PLAYED - A BRITISH BAD BOY ROMANCE (62 page)

After
a time, he grasped my hand in his good one. “I remember. You helped me with my
application before my interview.”

“I
did,” I said. One might have thought our very own staffing specialist would
have been able to do that, but alas, Ross wasn’t terribly familiar with the
application process—nor anything else of particular value, it seemed. “And I
apologize that Mr. Culling hasn’t returned your calls. I assume you’re here
about the status of your background check and interview?”

Mr.
Davies nodded. I turned slightly over my shoulder to see Miguel hanging back by
the offices, keeping out of sight of Mr. Davies. His face was turning redder by
the second and he had a look of unease about him, almost as if he knew what I
was going to do.

I’d
been lying for Ross and Miguel for far too long. I was going to tell Mr. Davies
the truth, and that was something Miguel was desperately afraid of.

“Mr.
Davies,” I said, turning back to him, but this time without a smile. “I’m
afraid Mr. Culling has been avoiding you.”

Lacy
gasped. Miguel made a strangled sound like a pig that had just been stuck in
the belly. I continued:

“Your
background check came back fine. Your resume was all in order. Everything was
perfect, really—except your arm.” I slowed my words, taking care not to injure
Mr. Davies at all in my anger toward Miguel, Ross, and the rest of ExecuSpace.
“Mr. Culling felt that, as a salesperson, the arm would keep clients from
signing on. He didn’t have anything concrete to reject your application on, and
he knows discrimination against disabled people who can adequately perform the
job at hand is illegal, so he figured that simply avoiding you would do the
trick.

“But
now you’re here speaking to me because he refuses to come out of his office and
face you himself, and because our general manager thinks that an administrative
assistant making ten dollars an hour is better equipped to explain these things
to you than, say, a manager. I apologize on their behalf, Mr. Davies, and on
behalf of a company that you really, really don’t want to work for, anyway. Not
if you know what’s good for you.”

Mr.
Davies looked at me for a very long time. I knew how I looked on the
outside—calm, perhaps cold even—but on the inside, I felt like shit. It wasn’t
that I had done anything wrong. I was upset because in the four years I’d
worked here, I’d failed to change a damn thing about this awful company, and
people like Mr. Davies were going to pay for it. None of this would ever come
down on Miguel or Ross’ shoulders. It was only nice people, hardworking people
who would bear the burden of ExecuSpace’s moral void. And I hated to be the one
who had to inflict it.

“My…
arm,” he said at last, and I nodded slowly. “But it’s not an issue. I can write
just fine. Drive, even. I don’t see what my arm has to do with being a
competent salesperson…”

“It
doesn’t,” I assured him. “It has nothing to do with it at all. But Mr. Culling
feels that the perception of ExecuSpace might be marred by someone who doesn’t
look like the rest of us do, and for him, that’s cause enough not to hire you.”
I saw the look on his face, the slump in his shoulders, and added: “I really am
sorry, Mr. Davies. But after a month of being lied to, I thought the truth
might—”

“The
truth does
nothing
for me, Miss
Hearst,” he snarled, a surprising rage blazing in his eyes. I could see they
were watering. They glimmered like hot coals. “A job is what I need. And even a
shitty one for a shitty company would have been enough for me. But you people
don’t give a shit about men like me, do you? All you see is a withered arm and
you think that means I’m trash, that I can just be tossed into the gutter. You
didn’t even have the decency to consider me for the position, did you? You just
saw the arm. That’s all.”

I
pursed my lips. This was exactly what I’d feared. Not only was Mr. Davies upset
by the news, but he was taking that out on me, the nearest available target. I
had to swallow the compulsion to invite him back to Ross’ office and knock on
his door until he opened up, but Miguel would probably just call security and
have them haul both Mr. Davies and myself out.

“I’m
sorry,” I repeated. “If you’d like, I can get you the number for our corporate
office in Virginia. There’s a woman named Patricia who could hear your
complaint…”

“That’s
enough,” Miguel said, finally loosening himself from the doorway and
practically pushing me out of the way. “Mr. Davies, I’m Miguel Herrera, the
general manager for ExecuSpace. Unfortunately, you just weren’t a good fit for
the criteria we’re looking for right now. I’m sorry no one’s gotten back to you
sooner, but we’ve all been very busy—”

“Do
you think I’m stupid?” Mr. Davies asked him, his face taut with
barely-contained rage. “You must, because as much as I think your receptionist
there could give a rat’s ass about what happens to me, at least she had the
decency to be honest.”

I
felt my own knot of anger and tried not to grimace. “Receptionist” was
something of a dirty word amongst personal and administrative assistants. Even
secretaries were higher up the food chain. A receptionist was a person who did
the least amount of work in the industry, someone who answered a phone and
filed a few papers, maybe.
Lacy
was a
receptionist—barely. I didn’t appreciate being compared to her.

But
I understood that this wasn’t about me. This was about Mr. Davies and his
embarrassment at the treatment he’d endured. Though I’d meant for the truth to
be helpful to him, I knew that it couldn’t have been easy to hear, and I tried
to accept his hatred gracefully.

Miguel,
however, was showing signs of cracking. I could see his brow lining with deep
wrinkles and the muscle in his jaw was steadily twitching.

“Sir,
I assure you, what Miss Hearst has said is in no way representative of our
company’s values or beliefs. She is
obviously
misinformed.”

“Then
why?” Mr. Davies demanded, his voice rising. “Why won’t Mr. Culling return my
calls? Why did you decide not to hire me?”

Miguel
sneered. “We’re not under any legal obligation to disclose that. In fact, our
HR department discourages us from—”

“Fuck
your HR department!” Mr. Davies railed, getting so close to Miguel’s face I
could see spittle marring his skin. “And fuck you!”

Before
Miguel could retaliate, Mr. Davies left, storming off through the doors to the
elevator with steps that shook the office floor.

As
the weight of his anger dissipated, I felt another sensation flooding in. What
I had done was, objectively, the right thing. I’d given a man honestly when no
one else would, and I’d stopped being the whipping girl everyone wanted me to
be. I’d stood up for myself and for my own values. But at what cost?

Miguel
turned to me. I raised my chin, doing my best to look confident, but not smug.
I was preparing to defend my decision when the words I’d been dreading left his
mouth.

“Get
your things and turn in your key card. You’re fired.”

Almost
without thinking and with shock softening the blow, I removed my lanyard and
threw it at him.

“You
can’t fire me. I quit five minutes ago.”

I
grabbed my clutch from the front desk, turned, and strode out the doors,
following Mr. Davies. Miguel was yelling something at me, but I couldn’t hear
him—probably some clichéd movie-villain line about how I’d “never work in this
town again.” He seemed like the type.

The
blood rushing in my ears was deafening, and I could feel my body quaking as I
pressed the button for the elevator car. Equal parts relief and dread seeped
into me, but I tried not to let either one win until I heard Lacy’s shrill
voice calling to me over the baritone roar of Miguel’s furor.

“But
Maddy! I don’t know what all you do! Send me an e-mail with everything once you
get home, okay?”

And
then I finally let the dam burst. I laughed.

And
as the elevator car finally reached my floor, and as it descended to the next,
and the next, I laughed and laughed some more.

My
laughter died as soon as I hit the lobby.

It
wasn’t until I’d shown myself out through the revolving door that I realized
the tears brimming in my eyes weren’t the funny ones. They were hot and
stinging, tears of rage, desperation, and utter despair. Soon I realized that I
really wasn’t laughing at all anymore, not even in that hysterical way people
do when they feel like they’ve got nothing else they can do to chase the pain
away.

No,
I was sobbing. Sobbing so hard it hurt, so hard my chest felt like it would
split in two, so hard I was sure I could feel my ribs starting to cave and poke
at my lungs.

I
was standing on the sidewalk of one of the busiest streets in the city bawling
my eyes out in the afternoon rush. Cars and taxis whizzed by too fast for me to
see anything more than the blur of their movement, but somehow I was certain
that the dark eyes inside them were all on me. Passersby craned their necks to
ogle at the crying woman slowly wandering toward home, fascinated by me like I
was some kind of moaning spirit haunting 47
^th
Street, a jilted bride
still searching for her lover or a desolate mother seeking her long-lost child.

They
made the whole thing feel more dramatic than it was, but for the most part,
they all left me alone. That was fine by me. The last thing I needed at that
moment was a stranger’s pity.

I
steadied myself for a moment on a parking meter near one of those
pruned-just-so trees cities put up along the sidewalks to imply they weren’t
completely
destroying the environment.
It was every bit as fake as the offices I used to pretend to work for. I could
feel cold sweat making long trails down the lines in my palms despite the
shade, and my chest felt like someone had taken the muscles and stretching them
out paper-thin. I knew what it was. I’d experienced it before. In fact, panic
attacks had become a common occurrence since I’d started working at ExecuSpace,
and even Zoloft couldn’t seem to keep them at bay. Human beings weren’t meant
to work the way ExecuSpace expected them to. Human beings weren’t meant to
endure such constant, debilitating stress.

As
I sucked in long, slow breaths, I tried to entertain myself with happier
thoughts.
It’s for the best. Think about
your health. Think about your peace of mind. This job couldn’t have been good
for you. Even if it was putting food on the table, who’s to say that you
wouldn’t end up in the hospital for stress a few months down the line? It’s not
like they offered health insurance. You were one medical disaster away from
being destitute, anyway…

It
was all true. But the fact remained that I wasn’t one medical disaster away
from financial ruin anymore. Now, thanks to a rage that had been building for
far too long and a mouth that didn’t know when to seal itself shut, I was
already there.

I
changed tracks on my train of thought, trying to get a grip on something
solid—a plan, maybe. The damage was done, and there was no way to undo it, but
what I could do now was find a way to move forward.

I
knew the job market. I’d been searching for a replacement position for months
now in secret. I’d only had one interview, and that position had offered even
less in the way of compensation. Still, I was sure I could find something, but
time was a factor, and I had no safety net.

That
particular thought made my vision blurry and my blood boil. It didn’t have to
be like this…

The
reason I had no safety net had a name, and it was
Mother.

My
mother, Amanda Hearst, didn’t believe in being supportive. She believed in
“tough love,” as in, “you better not screw this up, honey, ‘cause you’re on
your own.” She had made it clear to me from a very young age that my mistakes
were my own. My successes, however, she attributed to her stellar parenting.
Classic
mother.

“Those
other kids failed because their parents let them,” she’d tell me, her carmine
lips twisted into a smug smirk. “If it wasn’t for me and how hard I’ve pushed
you, you would be just like them.”

I
had comforted myself for a time with the idea that she was only that hard on me
because we were broke. We were the kind of broke that nobody liked to talk
about—lower middle-class, just poor enough to scrape by, but somehow too
wealthy to qualify for any kind of assistance. My father had walked out on her
when I was just a baby, and for years I told myself that his abandonment and
the way the system has spurned her had made her feel like if she didn’t teach
me to rely on myself—and only on myself—then I would fall to the same fate. She
didn’t want that for me, I always thought. She just chose to show it in a cold
and hurtful way.

That
illusion had shattered three months ago when my mother had announced her
engagement to Charles Harvey, the billionaire CEO of Harvey Enterprises. I had
no idea what their business actually entailed, but whatever it was, it brought
him more money than God, and as my mother was oh-so-quick to inform me, I
wasn’t entitled to a penny of it.

“I
didn’t raise you to be a leech,” she’d told me when I’d said that it would be
nice not to have to worry about money for a change. I hadn’t meant that I
intended on blowing it on some kind of shopping spree. I’d always wanted to
finish my college degree, and work was getting in the way…

That
didn’t matter to her.

Her
scowl had sent chills down my spine and twisted my guts into knots. “You’re not
an infant, Madison. You’re an adult. That means you make your own way in this
world.” She’d looked so devastatingly disappointed as she added, “I thought I’d
taught you better than that.”

In
my anger, I’d asked her what, exactly, I would have to do to be worthy of a
little help every now and then. It felt like she’d punched me right in the face
when she answered, “Marry rich.”

I’d
realized then that my mother had never had my best interests in mind. My father
leaving hadn’t made her protective of me. It had made her protective of
herself. It had made her selfish and cruel, and I hadn’t spoken to her since.

Which
was why I couldn’t call her now. I couldn’t dial her number and say, “Mom, I
need help.” She wouldn’t give it. I doubted if she would even bother to answer
the phone.

As
usual, I was on my own.

I
was still trying to achieve a stiff upper lip when I let go of the parking
meter and set off down the sidewalk in the direction of home. Unfortunately,
the moment I did, I barreled straight into a man who’d had the misfortune of
stepping between me and my downward spiral.

His
chest was so hard under his button-down shirt that I was sure he’d broken my
jaw, but the material of his blazer was so soft that it felt like I’d landed on
a cloud. It was silken, almost, and as I gently pressed it with my fingers,
tilting back my head to look up at who I’d just assaulted, I felt his breath
hitch at my touch.

As
the halo of the sun faded behind a cloud, I got a good look at the stranger’s
face. My throat clenched and I uttered a sound that was half a snort, half a
wheeze.

“Preston?
Seriously?”

“Maddy,”
he said, his stormy blue eyes glittering as he spoke my name. “Well, this is a
surprise…”

I
wanted to tell him to fuck off. I wanted to push him away and sweep past him in
a fit of disgust. I wanted to walk so fast down the sidewalk that I left all
memory of him in my wake, a spoiled brat who got absolutely everything his
heart desired while I couldn’t even manage to convince my own mother to keep me
off the streets.

But
I couldn’t do any of that. Instead, to my shame and horror, I buried my face in
his expensive blazer and cried.