Benevolent (13 page)

She opened her eyes and stared at me before looking around the room. It was obvious she didn’t know where she was. Once she regained her bearings, she began crying uncontrollably. That was what caught me off guard. She didn’t have a mean bone in her body, but I couldn’t imagine the news of her rapist killing himself would have upset her.

“What’s wrong, Gabs?” I asked quietly.

“He’s dead! He killed himself!” she wailed and then covered her face with her hands.

I was confused. That should have been good news. After he was released from prison, he moved back in with his mother, right next door to where Gabi once lived. Where that first tragedy of hers took place. Knowing he wasn’t breathing anymore should have given her some peace. Knowing he couldn’t do to others what he had done to her should have comforted her. But it didn’t seem to be doing that. It seemed as if she was upset about it. I didn’t get that.

“That’s a good thing, Gabs. He’s gone. You don’t have to worry about him anymore.”

“You don’t understand. He didn’t deserve that. I ruined his life.” She was crying and sobbing and her words were hard to hear. I hoped I had misunderstood her. I had her repeat it again and that’s when I knew I hadn’t. “I ruined his life!”

“No, you didn’t.” I tried to stay as calm as possible for her. She had a way of taking the blame for things that she shouldn’t have. I remembered the blame she felt after he was sent away. I didn’t understand it then, either. “He ruined his own life when he raped you, Gabriella. It wasn’t your fault. You are not to blame. He’s the monster.” I hated saying rape in front of her; I knew how sensitive she was about the word, but her therapist told us it was needed. He told us we couldn’t pacify the situation by calling it anything else. She needed to face what had happened to her and that wouldn’t happen if we skated around the issue.

“Yes I did. He killed himself because he couldn’t get a job, he couldn’t get his own house, he couldn’t do anything. And it’s all because of me!”

I held on to her face and made her look at me as I spoke to her. “Gabriella, listen to me. It is not your fault. He couldn’t get a job or a house because of what he did to you. That was not your fault. He was a monster and that is why his life went the way it did. You have to stop blaming yourself. Please, stop. You did nothing wrong.” I hated talking about it because all it did was bring up the memories of that horrible day. The day she stopped answering my calls and never showed up at school. The day I rushed to her house before the lunch bell rang. The day I found out she was in the hospital after being brutally raped. I wanted to kill him that day. And talking about it only made me wish he were still alive so I could knock on his door and put a bullet in his skull.

She looked me straight in the eyes and said the words I never expected to hear. “It is my fault because I lied. He didn’t do anything to me. He never raped me.”

I blinked, because that was all I could do. I had to have heard her wrong. There was no way she said what I thought she did. She lied? No, that couldn’t have been right. I replayed her words over and over again in my mind.
He never raped me
. It rang in my ears so loudly that I couldn’t hear anything else.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I seethed through a clenched jaw.

The air was sucked from the room as I pushed her back and stood. I couldn’t look at her. I couldn’t even stand the sight of her as I tried to understand what she had said. I thought I knew her. I thought she was a good person. Everything I had once thought about her was all wrong.

I hurried back to my room, wanting to be as far away from Gabi as I could get. She followed me, crying and begging me to hear her out, but I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to hear any more lies. The anger I felt inside was unlike any anger I had ever felt before. It was worse than rage and I was having a hard time keeping it in check.

“Don’t! Stop following me. Stop talking to me. I don’t want to hear it.” That only made her cry harder as she fell to the floor just outside of our room. “You fucking disgust me. I don’t even know who you are!” I took in a deep breath and stared right at her as I spoke my next words. “I am packing a bag and leaving for work. I want you gone by time I come back. I shouldn’t give you more than a few hours to leave, but I want to make sure you get everything. I don’t ever want to see you here again. In fact, I don’t ever want to see you period. You have until Sunday at noon to be gone. Anything left behind will be thrown out. You need help, Gabi. You need more help than I can give you. You need to find it and get it.” My words and tone surprised me. They didn’t sound like mine but I knew they were. My throat was raw after speaking them with such a low voice it almost sounded threatening. I didn’t care, though. It’s how I meant them to sound. It’s how I wanted them to sound.

I slammed the door behind me as I began to get ready for work and pack a small bag for the weekend. I couldn’t think about anything other than her fucked-up confession so I had no plan in place. All I knew was that I couldn’t be there. It didn’t matter if I had to sleep in my office, I just didn’t want to be anywhere near Gabi. I was done. I wanted something to change, and it had. It just wasn’t what I thought it would be.

Gabi was in the same spot on the floor, sobbing to herself as I walked out of the room with my bag over my shoulder. I didn’t even know what was in it. I just grabbed clothes blindly and stuffed them into a duffel bag I found at the top of the closet. I stepped over her, feeling such coldness as I did so, and left. I never once looked back. Part of me wanted to. Part of me felt bad for her, for the pain she was feeling, but I blocked it out. I had to. If I had given in to that feeling, it would have only allowed her to make me feel worse. I didn’t want to feel worse. I wanted to hold on to the anger that was consuming me. I needed that feeling of resentment and betrayal to keep me moving forward.

All I could think about was how I had stayed with her, hoping to save her from the horrible thing that had happened to her. But that horrible thing never existed. I had been unhappy for years, some of the time I’d even say I was miserable. But I stayed out of obligation. Out of doing the right thing. I always put Gabi before myself. Always. Finding out it was all a lie was like I had been tricked, schemed into staying with her. I was played, plain and simple. I gave her a house, clothes, cars, money, anything and everything she ever wanted or needed. All I wanted and needed was to be happy, to feel the way Eden made me feel. But I didn’t get that because of Gabi. Because of her lies and deceit. I never thought I would have ever looked at her with hatred, but that was how I felt as I left her lying on the floor. I needed to move forward.

And forward is where I went. I drove to work and stomped all the way to my office. An idea came to me on my way there and that was the only thing I could think about. Random people tried to say good morning along my way to my office, but I never responded. I didn’t nod my head or meet their eyes. I was on a mission. I needed to get to my desk before I exploded on the wrong person. I had never felt that kind of hatred before. I didn’t like it, but I also didn’t know how to tamper it down. I just knew I was ready to put my fist through a fucking wall.

The light on my phone was flashing and I already had a few pink slips in the basket on the corner of my desk. That was expected since I was almost an hour late to work. But I ignored all of that. I ignored the ringing phone and the beeping from my computer, letting me know I had unread mail. It all became background noise as I shuffled through one of my desk drawers, looking for a specific piece of paper. I found it and stormed into Eden’s office.

She could tell something was wrong. She saw it on my face and I saw the recognition in her eyes. They were startled and worried.

“Is everything okay? I was about to call you; you’re never late. Did something happen?” Her questions were full of concern, but like everything else, I didn’t let that get to me. I was on a warpath with one purpose—ridding the cancer from my life.

I slapped down the form on her desk and pushed it closer to her. She finally looked down, took it in her hands, and then looked back at me with wide, piercing eyes. Her small hand rose and then covered her opened mouth. Her eyes darted back and forth between mine, searching out the answers. She wouldn’t find any there. I felt empty, no, not empty. I fell full. Full of hurt and pain and anger and rage.

“What is this?” she asked in such a tiny voice I barely heard it over the rolling rage inside my head.

“What does it look like?” I hadn’t wanted to sound so angry with her, but I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t make the deep, throaty tone go away. No matter what I did, I felt the heat in my face and it wouldn’t disappear. I finally looked away from her.

“It’s a resignation form. Why are you giving me a resignation form?”

My eyes met hers again. “Because I want you to sign it. I want you to resign.”

“Is this because of yesterday? Because of what I said on the beach? That’s not fair, Dane!” Eden screamed as she stood from her chair. “I told you I didn’t want to quit. Now you’re coming at me and telling me to resign? What the fuck?” And she was suddenly just as angry as I was.

We were toe to toe in her office, both with red faces and angry eyes. Hers was justified, my wasn’t. Well, my wasn’t toward her; it was justified, though.

“It has nothing to do with that.” My words came out through gritted teeth.

“Then what does it have to do with?”

“It has to do with the fucking rules, Eden!” I yelled because she was yelling. I hadn’t meant to, but I did. The emotions that were running through me were more than I could handle. I didn’t know what to say, scared I’d say the wrong thing. But Eden being Eden pushed me until I was yelling right back at her for all the wrong reasons. I was yelling at the wrong person, but she didn’t know that.

I walked away, only because I needed to regulate my breathing. I needed to slow my pulse and dull my anger. Eden didn’t deserve my anger. She didn’t deserve me treating her the way only Gabi deserved to be treated. But Eden didn’t let me go far. She followed me into my office through the connecting door and rushed me.

“What rules? What did I do?”

I turned and looked at her. She was shaking; I didn’t know if it was from fear, adrenaline, or rage. All I knew was that she was standing in front of me with the resignation form clutched in her hand and shaking like a wet dog. I went to her, faster than she expected and she backed away.

“Eden,” I pleaded with a much calmer sounding voice. I was finally starting to sound like myself again. “I’m sorry. I’m having a really fucking bad day and I didn’t mean to make it seem like I’m taking it out on you. That’s not what I meant.”

“You gave me this form and told me to sign it. You want me to resign and you’re screaming at me about rules. It doesn’t matter what kind of morning you had, this is bullshit, and I don’t deserve it. What I deserve is an explanation as to why you’re firing me.”

“I’m not firing you.”

She laughed and held up the form. “Well, this begs to differ.”

“It’s a resignation form, not a termination form. It’s completely up to you.”

“I told you yesterday that I don’t want to quit.”

“I know, but now I want you to.”

“Why?”

She looked so confused. I knew I was only making things worse. The anger was slowly dissipating but it was still there and it clouded my thinking. It kept me from getting things out the way I had wanted to.

“Because there are rules about dating your associates. And as long as you work for me, I can’t date you. And I so desperately want to date you. As much as I value you as my assistant, I would love nothing more than to be with you outside of this office.”

“And Gabi?” Her question was hesitant.

“She’s a fucking lying, manipulative cunt. I want nothing to do with her. I never want to see her again and she can rot in hell for all I care. I’m fucking done. You hear me? Done!” The rage that was simmering was growing to a boil again as I thought about it.

Eden noticed and walked to me, holding my face in her hands. She waited until I was looking into her hunter green eyes before she began talking. “Dane, calm down. You’re talking in circles and you’ll never get anything accomplished like this. Just take a breath and calm down.” Her voice was so soft and reassuring. Between that and her eyes, I felt a comfort wash over me. She relaxed me in ways that I wasn’t used to.

“Okay, now tell me, what happened?” she asked but never let go of my face.

I kept eye contact with her as I tried to explain. “When we were seventeen, she was raped. The things he did to her were horrible and disgusting. That was the start of her downfall. It was the start of me needing to protect her because she couldn’t protect herself.” I felt her hands go limp on my cheeks, so I covered them with mine and held them there. “That was one of the reasons I felt that I couldn’t leave her. He broke her. And she was never the same again.

“He was arrested and sent away to prison. She was seventeen and he was twenty-three. He went away for a long time. It followed him everywhere and since his release, he’s been condemned by everyone.”

“Good, he should,” she commented.

I shook my head and watched the confusion set in her eyes. “He killed himself the other night because of it. Because he was never able to have a normal life again. And he deserved a normal life. He never should have gone to prison. He never should have been labeled a sex offender, because he never did it. She confessed this morning that she made it all up. She ruined the man’s life.”

Her eyes grew wide on her face and her red lips popped open. “Why would she do that?”

“I don’t know,” I answered, shaking my head. “I didn’t ask. I just packed a bag and got the hell out of there. I told her to pack up her shit and be gone by Sunday. I never want to see her again. I never even want to hear from her again, so I’ll probably never know what made her do something that vile and disgusting.”

Eden pulled her hands from my face and backed up. “Is that the only reason why you’re coming to me? Because of what she did?”

“No. I’m coming to you because it’s what I should have done from the very beginning. It’s what I should have done that night at the bar. I was with her for all the wrong reasons. I stayed with her out of guilt for something that never even happened. Had she never lied about that, I wouldn’t have even had to choose. I would have made you mine from the very start and I’m trying to do that now. That’s what this is about. It’s not a rebound. It’s not me jumping from one girl to another. It’s me being where I want to be. If you don’t feel the same after everything I put you through, I understand. But believe me when I say I won’t give up.”

She picked up the paper off the conference table and held it up. “I’m not signing this.”

I didn’t know why I thought differently. I didn’t know why I thought she would just jump at the chance of us finally being together. I should have known better. I had put her through the ringer and assuming she would have just signed it and kissed me was downright stupid.

“I understand,” I said and couldn’t miss the disappointment in my own voice.

“I don’t think you do. If I sign this, then that means you’re not my boss anymore. And ever since you hired me, I’ve had this fantasy of fucking my boss in the office. If I sign this, I’ll never get to live that fantasy out.”

Holy mother of all fucking shitballs. I most certainly wasn’t expecting that. Fuck signing it and then kissing me. Propositioning me to fuck her on my desk went beyond that. If that’s what she wanted, then that was what I’d give her.

A smile so big it hurt spread across my face as I looked back at her. I could tell she was waiting for me to do something, and I was going to, I just had to get my bearings straight before I nutted in my boxers just thinking about it.

I moved to her quickly and grabbed her from behind her thighs, lifting her ass to the conference table. I tried to make quick work of her work pants but my hands were jittery and fumbled with them.

“Damn you. Why couldn’t you have worn a skirt?”

She giggled, or at least I thought it was a giggle. I was always confused as to what constituted a giggle from a laugh. And don’t even get me started on chuckling. Either way, she let out a
giggle
and said, “I have never worn a skirt to work.”

“Well, you should have today.”

“Go lock the door and I’ll take care of this.”

I didn’t want to walk away from her to lock the door, and I certainly didn’t want to miss the pants coming off. That was the best part. It was like unwrapping a gift at Christmas. I knew what was beneath them, but I had never seen hers personally and didn’t want to miss once single second of the unveiling. So, I walked to the door backward and turned the lock on the handle. I then went to my desk and took the phone of the hook, laying the receiver next to it, all while never taking my eyes from hers.

I made it back to her just as she slowly began to pull down the zipper.

“I’ll take it from here,” I told her, grabbing the waistline of her pants and began to pull them down. I took my time, never wanting the moment to be over with. I had waited for it for so long that I didn’t want to rush it.

I got her pants past her hips and to her thighs before needing to stop. Her underwear was black and lace. My dick was a full hard-on against my thigh. I continued slowly, pulling her pants to her knees before stopping again. The sight of her creamy thighs caused me to leak some pre-come and I felt the cold wetness against my leg. I finished pulling them off her until they fell to the ground along with her heels. I looked down and smiled before picking her shoes up off the floor.

I held one leg in my hands, carefully placing her shoe back on her tiny foot. I then kissed her from her ankle to high on her inner thigh. She moaned and leaned back on her hands. My eyes met hers and I smiled at the look on her face. I had never seen a look of such pleasure before. I grabbed her other shoe and repeated it on the other leg, stopping just before I reached her underwear. My dick jerked in my pants the closer I got to her snatch.

She let out a breath of air and bucked her hips, desperately trying to get her cunt in my face. I appeased her momentarily by laying a soft kiss on her covered lips. I knew what she wanted, it was the same thing I wanted, but I had to take my time.

Her fists came up and grabbed me by my hair, pulling me to her mouth. She devoured my lips with hers and began to lean back on the table. I was pulled over, covering her body with mine as she wrapped her legs around me and pressed her pelvis into me. I knew she felt how hard I was. She couldn’t have missed it. I don’t think I had ever been that hard before in my life. She continued to grind herself on me, letting out hungry groans into my mouth.

With one hand, I began to unbutton her shirt without ever taking my mouth from hers. As her tongue danced with mine, I managed to safely unbutton every last one of them. I didn’t want to rip any off, since it was the shirt she’d have to wear out of the office, but I wasn’t opposed to popping a few if need be. Luckily, I didn’t have to resort to that.

Once I had her shirt opened, I pulled away from her lips to take a look at her body. I had seen her in a bathing suit, but that was different. Even though I saw her stomach and covered breasts and the tops of her thighs out on the boat, seeing her on my conference table was different. Imagining getting her naked and burying myself balls deep in her was far different than knowing I would be doing that very soon.

My fingertips trailed down her neck to the middle of her chest. Her legs grew tighter around me the lower my finger got. Dragging it out was killing me, but I never wanted it to end. I never wanted her to put her shirt or pants back on. I never wanted her to get off the table. My only option at prolonging it was to go slow. It was painful, but I would endure it.

Eden arched her back off the table and I reached beneath her, snapping the clasps of her bra. The thin black fabric fell away from her full tits and gave way just enough for me to push it out of the way. I took one look at them before leaning down and taking one nipple in my mouth, sucking hard on it. After all of my wondering about what they looked like, nothing compared to the real thing. All of my wet dreams about what they tasted like never came close to real life. They were pink, just as I pictured them in my mind the countless times I had thought about them. They were the perfect size to suck on, too. I ran my tongue over her hardening nipple before flicking it a few times. I gave it one more suck before releasing it with a pop.

My fingers took over as my mouth moved on to the other side. I flicked that one with my tongue as well, listening intently to the changes in her breathing before gently tugging on it between my teeth. She moaned and her legs tightened even harder around me. All I wanted was to be inside of her. I knew it would come. But I needed to explore the rest of her before doing so.

I continued to kiss down her flat stomach as he legs slowly let go of their hold on me. The lower I got to her underwear, the more her abdomen sucked in. I licked her bellybutton once before yanking the thin fabric away that was hiding her cunt from me. I got my nose so close to it and took in a deep breath. She smelled like soap with a hint of sweetness. It was my new favorite scent.