She Left Me Breathless (29 page)

Sydney shook her head. “Oh, Edward, I know exactly who you are, darlin’. As for being sorry I met you, I already am,” she laughed. “I know more about you than you think but you know what’s funny? Thinking you know someone when you really don’t know them at all. I’m not the only one with secrets,” she said, a smug look on her face.

“Got to hell, bitch,” he snarled.

“Not to be clichéd but ...” She shrugged. “Been there, done that!” She turned to Frankie. “We don’t need another drunk on the roads. Take my truck and give the asshole a ride home, please. Jed can follow behind you. If he resists or gives you a hard time, knock him out.”

“My pleasure,” Frankie said and grabbed Edward by the arm. “Come on powder-puff stud muffin, let’s get you home so you can sleep it off.”

When Sydney walked into the design room, she didn’t know what to expect. Rachel was standing by the drafting table looking out the window.

Sydney slowly walked up behind her and laid her hand on Rachel’s shoulder. “Are you okay?” she asked.

Rachel brushed Sydney’s hand away and whirled around to face her. “This is all your fault,” Rachel said, her eyes were like ice.

Sydney’s look was incredulous. “How is it my fault?” she asked. “Is it my fault you married a drunken, pompous, arrogant ass bastard?”

“If  you hadn’t black-mailed me, I would have never been in this situation to begin with.” Rachel said the words although she knew in her heart they weren’t true. Sydney was right, she is the one who created this mess, but she was too angry right now to admit it.

Sydney felt the stinging threat of tears behind her eyes. “You’re the one who married him, Rache, you just remember that,” she said, her voice just above a whisper. She turned to leave and stopped. “Our deal is off. You’re free to go. No strings attached. I’ll have someone else take care of the design changes,” she said over her shoulder and then left the room.

Chapter 13

It had been several days since Sydney had left Rachel standing in the design room and since she never came back, it was clear that she had taken Sydney up on her offer to let her out of their deal. Sydney hadn’t realized just how much she was used to having Rachel around until it stopped—she missed her!

She had been so depressed, she hadn’t bothered to go into the office all week. Thankfully, Caitlyn didn’t mind making several visits to the house so they could discuss business and on behalf of Karen, brought along several time-sensitive documents that required Sydney’s signature.

On Caitlyn’s last visit, which took place earlier in the day, she had informed Sydney that she now knew beyond a doubt what Allen had been searching for in her office and it wasn’t good. She had shown Sydney a copy of a deeded property located in Springfield, a property that Welsh now owned and had purchased at a substantially higher price than what they would have ever agreed to pay. Caitlyn had then pulled out another document, which showed that the previous owner of the property was none other than Allen Carmichael.

It took Sydney a little while to understand exactly what had happened and how Allen had managed to pull this off. Once she understood, then she was able to see why Allen was so desperate to search Caitlyn’s office as well as his reasons for wanting to hack her password.

Everything came back to the new software system Caitlyn had installed. Using the old system, Allen was able to create a program that would erase the sale so that it wouldn’t show him as the previous owner, which would have raised red-flags by sending out an alert for ‘conflict of interest’. The conflict of interest clause had been one that Sydney had the programmers set up when she first started Welsh. She was adamant about never doing business in a way that could be interpreted by her investors as inappropriate.

In other words, no one who worked for Welsh was to do business with the company and in a sense be able to double-dip by making a profit off of the association. She even took it a step further by prohibiting Welsh deals with friends or associates of any employee at Welsh. There was also a clause in every employee’s contract that stated if they were found to be guilty of such an act, they would be terminated immediately.

Allen’s undoing was that he hadn’t counted on, nor was he privy to the information regarding the new software system. He only learned about it the day before Caitlyn had caught him in her office.

Caitlyn’s take on it was that he was searching through her drawers, hoping that she would make a newbie mistake of writing down her password. He needed Caitlyn’s access to the system in order to write up a new program that would hide his deception.

Fortunately for Sydney as well as Welsh, Caitlyn was a lot more intelligent than Allen had given her credit for. Sydney had made the decision to meet with Allen the following Monday where she, along with Caitlyn, would lay out all the evidence against him. Sydney would relieve him of his position at Welsh and she would give him the option to return the money or she would have him arrested for theft, fraud, and whatever else her attorneys could throw at him. It would be a meeting that she was dreading, yet looking forward to at the same time. She wished she could add embezzlement to the list of charges but they had no proof of that—yet!

Chapter 14

Since the day Rachel left Sydney’s house, she had been miserable. Every waking thought seemed to be about Sydney. Everywhere she looked, everything she did, brought up images of Sydney’s face. In the time they had been apart, Rachel had done more soul-searching than she thought she was capable of and in the end, she knew it was time to make the decisions she had dreaded and put off for years. One of those decisions now sat directly in front of her. She looked at the small two-story house where her parents lived.

“Now or never,” she said as she stepped out of the car and walked up to the front door. She rang the buzzer and waited. 

Lou Masters, a portly man with grey hair and kind blue eyes, pulled the door open. He smiled at Rachel. “Well, don’t just stand there, come on in,” he said, pulling the door open further.

“Hi, Dad, is Mom here?”

“She’s in the kitchen. I have to warn you though, she’s in rare form, and you not returning her phone calls hasn’t helped matters any.”

Rachel sighed. “Great, just what I want to hear but I need to talk to both of you and what I’m going to say may push her over the edge, so I want to prepare you now.”

“Sounds important,” Lou said as he led Rachel toward the kitchen.

“It is. At least for me it is,” Rachel said. She took a deep breath before she stepped into the kitchen.

Roberta Masters, wearing a pale yellow smock, stood next to the sink with her hair in curlers. She placed her hands on her hips and glared at Rachel. “Where have you been young lady and why haven’t you called me? Why haven’t you been to church? Well, what do you have to say for yourself? Let’s hear it,” she demanded.

Her mother’s attitude and condescending voice was all Rachel needed to gather the strength that she had lacked for so many years when it came to her parents. She’d had enough. “First of all, I don’t answer to you nor do I owe you an explanation as to why I haven’t been to church because quite frankly, it’s none of your damn business. What I do and don’t do is not your concern.”

Roberta clutched her chest as if she were having a heart attack. She looked at her husband. “Did you hear how she just spoke to me, Lou?” she asked, a mortified look on her face.

Lou, with his mouth gaping open, looked at his wife and then back at Rachel.

Rachel grinned at her mother. “Well if you like that then you’re really going to love what I have to say next,” she said.

“What could possibly be worse than what you just said to me?” Roberta asked.

“I’m a lesbian,” Rachel blurted out. She smiled inwardly at the shocked expression on her mother’s face.

Roberta gasped. “What did you just say to me?” she asked.

“You heard me. I ... am ... a ... lesbian,” Rachel said, making sure to annunciate each word so that her mother would have no doubt about what she was saying.

“How dare you use that word in this house. How dare you. Get out,” Roberta screamed, pointing toward the door.

Rachel looked at her mother and laughed. “You remember Sydney Baxter, Mother? Don’t answer that because I know you do. I’m in love with her and I always have been and I plan on telling her that myself and just so you know, I will be filing for a divorce from Edward and I don’t give a damn what you or anyone else thinks about it!”

All the blood seemed to drain from Roberta’s face. She looked at Rachel as if she had suddenly announced she was a serial killer. “Get out of my house this instant, you, you unrepentant harlot,” she yelled.

Rachel smiled. “That’s probably the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me,” she said and turned to leave. She looked back at her mother. “When I walk out that door, I can assure you that I won’t be back.” Without waiting for a reply, Rachel left the kitchen and walked out of the house. When her feet hit the driveway, she took a deep breath and for the first time in years, she actually felt free.

“Rachel, wait,” her dad yelled.

She turned to see her father coming toward her. She held her hand up. “Dad, if you’re here to ridicule me or tell me I’m going to burn in hell, I don’t want to hear it because I can tell you, growing up with that woman was more hell than any person should have to deal with.”

Lou’s expression softened as he looked at Rachel. “Rache, I didn’t come out here to do any of those things. I wanted to tell you that I love you and just want you to be happy and if Sydney is what makes you happy, then so be it.” He laughed at the shocked expression on Rachel’s face.

“That is not what I expected you to say. Um ... I don’t know what to say,” Rachel said.

 He wrapped his arm around Rachel’s shoulders. “I know that your mother is extreme and although I tag along, your needs and wants are my first priority.”

“She’ll never change, Dad,” Rachel said, shaking her head.

He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter if she does but I want you to know that I still want to see you and my granddaughters and if I need to come over to your house or Sydney’s then that’s what I will do. That’s if it’s okay with you.”

“Of course it is,” Rachel said with a grin.

“You might not understand this but throughout all the years I’ve been with your mother, I mostly just went along in order to keep the peace but even I’ve had enough.”

Rachel knew she was standing there with her mouth hanging open but she couldn’t help it. She had no idea how her dad had felt, which made her feel bad because she had never bothered to ask him. “I love you, Dad,” she said, wrapping her arms around his shoulders.

“And I love you,” he said, hugging her back.

“You’ve got my number,” she said with a wink as she climbed into her car.

He grinned at her. “I do and I will be using it. Tell Sydney I said hi,” he said as he turned and walked back up to the house.

After Lou went back inside, Rachel sat in her car for several minutes, her thoughts turning to everything that had happened in her life over the last couple of months.