That was strange, but not entirely without precedent. He probably was doing something very important, maybe out hiring more guys, something like that, so I didn’t think anything of it.
Work in the lab helped keep my mind off everything, at least for a while. Eventually though, the needs of my body reinstated themselves, and I was starving. I came up for air around nine at night, surprised that the day had passed that fast.
Time flies when you’re in the lab working and daydreaming about fucking your stepdaughter, apparently.
I left and headed down toward my apartment. I called up to the house chef for some food before lazily opening my bedroom door. Evelyn was in her room, or at least I figured she was since her door was shut. So far, none of the threats had been directed at her at all, which was good. I wasn’t too worried about her, but I knew that just being close to me right now was very dangerous. If all this went south, she was going to get as much bad press as I was, possibly even more. The media could be merciless to women they deemed bad, which was an absurd double standard, but there it was. I saw plenty of women of my status get taken down for doing the same shit I did.
For a long time, I thought I could do anything. I didn’t care about the media coverage, even though it was pretty mild. I thought that just because I had money, a successful business, and that I was smart meant I was immune to everything. I was a selfish prick back then, not caring too much who I hurt or what I broke, so long as I was free to do whatever I wanted.
Things couldn’t continue like that. In retrospect, I saw all the cracks around the edges of my life, all the little things that suggested I needed to slow down. Of course, it wasn’t until the board really began to muscle me aside that I realized I was in deep shit. I’d given away too much power out of sheer disinterest and laziness, and now I was on the verge of losing everything. All the board needed was a single excuse, and apparently I was still stupid enough to give them that excuse.
Emily was going to be the end of everything. I knew it and she probably knew it, too. Maybe I really hadn’t changed so much from my past self. Maybe I was still that selfish asshole, taking whatever he wanted just because he wanted it.
I kept going back and forth, back and forth. On the one hand, being with Emily felt good, and she clearly wanted it as much as I did. I felt for her something I’d never really experienced before. But on the other hand, I was putting her directly into danger and threatening to destroy everything.
I couldn’t tell if I was being selfish and noble or if I was following my feelings. It was probably a little bit of both, if I was honest with myself.
Nothing is ever black and white. Good and bad are never simple, obvious things. People go through their lives convinced that they knew what’s right, what’s good, what’s decent, but most of the time reality exists in the spaces between our perceptions. Evil men, truly evil and bad men, are incredibly rare, as are truly good and saintly men. The vast, vast majority of people are both good and bad, well-meaning and stupid pricks. I was a well-meaning, selfish, stupid asshole that wanted to do right by the people I cared about while also doing whatever the fuck I wanted. That was the contradiction I lived every day.
And that was how life worked or didn’t work. It wasn’t simple or clean or obvious, and my closely held beliefs were often flawed and inaccurate when held up to scrutiny. I tried always to scrutinize and consider the other side, but it’s hard for people to get past their prejudices.
In a lot of ways, I was blinded by Emily. She was my central axis, the thing I kept spinning around, shifting from one pole of myself to the next. One moment I was selfless, trying to distance myself for her sake, and the next I was fucking her in the pool-house, giving us what we both wanted.
There had to be balance. That was the only way we were going to survive this. It couldn’t be all of one thing or all of another, because nothing ever worked that way.
All of that was on my mind and more as I walked into my bedroom. I used the bathroom, brushed my teeth, and came back out into the main room, mind still elsewhere. It took me a minute before I noticed the now-familiar white envelope with my name written on it in blue ink.
Danger prickled down my spine, a tingling sensation. I hadn’t felt that before, not with the other notes, but this one was so fucking different.
It was in my goddamn bedroom.
That meant someone with access. My room was always locked and was only supposed to open to my particular fingerprints unless in an emergency. Only a few people had access to this room aside from me. Evelyn was one of those people, but it couldn’t be her.
Then there was Cox . . .