A Love We Deserve (True Love Book 2) (2 page)

Chapter 2

Katie offers to stay with me, but I feel like I need to be alone. My kids are out of the house, and my husband is gone. I feel like I should check the floors for skid marks, he left so fast. Life can change suddenly: In the blink of an eye, your world can turn upside down. You hope that you’re the one in control. The only thing I know for sure right now is that I don’t need or want pity. I need strength and resilience.

I’ve had only two serious relationships in my life, Chris, and my boyfriend, Jeff, in college. They both ended in an eerily similar way. Jeff and I met our sophomore year at the University of Georgia. We had an English lit class together. He was really good-looking, and I noticed him Day One. I didn’t think he knew I existed until one day after class he approached me. He was direct and said that he thought I was pretty, and he’d love to take me out sometime. I hadn’t dated very much in high school, so when he asked me out I was thrilled. 

We were both from small towns in Georgia, and loved the same music and movies. To me, that meant we’d be together forever. I thought that was the way life worked. You met your future spouse in college, got married after graduation and lived happily ever after. At least that’s the way it was in my family. My parents met at college, as did my cousins and my friends. The only exception was my younger sister, Becca. She moved to New York after high school graduation to be an actress/model. She changed her name from Becca Grubbs, my gross maiden name, to Rebecca London. I know she’ll make it big. She’s talented, and being a knockout redhead with a killer body doesn’t hurt either.

Jeff and I were inseparable all the way to graduation. Looking back, I should have mixed in more friendships with girls, but he liked me to be with him all the time. He’d get insanely jealous if I went out with my roommates, so I didn’t bother. He was offered a job in Chicago after we graduated. I had always planned on going to business school for my MBA, and Chicago offered some excellent choices. I thought it would be perfect. Of course, I imagined us returning to Georgia; no one ever leaves for good.

We got a small apartment in the city. He was working for an engineering firm, and making good money. I was an administrative assistant at a high-profile investment-banking firm while I took classes. Everything was going great. Until…

I got sick at work one afternoon, and left early to go home. I heard noise coming from our apartment as I neared the front door. No mistaking what that was. My hand was shaking so hard that I dropped my keys twice. My stomach was cramping and I needed to get to the bathroom immediately. I got the door open, and ran past our bedroom into the bathroom. In my sickness haze, I saw Jeff and a woman standing naked at the bathroom door staring down at me; they had tried to cover themselves with the bedsheet.

“Uh… you OK?”

That was the only thing he could say. After I slammed the door in their faces with my foot, he shouted louder through the door.

“Melanie, what’s wrong? Can I help?”

“Go
fuck
yourself, Jeff!” I screamed with the last bit of strength I had. I heard some hushed whispering, then the front door closed softly. I cried myself to sleep right there on the bathroom floor.

When I woke the next morning, my stomach was feeling a little better. I climbed into the shower, and let the warm steam refresh my aching head and body. Jeff heard my rousing, and knocked on the door.

“Baby, can we talk when you’re finished? I can explain everything.”

I remember thinking, yeah, I’ll just bet he could. Jeff was a master at wordplay. Five minutes into any argument, he could make you believe everything was not only all your fault, but that you should apologize to him for getting upset. He really missed his calling to go into law. I wrapped myself in two towels, and another one around my wet hair. I didn’t want him seeing any part of me. I still hadn’t looked him in the face since all this had gone down.

I opened the door, and found him in the living room at his desk. He slowly rose and walked over to me. He didn’t look sad or upset, just a little scared.

“Are you all right? Can I get you anything?”

“No, I’m OK. Just some bad Chinese, I think. So… what’s up?”

I was trying to stand tall and fierce but I just couldn’t pull it off. My poor body was wrecked, and my head hurt. He looked down at the ground before he started to speak.

“I’m in love, Mel. Her name is Meghan; she works at my firm. I met her when I first came up for the interviews, and something just sparked between us. I can’t explain it any better than that. We thought it was best to follow our instincts and see where it would lead. I didn’t want to change
our
plans to move here together in case it turned out to be just a fling. I feel strongly enough about her to let you know the truth. I want to marry her.”

To say I was floored is putting it mildly. I didn’t know what to say. How does
one respond to something that cruel? No apology, or at least a heads-up before I moved eight hundred miles from my family and friends. All I could think about was where I was going to live. I had a job and was in the middle of my MBA program. I couldn’t face the harsh reality of what he was saying to me. I needed a place to go. I got dressed and went to school. On a corkboard in one of the outdoor kiosks, was a flyer for a roommate needed, and I called her right away. It was a great set-up. She needed someone to sublet her former roommate’s room while she was studying abroad. She was rarely home herself because she was a med student with crazy hours. It was like I had a place of my own.

I went back to our place only once, to get my stuff. I ignored his calls and never told him where I moved. I heard later that they did get married, then divorced pretty quickly thereafter. His mom tried to get my mom to contact me on his behalf because he wanted to get back together. She told me that she told his mom to eat shit in her perfect southern drawl and hung up the phone. I wish I could have been there to hear it.

So there I was, in a still unfamiliar town, stuck with school and a job. I didn’t want to return to my hometown with my tail between my legs. I had too much pride for that. I resolved to finish my degree, and move to Atlanta. It was close enough to home, but large enough to lose myself in. My plan was rock solid. No dating, no social life, nothing but school and work. I needed a break from men and was looking forward to it.

Six months flew by, and I was content. Not really happy, but not entirely unhappy either. I felt a little like a prisoner scratching the days on the concrete wall of my cell until I could move to Atlanta. At least my job was great. The office was frenetic, which helped the days fly by. My classes were all in the morning, so I was at the office by lunchtime everyday. I relieved another assistant who worked mornings. She and I were floaters, doing any job needed by one of the partners. They didn’t want traditional secretaries; they wanted grad students because they could order us around under the guise of learning the business world, which essentially made us their slaves. They yelled; we jumped. I was learning a lot though, and not all of the partners were assholes.

One of the senior partners was working on a large merger. He requested that he be able to use one of us full-time during the transition period. He was one of the assholes. I happened to be walking by his office one afternoon and he shouted, “Excuse me, you. Make a hundred copies of this and do it quickly. I also need a late lunch for ten in an hour.”

He shoved a piece of paper into my chest. I stood dumbfounded for a minute. He looked at me like I was a small child.

“I’m sorry, do you work here or not? Was that a difficult request for someone who wants to continue to work here? Because if you can’t handle it, I’ll get someone who can.”

His tone snapped me out of my stupor.

“Uh, yes. Yes, sir, I got it. Anywhere specific for lunch catering, or my choice?”

I gave it back to him as sharply as he gave it to me. He seemed impressed. I saw a slight grin, very slight, and he waved me away. Turned out, after that meeting, he requested that I be assigned to be his assistant on the merger. I hoped to learn a lot. Experience like that goes far in the business community.

He was Chris Kennedy. Senior partner, forty-two years old, and super hot. Salt-and-pepper hair and bright green eyes. As far as I could tell, under the suits he wore seemed to have a good body. He wore custom-made fitted shirts with French cuffs, and finely made trousers. His only accouterment was a platinum Rolex. He commanded the room when he was present, and didn’t take shit from anyone. We worked well together. He was all business, and I wasn’t interested in anything but getting the job done. No flirting, no nonsense. It was just what I needed.

We finished that merger, and he requested that I stay on to help him with the research and development he was doing. The guy was a workaholic like I’d never seen before. He slept most nights in the office, and had a shower in his private bathroom. He had enough clothes in a storage closet to last him a month. There weren’t any personal photos in his office so I assumed he didn’t have any family. I felt for him a little. He was in his forties, and no wife or kids. He seemed a bit sad on the rare occasions he put his guard down.

We became friendly enough for him to drop an occasional joke. I was a mere few months away from getting my MBA, and my big move back to Georgia. If I could continue to work for him exclusively, he would write a glowing recommendation and any job I wanted in Atlanta would be mine. I was the happiest I’d been in a long time. I was twenty-three years old, and I had my plans.

I was helping him with an acquisition of a large freight company. The details were changing on a daily basis, and required exhausting amounts of revisions in the contracts. One Friday evening, we were informed at 5:30 p.m. that by Monday, about four hundred pages of the contract had to be re-written. He and I ordered in dinner, and hunkered down for a long winter’s night of work. I was stretched out on the large couch in his office, while he was sitting in a huge leather swivel chair in front of me. He rattled off the changes and I typed as quickly as I could to keep up.

He abruptly stopped talking. I was waiting for him to continue, when I noticed he was staring at me.

“What? Are you stuck? What’s wrong?”

He continued to stare at my face in a way I had never seen from him before.

“Are you happy, Melanie?”

What? Since when does he give a shit about whether or not
anyone
is happy? I wasn’t sure what to say.

“Yes, of course. I’ve learned so much under your tutelage, I hope I’ve been able to be a help and not a hindrance to you.”

Assuming, of course, that he was talking about work.

“Not here, not the job. Are you happy in your life? You never leave here, and I’ve never heard you speak of a boyfriend. Do you go out? You’re too young to be forgoing fun just for work.”

Whoa. Never saw that one coming.

“Well, I
had
a boyfriend, but that’s over. I’m dedicated to learning what I can right now. I’m not interested in dating or going out.”

He turned his deep green eyes on me. He had thick dark lashes I’d never noticed before. His muscles were straining against his tight dress shirt. Jeez, how had I not noticed that either? He was
smoking
hot, and it was all coming full force in my direction. He stood and reached for my laptop. He closed it and placed it carefully on his desk. He slowly walked back over toward me, never taking his eyes from mine. I was frozen in place. Too many thoughts were swirling around in my head. What is he doing? Will I get fired if I reciprocate? Is this a colossally bad idea? He knelt down on the floor next to the couch, and was inches away from my face.

“You’re stunning, Melanie. I noticed you a long time ago, but never thought I would act on it. I respect you as a smart, capable woman. If you don’t want anything to happen between us, it won’t and we’ll never speak of this again. I’m drawn to you, and I want to feel your lips on mine.”

In a second we were on each other like a head-on collision. Our mouths crashed together with a passion I had no idea he felt. For that matter, I didn’t realize just how much I felt for him until that moment either. I was falling down a hole, and I didn’t want to land. Our hands were all over each other; I couldn’t seem to get enough. He paused only for a moment to lock the door. I quickly reassembled myself, fixed my mussed hair and tried my best to look alluring. He crossed back over to me in two long strides. He knelt back down beside me and took a deep breath.

“Are you sure about this? I’ll understand if you don’t want to confuse things between us. I have to be honest, though. I’m very attracted to you, and I’ve been fantasizing about this moment for quite a while.”

His eyes were dark and wide as he spoke to me. I felt my entire body betray me, as my skin flushed and a deep warm sensation spread over me. I’d never been that turned on before in my life. Jeff and I had had a vanilla sex life, not much passion. The feeling here took over my senses, and I wasn’t sure if I could speak. I slowly nodded my head up. Message received.

He stood up and grabbed my ankles. He yanked my body down the couch so that I was lying completely flat. The couch was long and wide, wide enough for the both of us. He covered my body with his, and I felt his erection through the thin fabric of his trousers. He was trying to slow things down. I felt him take a deep breath, and his exhale was warm, slow, sweet torture on the nape of my neck. Every hair on my body stood on end. He took a long inhale with his nose in my hair, and he moaned.