. What I meant was-"

"What gives you the right?" It would be better if she screamed at me, but her voice is deadly soft.

"I didn't get you fired. You have to know that."

"I went in this morning and they already had a replacement at my desk.  You did this yesterday. Yesterday I had a job, and today I don't. And  it's all because of you." Her face is twisted from the betrayal.

I hold both of my hands up. "You have to believe me when I say that I never intended for you to be replaced overnight."         

     



 

"This wasn't your business," she spits at me. "Do you honestly think  that just because you have a lot of money that you can fuck around with  people's lives?"

It cuts me, because for a long time I've been living that way. But when I  called Sarzó and told her to prepare for Catherine to transition out of  the office, I was explicit: I told her that she would have two months  to find a suitable replacement. Plenty of time for Cate to warm up to  the idea, and for me to show her what I have in mind. It fucking stings  that she thinks I've done this with no consideration for what she wants  out of life.

"Please, Cate, give me a minute to explain."

"I don't want to hear your explanation. I don't want to hear any of it."  Her cheeks go pink. "I'm fucking mortified that I got involved with you  at all. I should have known-I was warned that you were selfish and  arrogant and I didn't listen. Now I've lost my job over it, and you have  some trite explanation? Fuck you. Fuck you. We're done, Jax. Done."





Chapter 36

Cate





Jax's shoulders slump, but I'm so furious that I feel nothing when I see  his defeated posture. A tiny voice in my head is trying to pull me  back, trying to remind me that he's had a hard day-that he's losing his  mother to a slow and agonizing disease, that his father is in prison,  that he's done so much for me that I can at least hear him out.

But I don't want to.

Nothing he can say can possibly make up for what happened to me this  morning, with all of my hard work dismissed as worthless. I'm back out  on my ass, back at the bottom, and now I have to start over somewhere  else and it will be years, years, before I can finally feel secure  enough to move forward with all the other plans I have for my life. The  anxiety is like a pair of hands around my neck. Years …

"I didn't tell your boss to fire you." He says the words, but he must  know they're going to have no effect. "And I meant to talk to you about  this last night, but things … got in the way."