Chapter 2
Shelby
I sat behind my new desk in the much bigger office right across from Christian's, nerves jangling as they had been for the past couple days. I'd accepted my boss's offer but it'd come at a price. Christian had requested - just a request, not an obligation - that I ask Tyler to return to Abernathy and Banks.
But my concerns about Tyler didn't stretch that far yet. I still had to deal with the giant, ugly, and silent elephant in the room: the threatening email he'd sent me last week. It still gave me shivers. And what was worse, that wasn't the Tyler I knew.
He'd never struck me as the stalker type. Had I turned him into that type of guy? Surely not. I'd dated my fair share of creeps but none that would've sent me emails or hovered around outside my apartment hidden by darkness and a hoodie.
A sharp knock rat-tatted against my office door. Julie filled the frame with her attitude rather than her body. Her purple lips thinned. "Enjoying your new office?"
It grated at her that she couldn't order me around anymore.
"Can I help you with something, Julie?"
"You can help me by realizing that you're no better than any of the other grunts around here," she replied.
I reserved my shock. Julie had been nothing but a battle ax since I'd arrived at Abernathy and Banks. Why would her attitude change now that I'd become her equal rather than her slave? She hated me now, more than ever. No, that wasn't exactly true. I'd only recently upgraded to hatred in her books.
Before it'd been a healthy dose of disdain sprinkled with loathing. "Julie, I love our little chats, I really do, but I have work to get to."
"Work. Is that what they're calling it these days?"
"Meaning what, exactly?"
"Nothing, girl. I guess I just wouldn't call sleeping with the boss 'work.' If he hears you, he might get the wrong idea," Julie replied.
I picked up a pile of paper and patted the ends of the desk, praying my anger wouldn't show on my face, that my cheeks would stay pale. "I believe you just set feminism back about twenty years with that sentence alone."
"You won't be able to keep up," Julie said. "I saw how you work. I saw how you—"
"Julie, I have matters to attend to. If all you've come to tell me is how I'm a slut and I'm going to get fired, you can save your breath. I got your point months ago when I started here. Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to do what I was hired for. I'm sure Christian would want you to do the same."
Julie hovered there for another second or two, oscillating between insults and a huffy departure. She settled on the latter, and boy was I glad to see the back of her.
I put down the papers and opened my email inbox instead. I scrolled through the messages until I found the one from Tyler and read it again. I won't let you go, Shelby. Remember that. You are MINE. It still gave me the chills. Yeah, I had to deal with this before it drove me crazy.
The fact that Christian had asked me to invite his brother back to work didn't help. I knew it wasn't a legitimate requirement to keep the job because he couldn't legally ask me to do that, but I did want Tyler back at Abernathy and Banks. Or I would have, if he hadn't sent me this message.
I had to settle this with him. We had to talk and get everything out in the open because I hadn't given him closure. After we'd broken it off, I'd ignored him. That hadn't been fair on either of us and it was a mistake I wasn't willing to repeat.
I grabbed my handbag, rooted around in it for my cell, then brought it out and dialed Ty's number. Two rings in, and I had my finger over the red button on my screen. I couldn't do this.
No, I had to do this.
"Shelby?" Tyler's voice sent shivers down my spine, but these weren't the bad kind. I missed him. Oh god, I missed him too much. I shouldn't have called.
"Tyler," I said.
"It's good to hear your voice." He spoke softly - almost a whisper.
"Am I interrupting anything?"
He didn't answer and a door clicked on the other end of the line.
"Tyler, we need to talk. It's serious. Can you meet me for lunch at the Salty Pig?" I checked my watch - it was past 11 am. That gave me an hour to prepare before I had to—
"No, I can't, I'm sorry," he said, once again in that soft tone. "I'm really sorry, Shelby. I'd love to see you but I'm kind of in the middle of something here."
"It's urgent." I needed this out of the way before I could continue with my day successfully.
"I can't. I'm at a copy store. I've got to go, Shelby," he said.
"Tyler, wait—"
He hung up. I held the phone to my ear and listened to the dull beeps, jaw dropped. He'd actually hung up on me. What the hell? I'd judged him as the guy who'd never stalk or act weird, but I'd also figured he was the type who didn't hang up in the middle of a call.
And he was at a copy store? Get real. There hadn't been any noise in the background. No hum of copiers or folks talking. It'd been completely silent. Which meant he'd lied to me…and that I couldn't abide.
My kneejerk reaction to lying was to walk away without looking back. In Tyler's case, it brought on a full-blown tantrum of toddler proportions because he made me crazy. He lowered all my inhibitions both in good ways and bad.
I grunted and pushed my chair back. I paced behind my desk. This was ridiculous. I couldn't be this concerned about Tyler when I had more work to do than I'd ever had before at Abernathy and Banks. But all the work in the world couldn't cover up my feelings for him.
The thought of him pining for me and becoming something I knew he wasn't sickened me. Because I loved him and I cared. I wanted what was best for him.
"I'd knock but it looks like you're in the middle of a breakdown." Anthony strolled into my office, resplendent in his fine Armani suit and matching dress shoes. "Whoa, I was just kidding. But are you okay?"
I didn't stop pacing. "Fine."
"It's in my experience that when a woman says she's fine, she's really not," he replied. "I saw Julie floating down the hall earlier. Was it her? Did she use her powers of evil on you? Cast a voodoo spell?"
"Tyler," I said.
Anthony's jaw tightened up. "Of course."
"I know you've heard enough about him but I'm just so damn frustrated."
Anthony sighed and walked to the chair in front of my desk. He eased himself into it and folded his hands in his lap. "It's not about me. If you need to talk about him, we'll do that. What are friends for, right?"
I was pretty wary of relying on Anthony for support. Each time I had confided in him in the past, he'd used it as an excuse to ask me out on a date. And I wasn't ready for a date with anyone. Clearly, I hadn't put my feelings for Tyler to bed.
"I called him," I said, because I had to lean on someone and dammit I'd made myself clear to Anthony about our friendship. If he didn't want to talk about it, he could leave my office and I'd call my sister Hannah, instead.
"Why?" Anthony asked.
"Because of that email he sent me," I replied. "I need to talk to him about that. He doesn't sound like himself and if he's losing it, then I need to help him."
"That's not your job, Shell. He's in the past."
Ugh, I despised it when he called me by that nickname. "I know it's not my job. I want to speak to him about it. Do you think I enjoy getting emails like that? It sure doesn't make me happy."
"Okay, just relax."
I shook my head so hard one of the chopsticks I'd used to fasten it into a bun untwisted and dropped to the floor. I wrenched the other one free. "No. I won't."
"All right." Anthony rubbed his palms together. "So what happened during this call? No offense but he seems to have triggered you hard enough to make the earth vibrate."
"Thanks,” I said, then rolled my eyes. "I phoned him and asked him to come to lunch with me. You know, so we could talk this through not during office hours." I had responsibilities here. I had to stick to them and handle this in my spare time. Except Tyler had made those two worlds collide once again.
"Meet with him? Do you really think that's wise? The guy sent you a threatening email. If anything, you should tell him to stay away from you, not offer to go to lunch with him."
I waved his argument away. "Except when I spoke to him he blew me off. He acted all weird. He lied to me again, I'm sure of it."
"Lied to you how?"
I grabbed the back of my chair, jerked it around, then sat down. "He told me he couldn't make lunch because he was at the copy shop."
"Okay?"
"He wasn't at a copy store," I said, and swiveled around.
Anthony's brows had knit together and he ran a finger over his knuckles. "How do you know?"
"I just do. It was really, really quiet in the background. Not a whisper of sound. I swear, it's like he thinks I'm stupid. I could tell he was lying by his tone," I said. "I can't deal with a man who lies, but I have to talk to him about this."
"He said he was at a copy store." Anthony's gaze sharpened. For a second, he looked like a shark who'd smelled blood in the water. The impression faded and my friend came back, all frowns and concerns. "Why would he say he was there if he wasn't?"
"I don't know. Because he's somewhere else." But where? I couldn't think of a reason he'd need to lie to me, unless those rumors Hannah had told me about him were true. She'd insinuated he was a criminal or had been involved in that kind of thing, but I knew better.
Tyler didn't have that in him. He might've strayed from the 'path of righteousness' or whatever as a teen, but he was a good guy at heart. Which was why this email thing got to me. What if he was with another woman? But why would he have to lie to me about that?
It wasn't as if we were together. He didn't have to hide that from me. My stomach turned. God, if he was with a woman I hoped he did hide it from me. The thought of him with someone else made me want to hurl.
"Shelby?"
"Huh?"
"Lost you for a second there." Anthony sat on the edge of his seat. "You said it was quiet? Quiet how?"
"There wasn't any sound except for him talking, and even then he was whispering," I said, and shook my head.
"You're sure about this," Anthony said.
"Yeah," I replied, and rubbed my eyes with the heels of my palms.
"Dead quiet."
"Uh huh." Something was off and I'd get to the bottom of it. After work, though. I had to control my impulses on this. I hadn't taken that calculated risk last week with Christian's presentation only to throw the rewards all away.
I dropped my hands and looked at my friend for support. But Anthony didn't look at me. He stared past me out of my window. "Quiet." Anthony rose from the chair and straightened his suit jacket.
"Anthony?"
"I've got to go," he said. "I'll see you later."
"Okay?"
Anthony strode from the office, trailing his rich cologne. He didn't look back. I frowned, but didn't bother myself with him. I had bigger problems. I wouldn't let this thing with Tyler slide.
"After work," I said, and switched on my computer monitor. Tyler would have to wait.