I See...Love (A Different Road Book 1) (23 page)

The limo pulls up to the curb and the tinted back window slides down. I instantly recognize the silver fox seated behind the window. Funny, I was just thinking about him last night. Why is Sebastien at my house? How does he know where I live?

I walk from my van over to the limo, and Sebastien plasters on a grin that sends shivers up my spine. Not the good kind of shivers either.

“I see you got my flowers,” his smooth voice says.

The flowers are from Sebastien? Why the hell is he sending me flowers?

“I just thought you should know, since it’s the beginning of the month, that I’ve scheduled all of River’s…monthly meetings, with Fawn, Paris, and Autumn,” he says.

It’s like toxic venom to my heart. I grip the flower in my hand so tight the stem breaks in half.

“If you want to be scheduled as well, I’ll need you to make an appointment to sign some papers at my office first,” he continues.

His index and middle finger lazily come out of the vehicle with a business card pinched between them, and I just stare at it.

“Well, go on. Take it,” he says, moving his fingers back and forth impatiently.

I don’t know why, well I do know why, because my feet are traitors, that’s why, walk me toward his car and my traitor hand reaches up, and then takes the outstretched card. He smiles another slithering smile, then the window is rolled up and the car pulls away.

I watch the limo disappear down the street, and then I stomp to my van and toss the broken flower and the business card on the passenger seat. I fold my arms over my chest and stare at them out of the corner of my eye. I can’t even look at them. I take my purse and throw it on top. I have shit to do. I don’t have time for this right now!

My entire day is soured. I’m again grumpy. I hate being grumpy. I overcooked a delicate salmon dish that made me even grumpier.

I haven’t heard a word from River all day, either. I haven’t reached out to him, but that’s beside the point. Instead of heading home after my last client, I head downtown to Mason Group. I don’t care that I have food slopped all over my clothes from a hard day’s work, or that my hair looks like Medusa. I grab the flower and the business card and I march to the elevator and push the button to River’s floor.

I’m met again by the brunette floosy sitting behind her dark, wooden desk. The second her eyes hit mine, the three names that Sebastien rattled off this morning hit me like a ton of bricks. It couldn’t be. Autumn isn’t that common of a name. Surely, this Autumn isn’t the same Autumn that River has…meetings with. Right? Good thing she’s not filing her nails. I think I would have marched over there, ripped the file out of her hand, and then stabbed her through the heart with it. Oh, all right, I wouldn’t have, but I would rip it out of her hands and toss it on the ground like a two year old.

I march down the hall to River’s door and throw it open. My bull-on-a-mission attitude comes to a screeching halt. Sitting in a chair across from River’s desk, is none other than Sebastien himself. He turns around in his chair and his eyes immediately come to mine, then go to the items clenched in my hand. One side of his lips turns upward into a grin, like I just played right into his hand, which is just icing on the cake. Josh is immediately out of his chair next to Sebastien, and he quickly walks around the desk and leans down to River’s ear. He quickly whispers in his ear and his someone-spit-in-my-food face immediately lights up into a killer, sexy smile. River stands as bitch-face Autumn walks up behind me.

Josh quickly reads my face, walks toward me and motions for Autumn that it’s all right and for her to leave. He closes the door, and then he walks over and stands in front of me. He looks at my face again, and then at my hands and he looks at what I’m looking at. I’m staring death rays at the silver fox who I wish good old Autumn had been filing her nails, so I could ram it into his chest.

Josh’s hand comes to mine and removes the flower and the business card. His expression turns angry when he reads the name on the card. I haven’t had a free second in my day to look up what the word means on the card that came with the flowers, but I’m sure as hell going to find out.

“Sebastien, you need to leave…now,” Josh says, turning around facing him.

An angry and surprised look comes over River, and it’s like he’s reading the emotions emanating from both Josh and myself that are bouncing off the walls. Not taking my eyes off Sebastien, I rip the flower and the card out of Josh’s hand and crumple them in my own.

“Out,” River’s stern voice orders.

Josh holds open the door and Sebastien leaves. But not before he walks up to me and passes me a smile that says ‘I’ll always win, little girl.’ Josh saw it, too, and growls in the back of his throat. River straightens an inch taller when he hears Josh’s growl.

Josh closes the door, and then he turns back around and faces River. River has his hands balled into fists and they’re resting on top of his desk. His head is down and I can tell he’s trying to compose himself. Josh walks over to River and whispers in his ear again. River’s knuckles crack on the desktop as Josh whispers.

Josh finishes talking to River, then without a word or another glance at me leaves his office. I’m still rooted to my spot holding a broken rose and a business card, and it feels like they’re burning a hole in my palm.

“What did he say to you?” River asks in a scary, shaky, angry, calm voice.

The anger oozing from his pores is palpable. I can tell he’s trying to rein it in, and even as hard as he’s trying, his words scare the hell out of me. I don’t answer him. I’m still rooted to the spot on the floor, and truthfully I’m not sure I should speak until I’ve clearly thought about what I have to say.

River pounds his fists onto the desk making me jump, and then he walks around his desk directly toward me. He stops just inches in front of my face. He runs his hand through his hair, and then places it on my shoulder. His hand runs down my arm until it reaches the dead, limp rose and the business card in my hand. His hand feels the flower and the card, then his fingers wrap firmly around them and he removes them from my hand.

He drops the flower to the ground and runs his fingers across the raised letters on the business card. He crumples the card in his hand, and then drops that to the ground as well.

He runs his hand over his five o’clock shadow, and then takes my hand and gives it a squeeze.

Of all the words running around in my head the only one that I can manage to speak is, “Autumn.”

The second my office door opened, the room filled with anger and hurt. Josh quickly came to my side and told me Joss had walked in. I knew it was her even before he said anything. But he said that she looked really upset. He also said once she saw Sebastien in my office, she couldn’t rip her eyes from him.

Josh shocked the shit out of me after he walked over to Joss and ordered Sebastien to leave. Josh doesn’t know the terrible things that Sebastien has inflicted on me over the years. But, he doesn’t have to. I think he knows even without having to know the details.

Josh came back and told me Joss had a death grip on a wilted rose and business card with Sebastian’s name on it. The fucker had the balls to see her? Sebastien has had one leg inside the coffin for years now and as far as I’m concerned, this just sealed the lid over his cold, dead body.

Josh left us, and even a fool with eyes couldn’t miss every emotion coming from Joss right now. She’s always had this magnetic pull, and I follow it straight to her and stop. I told her I’d hurt her. I never expected Sebastien to do it for me. Half of me hopes that what he’s told her is a straight up lie. I’m not ready to let Joss go yet. I’m not done being selfish.

I take the limp flower from her hand and I let it fall to the floor. Then, I reach for the business card. I was taught Braille shortly after the accident and I also learned to read raised printed letters. My fingers feel like they’re running across a smoldering fire as I run them across the puffy raised letters in Sebastian’s name. I crumple it in my fist and I swear I see smoke in my mind trail it to the ground as I let it fall.

I run my hand on my jaw and squeeze it almost to the point of excruciating pain, and then I reach for her hand.

The one word that she finally speaks is like a dagger.

“Autumn,” she says.

She rips her hand from mine and for the first time since I met her in my kitchen, that magnetic force between us disappears.

“I told you I wasn’t a good man. I told you I wasn’t good enough for you,” I tell her.

“Yes, you did. I should have listened to you,” she says in a calm voice from the doorway.

I didn’t even realize that she wasn’t standing in front of me anymore. I’m not ready to let her go. This isn’t a reason for her to leave. The door handle is turned, but she pauses.

“I haven’t slept with Autumn since the day I met you. She’s been made aware that I only employ her as my receptionist. Honestly, Joss, since the day I met you in my kitchen, I knew my life was in for a change,” I tell her toward the door.

It’s the truth. Since the day I’ve met Joss, I cancelled all three of the girls’ services. I haven’t seen Paris at all. I haven’t seen Fawn since the night of the party at my house. And I can’t fire Autumn. That’s a sexual harassment lawsuit just waiting to happen. I can’t say firing her hasn’t crossed my mind. I told Josh to dig into her work conduct and look for legal ways to fire her the very morning I met Joss in my kitchen.

“What about Fawn?” she asks.

“I haven’t seen her since the night of the party,” I tell her.

“And Paris?” she questions.

Damn fucking Sebastien, he didn’t need to tell her about Paris.

“I haven’t seen her,” I tell her, truthfully.

Her hand slowly slips back into mine, and with it that magnetic pull returns in a rush.

“Sebastien said that he’s scheduled all three of them for you for the next month. He also said he can schedule me in, but I need to make an appointment and sign some papers at his office first,” she says. “I don’t think I like your uncle,” she continues.

I can’t help it. The grip I have on her hand instantly contracts when she refers to him as my uncle. That fucker is not in any way, shape, or, form related to me.

“That bastard is not my uncle. And I can guarantee that you’ll never see him again,” I tell her.

I’m not sure if it’s because I’ll threaten his ass within an inch of his life, or because I’ll take that life with my bare hands the next time he dares show his smug face again.

“But, he called himself your uncle at the party?” she questions.

I lead her back to the set of chairs across from my desk and sit her in one. I take the seat next to her and I briefly tell her that Sebastien was my father’s best friend. He was both his personal and business lawyer and upon my parent’s death, he was placed with all of the power over me, my brother, and sister until we each turned eighteen, and that he holds the majority of power of Mason Group until I turn thirty. I also tell her that I’m doing everything in my power to make sure that happens way before I turn thirty.

She gets quiet. I hear her lean back in the chair and cross her legs. I imagine what she looks like. I imagine her in the dress she wore last night. I haven’t felt what she’s wearing today, but I’m sure it’s her standard chef uniform of a button up shirt and work pants. But, I imagine her in that dress as the light fabric slides up her thighs as one leg crosses over the other. I imagine her exposed thigh that leads down her leg and disappears in the dark shadows. I find myself wanting to run my hand up her dress to her ass and rip her panties down her legs.

“What does faiblesse mean?” she asks.

Thoughts of taking Joss on my desk instantly end and my world literally spins on its axis. Heavy pressure builds in my chest and my lungs constrict. I find the newly discovered vivid pictures, Joss just placed in my head, turning dark and smolder as they go up in smoke. It’s a word I haven’t heard in years. It’s a word that took me ten years to finally get out of my head.

Sebastien is from France and speaks fluent French. It’s what he used to shout in my face when I didn’t perform to his standard. He didn’t just shout it, most of the time he was so angry and so close to my face when he yelled it at me that spit flew out of his mouth. When you’re a teenager and a man is shouting in your face and his spit flies into your mouth as he tears you down, you know you’ve hit rock bottom.

It’s a word I frequently use myself, but in English. It’s the word that describes me down to my core. It’s what I fear the most. It’s what I was taught not to be. It’s what I am. It’s who I’ve always been.  It’s what I let free in my shower. It’s what has to be let free in my shower, so it doesn’t invade my public life.

Weakness.

Faiblesse is French for weakness.

My fingernails feel like daggers as I dig them into the arm of the leather chair that I’m sitting in. I can feel the sweat forming on my brow. The room closes in and I feel as if my chair is swallowing me whole.

“River,” I hear Joss call.

It’s too late, my faiblesse has consumed me.