Chapter 20

RIVER

Things certainly weren’t going as planned for River, and he couldn’t help feeling like the worst was yet to come. Calling Mariah was pretty close to the last thing he ever wanted to do. But calling April or Edward would have been much worse.

Life had never been that hard for River before. He simply worked hard, and things worked out for him. River struggled in his life; he certainly hadn’t had things handed to him, but he had never dealt with the kind of ongoing stress that he was dealing with at that moment. The public relations nightmare that was his life just wouldn’t go away.

He messed up in admitting he had been at a strip club; that certainly wasn’t something he wanted Mariah to know. But at that point, he was pretty sure she hated him anyway for the way he had treated her the other day at his house.

Even River didn’t know why he had been so rude to Mariah that day. She was such a sweet and kind woman; he knew that she was only trying to help him. Yet the only thing he could come up with was anger. He didn’t know it at the time, but anger had become his new best friend over the last couple of days. It was an emotion he knew well, but that he had always been able to control.

Really, everything in his life River had been able to control up until the moment he got that phone call. The call from that mystery man saying that he was going to release information. The caller hadn’t wanted a bribe or hadn’t offered River any way to save himself or his son from the condemnation of public scrutiny. River never received another call from that person and still to that day had no idea who they were.

River was angry. He felt the anger inside of him like a virus that he couldn’t get rid of. There was so much anger and rage it was hard to keep it in. He hadn’t realized what was going on that first night when he had yelled at Mariah to get out of his house. But as the days had passed and the anger had not gone away, River was positive that he needed to make some changes. The problem was, he had no idea what changes he needed to make. River was used to dealing with himself being out of control. He had certainly helped to deal with friends and co-workers when they went off the rails, but River had no idea how to help himself.

One of the changes that he absolutely wasn’t going to make was to get rid of Mariah. He needed her around, both for his company and for him. She actually had the ability to make him feel calmer when she was around, and that was exactly what he needed. He hated how he had treated her the other day and really hoped that she would let him make it up to her. Well, he also needed to make up to her for the entire day out of her life that she took to come get him from Atlanta.

As they made their way back to Portland, River sat quietly next to Mariah and worked through how he could apologize to her. Obviously, he wanted her to understand that it wasn’t her that he was angry at, but he just couldn’t seem to get the words to come out the way he wanted them to.

Talking to women had certainly never been a problem for River before. He always talked to them without a problem. But ever since he met Mariah, River had a newfound understanding for what men always feared when they tried to communicate with a woman. The way she looked at him—the way she seemed to wait for him to talk; it put so much pressure on him that he didn’t know how to react.

“On Monday, you have a meeting at the college. It’s just a little social thing to get your face out there and try and get you back on track. April has all the information,” Mariah said.

She didn’t look up from her laptop and didn’t make an effort to flirt with him or be overly friendly. River felt the coldness in her demeanor, and he assumed it was because of the way he had treated her.

“Thank you,” River responded as he searched his mind for more words to say.

Unfortunately, he just couldn’t find the words he needed. Everything that he thought about ended up sounding utterly stupid in his mind so he didn’t bother to say it. He decided that staying quiet would be the best choice.

River succeeded in sitting quietly for almost the entire flight back to Portland. There was a brief moment where he asked if she wanted something to drink. Then another where he asked if she needed to get out of the seat and stretch, but other than that, River and Mariah didn’t talk much at all on the flight.

It was a weird feeling to be around Mariah when she wasn’t talking. She always talked so much when they were together. Even when River was in jail, he loved calling her and listening to her ramble on and on. It calmed him and helped him focus on getting to go home soon. When River talked with Mariah, he focused much more on his plans for outside the jail.

The flight landed, and River opened the car door for Mariah and then ran around to the passenger side. It had only been a few days before that they were in the same car, and she was driving him home from his 60 days in jail. He held out a tiny bit of hope that he could convince her to stay at his house again.

River couldn’t help seeing the humor in the moment. He really hadn’t learned his lesson at all from his time in jail. When Mariah had made that statement to him earlier, it didn’t sink in all that much, but as she drove him home again, he finally saw the humor in it. Mariah probably thought River was some sort of hardened criminal that just happened to be able to run a company. She certainly wasn’t looking at him with the desire she had looked at him with before.

“Thank you again for helping out,” River said as he reached for Mariah’s hand.

She pulled it away and put it onto the steering wheel almost immediately. It was very clear that she didn’t want to have any sort of intimate relationship with River any longer. He was comfortable leaving women or ruining things to the point that they didn’t want to be with him. It was the normal way that River worked. But it didn’t feel right with Mariah. River wasn’t ready for her to make an exit from his life.

Sure, he made it seem like he was only dating women casually because that was what he chose, but the truth was, casual dating was all he could handle. He wasn’t equipped to take on the emotional responsibility of a woman’s heart. At least, he should be commended for knowing when he should back down and for making an effort not to break women’s hearts.

Normally, this was the point when River would wish a woman luck on her career and say he was excited to remain friends with them. But he couldn’t exactly do that with Mariah; they were tied together for the time being, and he needed to work through the uncomfortable feeling, at least until his business deal with Wholesome Foods was finished.

“Okay, here you go. Remember, talk with April about your Monday meeting. I’ll meet you there. Take some time for yourself and relax, and for goodness sake, please don’t get arrested this weekend.”

Mariah was clearly not interested in coming inside for a drink, or anything else. She didn’t make eye contact with him, and she didn’t even put the car into park as she pulled into his driveway. River decided it wouldn’t be a good idea to even ask her.

It was his fault she had distanced herself from him. He was a mess, and she didn’t deserve to be around a guy like him. River would just move forward with his plans and do the best he could with Mariah as his public relations specialist. A professional relationship was fine with him; certainly, he had many of those with lovely ladies. River didn’t have to have anything more with Mariah.

The more he tried to convince himself that he could keep a professional relationship with Mariah, the more he felt like he was wrong. Even as she sat in the seat next to him in that car, River knew that he couldn’t keep things professional. He liked feeling her naked body way too much to give that all up. But he would take a step back for the time being and allow Mariah to make the new boundaries.

“Thank you again. I’ll see you on Monday,” River said as he made his way into his house.

***

The Monday morning meeting wasn’t something River would have planned for himself, but he was excited to get the opportunity to talk with some college kids, though, and woke up early to get ready. He made a list of things they could talk about and even practiced a little motivational speech that he thought the college kids would enjoy. April had explained that it was just a class of business students who wanted to talk about getting started in business and those things. It sounded like the perfect opportunity for River to get back out into the public eye.

He was adamant about not making a public statement, but teaching some kids seemed like a great way to move forward. River even thought that he might put together a technology group for the college and see if anyone was interested in that. River successfully used technology in his company that many other startups were now copying. He had knowledge to share and was really damn excited to get to share it.

As he walked into the communications room at the university, River was not exactly sure what was going on. April, Edward, Kimberly, and her husband, the governor were all sitting in the room. There were no college kids in the room. Even Mariah wasn’t there.

River paused at the door as he took his time, looked at each of them, and tried to decide just what was going on. None of them seemed surprised that there weren’t college students in the room. River started to realize that he had been set up.

“What’s this?” River said as he felt his anger building.

“I don’t know. You invited me,” the governor responded. “This jerk is so out of it, he doesn’t even remember inviting me. He had his PR girl pretend to be a student and lure us here, and now he’s pretending like he had no idea.”

The governor was on his feet and moving toward River as he yelled and spewed his idea of the truth. River wasn’t afraid of the governor at all, but he did back up and hold his fists behind his back in an effort to control his own anger.

“Darling, please be kind,” Kimberly said as she stood up, reached her hand over and tried to calm her husband.

Kimberly had always been a kind person. River really never knew why she had decided to stay with her hot-headed husband. But it was her life and her choice and certainly much too late to make a change in that. Plus, Kimberly seemed to genuinely care about her husband. Even when she had her affair with River, it all seemed out of loneliness and not out of being upset with her husband.

“Be kind? Listen to my lovely wife trying to defend you even after what you did to her!” the governor said as he stood up and made his way across the room toward River.

“Oh, don’t give me that shit. You know I didn’t rape your wife. She came to me willingly. She hated being with you. She wanted to divorce you, and she came to me looking for a way out.”

River instantly felt guilty for blurting out that Kimberly wanted to divorce her husband. It wasn’t a total lie. But River knew that Kimberly had only been thinking about the possibility. She had never actually said she wanted to divorce him.

“River … please …” Kimberly said from the other side of the room.

Her eyes begged River to stop talking, but he just couldn’t stop himself. Again, the anger took control of him, and he felt unprepared to stop himself. The words continued to come out of his mouth as he felt like an innocent bystander, unable to stop the rampage of words.

“Oh, come on Kimberly; he knows the truth. Why else do you think he tried to hurt me so bad with his lies to the press?”

“Okay, since we are here, why don’t we all talk and try to come to some sort of agreement?” Edward said as he stood up and got between River and the governor.

The governor didn’t seem interested in any sort of agreement at all. He walked over to Kimberly, grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the room. As she left, Kimberly mouthed the words ‘I’m sorry’ to River. It was little consolation to him at that moment, though. River felt his muscles tense as he tried to control himself.

What had started as a happy day and an uplifting opportunity to talk to college students, had quickly turned bad. River was hurt that April and Edward would stoop to such a level and trick River like they had. He wasn’t happy with them at all.

“So you two planned this? You just thought if I showed up here and met with that jackass then suddenly things would be better?”

River started to pace the room as he mumbled under his breath and waited for Edward or April to respond to him. But both of them knew better than to feed into River’s anger when he was in a mood like this.

Well, actually, they had never seen him in a mood that bad before. Typically, his anger was geared toward a vendor or a small production issue. Nothing of the magnitude that they were dealing with at the moment had ever happened to them before. But still, April and Edward sat quietly as they waited out the storm. Certainly, River could see that they were just trying to help him get a hold of his public relations issue. Certainly, River could see that he was going to lose his company if he didn’t do something drastic. That was all they were trying to do.

“Answer me!” River screamed as he picked up a chair and hurled it toward the door.

Edward and April both screamed as they watched the chair fly right into Mariah as she walked into the room. There was nothing anyone could do to stop the large item as it moved quickly through the air. As soon as it left River’s hands, it was on a collision course that no one could stop.

Mariah screamed as the chair hit her, and then she slumped down to the ground. Her unconscious body lay there with a small dab of blood dripping from her temple. River stood still in the middle of the room as he tried to figure out what to do. Shocked at what had just happened, he couldn’t will his body to move. He hadn’t expected Mariah to be coming in the room. He hadn’t expected anyone to be there. But the truth was, he felt so out of control, he didn’t know why he had thrown the chair. It wasn’t something that was normal for him. He never would have thrown a chair before, but everything he cared about was falling apart.

“Mariah,” River yelled as he ran over to her. “Are you alright? Please be alright. I’m sorry. I didn’t see you. April, call 911.”

“I’m fine; don’t call 911,” Mariah said quietly. “The publicity would be horrible.”

Edward and April both smiled at the joke Mariah managed even in the state she was in. But River didn’t think it was funny at all. She needed to see a doctor. There was no question about it, and River wasn’t going to take no for an answer. Mariah had been knocked unconscious by the chair, that was a big deal. River didn’t care what kind of press he got for it, he was going to make sure she was alright.

“Stay still, let me carry you to the couch in the corner,” River said as he swept Mariah up into his arms and made quick work of getting her to the couch.

River felt panic rush through his body as he tried to take care of Mariah. He didn’t know what he would do if something happened to her. He really couldn’t imagine it. River needed Mariah by his side to help him take his business back. She couldn’t be hurt; she certainly couldn’t be hurt by something he did.

“I’m … I … uh,” Mariah started to say but seemed to lose her train of thought.

“Oh, she definitely needs to see a doctor,” April added.

“I’m taking you to the hospital. You have to be seen by someone.”

“No, I won’t go,” Mariah said as she started to stand up.

But as she moved her feet under her and made an effort to stand, she quickly became weak and fell back to the couch. She didn’t pass out, but she certainly seemed very disoriented again. She looked as if she had a concussion, but there could be something worse. River wasn’t about to take a risk with her life. She was going to the damn doctor.

River knew enough about head injuries to know that confusion and unsteadiness were a big deal. If she vomited, that would be even worse. It wasn’t up to Mariah; River was taking her out of the college and over to the nearest emergency room. There was no more discussion about it; River was going to make sure she was seen by a doctor.