Fixed on You (19 page)

But I wasn’t prepared for the
sight that met me. Three men in suits were laughing and joking as the doors
parted. And with them was Hudson.

“Alayna.” His voice was even as
always, with only a hint of surprise in his tone.

I froze, my body unable to move,
my mouth unable to speak. A wave of jumbled emotions ran through me: I was
happy to see him, yet petrified. Enraged to find he was in town after all and
somewhat satisfied that my suspicions had been right.

Hudson held a hand out to me. Automatically
my arm moved to take it, and he pulled me out to stand next to him. He turned
to the men with him. “Gentlemen, my girlfriend has decided to surprise me with
a visit to my office.”

I managed to smile before pinning
my stare to my gray running shoes.

“That can never be good,” one of
the other men said and they all laughed. “Well, we’ll leave you to her then.
Thank you again for meeting with us.”

I barely heard the goodbyes the
men exchanged with Hudson before they took my place in the car, and how I made
it the short distance to his office was beyond me. I was numb, my mind consumed
with the fact that I was someplace that I shouldn’t be.

The office doors clicked closed
behind us. Hudson must have held my hand the whole way there, but I didn’t
notice until he dropped it and walked away from me. “What are you doing here,
Alayna?”

I couldn’t bring myself to look
at him, but the absence of anger in his tone brought me out of my haze. I could
get myself through this. I’d been good at talking my way through things in my
obsessive days. I’d explain and he’d believe me and all would be fine.

But I didn’t want to be that girl
anymore.

It was right then that I’d
realized the severity of what I’d been doing: I’d been stalking. For the first
time in years. I’d fallen off the wagon with probably the worst person I could
fall off the wagon with. If I’d thought restraining orders and lawsuits had
been a nightmare when they were filed by Ian, my last object of obsession, imagine
what it would be like with a powerful man like Hudson.

But even more than that—recovering
from my addiction to Ian had been hard, but possible. Hudson, though…I couldn’t
even bear to think about not being around him in some way or another, no matter
what the context.

Hudson was waiting for my answer.
I could feel him studying me. I hugged my arms around myself and took a deep
breath. “I, uh, I wanted to see if you were back.”

I nearly sobbed with the honesty
of my statement, but if Hudson noticed, he didn’t let on. “I got back late last
night. You could have called. Or texted.”

My mind reached for the steps of
talking through unhealthy behaviors. I’d learned them many times in therapy.
Communicate
your fears openly and honestly
. Closing my eyes to stymie my tears, I said,
“You don’t answer my texts.”

“I didn’t answer one text.”

I opened my eyes and found him
staring at me intently as he leaned against his desk. I brushed away the one
tear that had escaped down my cheek and met his gaze. “It was my only text.”

I heard how it sounded.
Ridiculous, an overreaction. We weren’t together. Why should he answer my
texts? He had to be regretting his choice for a pretend girlfriend now. Now
that he saw the extent of my crazy.

Our eyes remained locked, but I
could read nothing in his expression. It seemed like forever before his face
softened and he said, “I didn’t realize it was important to you. I’ll make a
better effort to respond in the future.”

My mouth fell open.

He straightened to a standing
position. “But you can’t just come here like this. How do you think it looks to
have my girlfriend wandering around the lobby, riding the elevators when I’m
not even in town?”

“How did you…?”

“I pay people to know things,
Alayna.”

He knew. Of course, he knew. I’d
decided to communicate honestly, but had hoped I didn’t have to be that honest.
That he knew I’d been by his office several times, that I’d roamed the building…I
was humiliated.

More tears fell. “I…I’m sorry. I
couldn’t help myself.”

“Please, don’t do it again.” He
was stern, but did I detect a note of compassion?

His reaction was all wrong. He
should have been more pissed, more freaked out. “Why are you being like this?”

His brow wrinkled. “Like what?”

“I’ve fucked things up, Hudson!
You should be calling your security to escort me out. I’m a mess and you’re
taking it all in stride.” The tears fell fast now. There was no stopping them.

His face eased and he stepped
toward me. “No,” he said softly, his tone embracing me even though his arms
didn’t. “That’s what I meant about being around someone who understood. I know
about compulsion. I know about having to do things you know you shouldn’t.”

He wiped a tear from my cheek
with his thumb, his hand resting there longer than necessary. “When you feel
you can’t help yourself, talk to me first.”

The anxious knot I’d felt for
days dissolved under his words. Had he been right? Could we help each other
through our pains? Could we fix each other?

I looked into his eyes and wanted
again to believe as he did, this time much closer to saying that I did.

But before I could say anything,
his secretary’s voice boomed through the office. “Mr. Pierce, your one-thirty
is here.”

Hudson sighed, dropping his hand
from my face. “I apologize for cutting this short, Alayna, but I have another
meeting now. And I’m leaving again this evening.”

My spirits sank. I didn’t know if
I believed him, but I did know I didn’t want distance between us. That was what
had spurred my obsessive episode this week. Well, he’d asked for me to share...
“I hate that you’re leaving. It makes me feel a little distraught.” A lot
distraught, actually.

His eyes lit up. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”
He took my hand and squeezed. “Join me tomorrow night for the symphony.”

My heart flip-flopped. “Yes.”

“I’ll pick you up at six. Wear
the dress.”

***

I made it to group that afternoon
before meeting with David. I’d made a mistake, but Hudson was willing to look
past it. More than willing. And that made it so much easier to believe that I
wasn’t doomed to be totally freaky with him. I had to make an effort to stay
well.

Not comfortable telling my
situation to everyone, not when people might know about my connection with
Hudson, I was vague on my turn to share. “I’m…I’ve slipped a bit.”

It was an accurate enough
statement. My behavior hadn’t been as bad as it could have been. But every
journey starts with a single step—even the journeys we shouldn’t be taking, and
at the rate I’d been going that week, I’d be well on my way down the obsession
road before I had a grip.

 Lauren nodded sympathetically. “When
you get home, I’d like you to write out a list of your recent negative
behaviors, including behaviors you only thought about engaging in. Then come up
with a list of healthy behaviors you can substitute whenever you feel compelled
to engage in an unhealthy one. Do you need any help?”

“No.” I’d done this before. More
than once. I still had all the substitute behaviors memorized from the last
time I’d gone off the wagon:
Run, do yoga, take an extra shift at work,
concentrate on school, visit Brian.
Obviously my list needed updating.

“Good. You know your patterns.
Are you still journaling?”

“I haven’t in a while.” A long
while.

Lauren smiled. “I recommend you
start again.” She was always good for a swift kick in the butt.

“Okay.” And I would. But
something told me that of all the suggestions I’d received that day, the best one
had been from Hudson himself:
When you can’t help yourself, talk to me.

I was quiet the rest of the
session, replaying an old favorite quote over and over in my head, committing
myself to modifying my actions.
If there is no struggle, there is no progress.
If there is no struggle, there is no progress.

I felt better after group,
stronger and my head clear. As Jordan drove me to work later, I added to my substitute
behaviors list, including making it a goal to watch every title on the AFI’s
100 Greatest Movies list and continue reading the top one hundred books on
GreatestBooks.org.

My good mood and healthy attitude
gave me courage to send a text to Hudson before I walked into my meeting with
David that evening.
“Do you really have to leave town again?”

This time I got a response
instantly.
“I’m afraid so.”

He’d listened—had adjusted his
behavior knowing how it affected me to not get a response. Before I could
decide how to answer, he sent another.
“But I’m glad to know you’re thinking
of me.”

A tingle spread through my body.
“Always,”
I told him before I could stop myself. What was I doing? What were
we
doing? We weren’t lovers anymore—were we becoming something else? Something
more like friends? Friends who flirted by text?

Whatever we were doing, it felt
good. So good that I followed my last text with another more dangerous message.
“Are you thinking of me?”

David opened his office door,
interrupting my feel-good moment before Hudson had a chance to reply. “Laynie,
come in.” David was stiff and his voice tight.

His serious demeanor made me
stuff my phone in my bra. “Is everything okay?” I thought back to his message
from Monday. “What came up the other day?” I asked as I took a seat in front of
his desk.

“This.” David threw a folded
newspaper down on the desk before sitting in his chair across from me.

Puzzled, I picked up the
newspaper and scanned for what might have put him in such a foul mood. And
there it was, in full color on the top of Monday’s society section, the picture
of Hudson and me kissing.

“Oh. That.” David had been the
one person I’d been scared of telling. I feared he’d jump to conclusions. The
wrong conclusions.

And he did. “You want to explain
this, Laynie?” He stood and began pacing, not pausing long enough for me to
answer. “’Cause I’ll tell you what it looks like. It looks like you were so
eager to get your precious promotion that, when you couldn’t get it by playing
me, you chose to go after the next guy who could get you what you wanted.”

I put a hand out in front of me
as if to stop him from saying what he was saying. “It’s not like that, David.
It was never like that.” How could he think that I’d liked him for a promotion?
That I’d been insincere when I’d been with him?

“It wasn’t?” He stopped pacing
and leaned toward me, his palms on his desk. “Then tell me what it was like,
Laynie.”

“It’s…I can’t…” My floundering
was exacerbated by the buzz of my phone against my breast. I knew it was a
reply from Hudson, and I longed to read it. But there was no way I could right
then. Not with David raging in front of me.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” He
straightened, a look of utter disgust joining the scowl on his face. “Now I’m
forced to move you up, implement your ideas, never mind that I was going to
anyway, or fear for my own job.” He laughed dryly. “I’m probably grooming you
to take my place.”

“David, no.” This was worse than
I had imagined. I didn’t want him to think I ever wanted to take his job from
him. I had imagined us running The Sky Launch together. Though the romantic part
of that duo was no longer appealing to me, I still very much wanted the
business duo.

“Does Pierce have any idea about
me?”

“David, don’t.”

His eyes narrowed. “Does he know
that you’re The Sky Launch slut?”

That was the turning point.
Instead of feeling bad, I got pissed. And when I got pissed, I used all the
weapons in my arsenal. “If you really believe what you’re saying, David, that I
have some power over Hudson, then maybe you should be a little more careful how
you talk to me.”

His eyebrows lifted, surprised by
my steady tone and pointed words.

“Now, sit down,” I continued,
“and we can talk about this in a civilized manner.” I waited while he plopped
down in his chair. “Good. Let me see if I have this right—you think I’m dating
Hudson so that I could get a promotion at the club. A promotion that you’ve
basically promised me because of my hard work here over the past few years. A
promotion I earned before you and I even kissed.”

“Why else would you be dating him?”
His words were challenging, but the fight had left.

“Not that it’s any of your
business, but I’m dating Hudson because…” I was on-duty in that moment, but my
reason was honest. “Because I like him. And he likes me. We connect. And, even
before our first date, he spelled out to me that he would have nothing to do
with helping me move up here. And I accepted it because I knew I could get the
manager title on my merit alone. Tell me, did Hudson instruct you to promote
me?”

His shoulders slumped. “No.”

“And were you going to offer me
the position before you saw our picture in the paper?”

“Yes.”

“Then what are we even talking
about?”

 He shook his head and shrugged. “Laynie…I…I
don’t know what to say. I guess I jumped to conclusions. I said things that
were uncalled for.”

“I get it. I knew it would look that
way.” I let out a silent breath, relieved that he’d calmed so easily. “Maybe I
should have said something earlier.”

David shook his head. Then he met
my eyes directly. “No, I was acting jealous. And I didn’t have any right to.
I’m the one who ended things.”

“It’s okay.” I looked away. His
jealous remark hung in the air between us. Once upon a time I would have jumped
all over it. Now, it felt weird to have him feeling things about me.

So I changed the subject. “Um,
about the promotion…did you say you were giving it to me?”