Estelle took a deep breath once she stepped inside the cabin and hid out of sight so she could privately watch Blaine before he left. He lingered in front of the cabin for a moment, his face pensive and dark, and then finally threw his car into drive and sped off down the mountain; a little bit faster than she was used to seeing him move.
Estelle let out a heavy sigh and slumped down into the small loveseat that had come furnished with the cabin. She was never going to be able to forgive herself for all the bullshit she put herself through. Hadn’t she known better than to succumb to the physical attraction? It was going to put her in hell, and she was already halfway there. In fact, it had been such a relief that Blaine had told her that it couldn’t happen again that she’d almost laughed out loud. She couldn’t imagine how torturous it would be to carry on an affair with an older man. Not only that, but he was her boss. And a shifter.
She knew from rumor that having relationships with men of the shifter species could be tricky for human women. The courtship rituals could be very different, and the cultures were always hard to adopt and get used to.
But there she was, thinking as if the night they had shared together might somehow mean more than it did; as if they would ever be compatible enough to actually form a meaningful relationship together. That was a laughable idea. They were just too different. Why get ahead of herself?
All that had happened, and all that would ever happen, was that he had caught her during a vulnerable time and they had somehow just given in to something animalistic and short-lived. It didn’t have any meanings, no strings attached. It had just been a horribly ill-advised way to let off steam after an adrenaline-inducing near-death experience. He had saved her life, and in some sick and twisted way, she had repaid him.
They were even now. And she would never have to deal with another issue like this for as long as she lived. That was perfectly fine by her.
Estelle cried out in fear and surprise when a shrill ringing filled the cabin.
“Estelle!”
“How did you get this number, ma?” Estelle growled into the phone as soon as she heard her mother’s voice. She had guarded her privacy with her life. Her family was toxic, and it was difficult for her to let them into her life in any capacity. Let alone casual phone conversations.
“That doesn’t matter, you know I have my ways. You know you’re my youngest child. My daughter. It’s a mother’s business to keep track of these things.”
“What do you want?” Estelle mumbled. Her mother had probably called around and harassed her friends until someone gave her the information she wanted. She had a way of being very persuasive.
“You need to come home. Your father is in the hospital.”
Estelle’s stomach dropped.
“I can’t, Ma. I’ve got an internship,” she said weakly. She didn’t want to know anything about her family. Her father was infamous for being a hypochondriac. He was probably just faking for attention again. still, something about the tone of her mother’s voice gave her a pause.
“He’s really sick. He might not make it. You need to come home now and see him before it gets any worse.”
“I don’t know. I have to talk to my boss about it,” Estelle sighed. Somehow, the idea of coming to Blaine with the information almost made her laugh out loud. He was so much different than her parents. He would probably find it difficult to understand.
“You do that then come home. It’s important. I wouldn’t call you if it wasn’t you know.”
“Sure. Bye.”
“Is that any way to talk to your mother? I raised you and -”
Estelle hung up the phone and sighed heavily. Somehow the day had gone from bad to worse. Leave it to her family. And now she had to think about whether she was willing to risk the final credit she needed to go see a man who had made her doubt her self-worth for her entire life. What a way to spend her only day off for the next two weeks.
***
“Blaine, can I talk to you?”
Blaine’s sharp eyes peered into hers and she hesitated at the threshold of the office.
“The hell do you want? We have work for you to do right now, and I know you can do it just fine.”
“It’s not about work,” Estelle said, nervous butterflies fluttering in her stomach.
“Then I don’t want to hear about it right now, kid,” Blaine said, his face darkening. “I don’t know what else to tell you.”
For some reason, irritation coursed through Estelle and she shut the office door behind her.
“Don’t be an asshole. I have to talk to you about something.”
“Shit, kid. Give me a break! I’m busy!”
“Well I need your input!”
They stared each other down until finally Blaine let out a deep, heavy sigh.
“Take a seat and make it quick for God’s sake.”
“I need to see my family,” Estelle said, sitting down in the chair across from Blaine’s desk.
“You don’t sound too sure about that,” Blaine said.
Why was it that it felt like that man could see right through her? It was unsettling, really. But at the same time, it was almost comforting to think that somebody was paying attention to her in a way that nobody else ever had.
“Well, I’m not really.”
“What have they done to you?” Blaine asked, looking squarely at her. “You don’t want to see them, and you look frickin’ miserable.”
“I don’t really feel like this is the place to talk about something like that,” Estelle said quietly, avoiding Blaine’s eye. The pensiveness of his stare made her extremely uncomfortable. She usually didn’t talk to anybody about what she had gone through with her home life.
“There’s nothing wrong with it in here,” Blaine argued. “You’re the one who wanted me to listen to your sob story so you could weasel your way out of the ridiculous workload we have now what with the shit storm the dragon shifters laid on us this week.”
Estelle stared at him blankly for a moment, but the no-nonsense look on Blaine’s face melted the walls she was holding up to protect herself from judgment about her family. He wouldn’t judge her any more than she would judge herself. Somehow, she just sensed that about him.
“Well, they aren’t the kindest bunch,” Estelle said with a heavy sigh. “My mom and dad are awful, and so are all my siblings. They needed a scapegoat to look down on and everything I do is just subject to ridicule. Or they use what they think of as faults as a way to draw attention to my weight.”
“What’s wrong with your weight?” Blaine asked, his face contorted in genuine confusion.
“Well…” Estelle was caught off-guard by his reaction. He himself wasn’t a little man. In fact, he had managed to make her feel just like she had always been afraid she would never feel with a man; small, delicate, and beautiful. He was powerful, a force to truly be reckoned with. and she had to force herself not to let her mind wander too much back to the night they had shared together. It had been magical, sure, but it was something that could never happen again under any circumstances. He was her boss. He was a shifter. But worse than any of that, he was an ass!
“So, you’re basically just telling me that they make you feel like shit about yourself. But you feel like you’re supposed to be going out of your way for them when they tell you to?”
“It’s complicated,” Estelle said, sighing miserably and putting her head in her hands. “If he’s dying, he’s still my father…I don’t want to just abandon them even though they like to use me as a scapegoat.”
“I don’t want you to go. You’re needed here.”
Blaine’s gaze was steel, and even if he was just saying it to protect her, a deep defiant anger surged through Estelle’s body and prompted her to rise.
“I don’t really care what you want,” she said, horrified by herself as the words began to spill from her lips. She had spent too much time in her life taking crap from other people though, and now that she was an adult, she defended herself automatically. “I’m going to tend to my father.”
“You’ll lose the internship. You won’t graduate.”
The calm and reasonable tone of his voice made Estelle hesitate as she considered the source of her anger. She was defending her right to go see the people who had stopped at nothing to make her life a living hell. Maybe she just wanted to go back to show her father just how useless his insults had been. She had still managed to make something of herself. She was still confident and fabulous in her own right, and soon she would succeed in her chosen field. But not if she gave up her internship to go see him about it.
“Look,” Estelle said, taking a deep breath and steadying the angry wavering of her voice. “I don’t want to fight with you about this. I have the right to see my family. If I’m not back in a few days, then feel free to fire me. Tell everyone in the state that I’m a worthless employee for all I care. But I need to do this.”
For some reason, the conversation was starting to make her feel as if she and Blaine were an old married couple. She was fighting for something more than just the right to see her father. She was fighting for her independence.
“All right,” Blaine said, sighing heavily. “I’ll give you two days.”
“Two?!” Estelle exclaimed. “Come on, Blaine. That’s – “
“That’s more than fair,” Blaine interrupted, standing up to stare Estelle in the eye. “You don’t need to stay stuck in that shit for any longer than you have to be. You say what you must say and then get back home. You have a lot to lose.”
Estelle gaped at Blaine, unsure of how to respond.
“All right.”
“I wasn’t kidding. We need all the help we can get right now. Things are getting pretty extreme. I’m counting on you.”
Estelle pursed her lips, not sure what to say in response, and nodded simply. She couldn’t let him get to her. She had won. She had gotten the results she had gone in to get. It would be better for everybody if she didn’t let it make her unsure of herself. She would do what she had to do, even if that meant going back to face her own personal hell.