He took me to the side a little, leaving Megan a few steps behind us. He spoke in a lowered voice. "She's a little raw and vulnerable, not really used to the real world yet." Oh, if only Tom knew exactly how part of the real world his little girl was. "I was hoping you could take her under your wing, look out for her, make sure that she's alright around here. You know what the fashion world is like and I've kept her out of it all these years. I trust you, I know that you won't let anything happen to her."
I wasn't so sure of that. Tom had no idea what his daughter could be like. If she wasn't the one that was getting herself into trouble, I wasn't exactly someone Tom could trust, either. Look at what I'd done.
I nodded and smiled. "Of course. I'll make sure she finds her way." What else could I have said?
Tom smiled, looking relieved. "I knew you would come through for me. You're like an uncle to her."
God, I hoped not. We turned back to Megan. Tom smiled. I plastered something that resembled a smile onto my face and looked at her.
"Brian will see to it that you're in the right place, honey." He stepped toward Megan and kissed her on the forehead. "You know you can call me anytime." He squeezed her hand and she nodded. She looked emotional. Was she going to cry? I really hoped not. Tom turned and hurried away. Megan and I stood facing each other, each with a mouth full of words and nothing to say to each other.
"Shall we?" I gestured toward the elevator. "You need to be on the ninth floor."
She nodded. I pushed the call button for the elevator and a moment later the chrome door slid open. Megan stepped in first. I followed. When the doors closed us in I was aware of how small the space was, how close we stood to each other. The last time I'd seen her I would have given an arm and a leg to be in a such a private, confined space with her. Now I felt claustrophobic. The tension grew between us, the air in the elevator getting thicker and thicker as we slowly slid up one floor after the other.
"I don't appreciate what you did," I said, unable to bear the silence anymore.
"It's not what I did, it's what the two of us did. Together."
I glared at her. I was angry now. "You could have told me who you were."
"You wouldn't have slept with me, then."
I shook my head, looking straight ahead. It was better not to look at her. I was furious and infatuated and I didn't want to like her. I wanted to be angry and angry alone.
"That's the point I'm trying to make."
She was silent for a beat. "Did you want to sleep with me?"
I swallowed. "That's not the point."
"Did you?"
Dammit. "I did, but--"
"Then there are no regrets because it was what I wanted and it was what you wanted and we did it."
How could she be so blasé about this? Maybe because her career wasn't at stake the way mine was.
I glanced at her. She was composed and calm, the opposite of what I felt. I was frantic, screaming on the inside, trying to justify what I'd done, trying to justify it by saying that I'd been tricked. Even though she was right - it hadn't just been her.
She looked like nothing was wrong. She was more in control of the situation than I was. Between me and her, I was the child. It made her sexy as hell. There was nothing more attractive in this world than a woman who knew what she wanted and oozed confidence and conviction.
Shit! I couldn't want her. This was wrong. I couldn't feel this way about her. She was Tom's daughter. She was a child. She was... making me spin out of control. This couldn't happen. The door pinged and opened on floor nine and I was relieved that I could escape her now.
This could not happen.
Chapter 6: Brian
For weeks after she was hired I only heard good things about her. I couldn't set foot in the office without hearing how well Megan was doing, how on top of things she was, how she was mastering her position. Raises, promotions, an office of her own - these happened in quick succession.
The office was on the same floor as mine. I hated it. I tried everything not to have to run into her. Most of the time it worked.
I sat at my desk trying to balance figures until it was way past dark. When I looked at the clock it was nearly ten. I looked out the window. The city was stretched beneath the window with twinkling lights in the night. Cars crawled in the distance, headlights two little specs in the dark.
I got up, collected my coat and my briefcase and locked my office door. There was a light still on, coming from one of the other offices on the floor. Someone else was working late. When I got closer I realized it was Megan's new office that still had a light burning in it.
This spelled trouble. I was already in a bad place with her - I couldn't afford to sleep with her again and I didn't know how well I would be able to control myself if she made a move on me the same way she had last time. She wasn't only seductive and beautiful but her success in the company added to her attractiveness. I tip-toed past the door, peeking in.
The office was empty, thank God. If I hurried I could get out of the building before she came back from wherever she was and the chaos would be averted.
The sound of someone throwing up pulled me up short. It wasn't uncommon for the models to make themselves sick but they didn't do it around where we could see it and this sounded almost desperate, the kind of retching that made you think the person was coughing up a lung.
I took a step toward the bathroom. A moment later Megan appeared looking pasty and tired. My heart flipped a little. I tried to tell myself it was sympathy, not affection. It had to be.
"Are you okay?"
She flashed a watered down smile and walked toward her office. She wore a pencil skirt that hit her low on her thigh - quite a modest look for her, fit for the office. It looked spectacular on her. Her knees below the skirt line were red like she'd been kneeling on the floor for a while.
I followed her to her office. It was my job to make sure she was okay, even if my motivation was a little skewed. No one had to know what but me. No one had to judge me by it more than I already judged myself.
"Are you sure you're alright? Can I get you something?"
She sat down at her desk and rubbed her hands down her face. When she looked up at me again her eyes were tired, like it was much more than just lack of sleep.
"Really, Brian, I'm fine. You don't have to worry about me."
If there was anything I'd learned through my divorce and all the women I'd dated it was that if a woman said she was fine, she probably wasn't. I turned and left the office, walking to the water cooler and filling a paper cup with water for her. I carried it back to her office and held it out to her over her desk.
She looked at me, eyes uncertain before she took it. She drank a bit.
"Why are you being nice?"
Was this a trick question? I shrugged. "I just want to make sure you're alright."
She chuckled without emotion. "Nice of you. I can't imagine what your motivation is."
I sat down on the chair facing her desk where she received visitors. "Just because you did something I felt you shouldn't have doesn't mean I shouldn't care about your well being."
"Because I'm your friend's little girl?" There was bitterness in her voice.
I shook my head. "Because you're a person and no matter what the situation was we still slept together. That puts me in the bracket where I still care about your existence."
She sighed and her lip trembled. Tears welled up in her eyes.
"What is it?"
She shook her head and looked down at the desk although through teary eyes like that I was sure she wasn't looking at anything.
"I can't tell you."
I took a deep breath. "I'm not going to tell your father if that's what you're worried about. I respect you as an individual. The fact that you're Tom's daughter is a coincidence. Inconvenient, but a coincidence nevertheless."
She sobbed, a small, fragile sound.
"Thanks, but I don't think this is something you can help me with."
That sentence just made me want to help her that much more. There was something about a woman crying that awoke the protective primal male inside of me and that fact that it was Megan - delicate and young - that made it that much more.
"Come on, try me. Maybe we can fix it. Maybe it isn't as bad as you think."
She swallowed.
"I'm pregnant."
It felt like something sucked all the air out of the office and I couldn't breathe. My face must have shown it because her face closed.
"Still, think it's not as bad as I think?"
I opened my mouth to say something, couldn't find the words, closed it again.
"And just before you ask if I've been whoring around, I haven't. The child is yours. I'm not expecting you to do anything about it, but I'm not a bad person for what we did together."
She said it with defiance as if she was trying to justify it to herself, rather than me. As if she was trying to convince herself. The truth was, though, I hadn't for one second thought the baby was some other poor bastard's. A man could always hope, but the fact that she'd been a virgin when I'd met her told me everything about the kind of person she was.
Chapter 7: Megan
He asked me to dinner to talk about the baby. I was raw and vulnerable and I felt impossibly alone in the world. I agreed. The fact that he'd cared for long enough to find out what was wrong in the first place made me think that he wasn't a bad guy. Of course, I knew that he wasn't, but seeing a man through the eyes of a little girl versus the eyes of a woman that had gotten to know what adults do were two completely different things.