Chapter9
Celeste went to the women’s restroom and wept, letting out tremendous heartbreak at the knowledge that the man she was falling in love with had lied to her about every single thing about him. She released a great deal of her pain, confusion, and anger, and then washed her face with cool water and determined that she was not going to see him again personally, and that she was just going to focus on her work and block romance and men and especially him from her mind completely. It was the safest way to go. It was the only way to go.
She tried to sit at her desk and work, but everything seemed to fade behind the moment when she had seen him standing in the meeting room, and that moment was on instant replay in her mind, tormenting her, hurting her over and over again, and she could not face it. She needed to get away. She had to get away.
Celeste worked through the few files that she had to do that day and then she left a note on Hector’s desk, telling him that she needed to take the remainder of the day off as a personal day, that she was sorry about it, and that she would be back in to the office in the morning.
With that, she picked up her purse and her abnormally large paycheck, which was no longer a mystery to her, and she left the office. She dropped the check in her bank and then went to work at the grocery store, refusing to talk to anyone about anything, except for her customers that came through her line.
She hated thinking that Keisha was right; that the rich white man from across the tracks was a complete façade to her; that he had a whole life that she didn’t know about, probably with a wife and kids. It was probably just the way that Keisha had said it was. Celeste was his brown sugar candy on the wrong side of the tracks; someone to have some fun with when he wanted to pretend to his wife that he was working late at the office or something like that.
She remembered him asking her so adamantly not to try to seek him out at the office; he would help her get a job there but she shouldn’t go looking for him or try to talk to him there. Now she knew why; because he wasn’t at all who he said he was and he didn’t want anyone there knowing that he was bedding her.
That’s all that she was to him. Someone to have sex with now and then, which was what they had both wanted when they started out, but then he had taken such good care of her, getting her a job, being her friend, taking her to dinner and treating her like she was really someone special to him, but it was for nothing. She was still a big secret, just like the rest of his whole life was a big secret; something she knew absolutely nothing about.
Doubt crept into her mind and she began questioning everything he had ever said to her or done with her or for her. She hated that it was happening, but there was no way to stop it. She was second guessing every little thing except for her feelings for him. She tried to deny those away, but she just couldn’t. She was falling in love with him, and there was no denying it and there was no stopping it.
She was a fool’s fool, and there was no way out of that, except to try to never see him again, and hope that because their roles were so different at work that she wouldn’t see him again. She couldn’t imagine the CEO coming down to Hector’s office for any reason ever. If he ever needed anything, as the CEO, Hector would be going to him. She also couldn’t imagine that Hector would ever send her up to him with anything, seeing as he apparently knew a little more about her and David than he was letting on.
Celeste had turned her phone off when she’d left the office, and when she left the grocery store late that night, she turned it back on and saw that ‘Kevin/David’ had sent her several messages and had left her several voicemails. She didn’t check them. She didn’t want to. She didn’t want to hear or read anything that he had to say. The only thing that she did do was change his name in her phone from Kevin to David, so that at least that would be right, and then maybe he might seem more like a different person to her, and every time his name came up on her phone she wouldn’t be so emotionally tied to it.
She went home and took a long, hot shower, and then went to bed with her phone on silent, except for the alarm. She might have been trying to be strong all day long, but there in the comfort, darkness, and safety of her bedroom, Celeste could not hold in the pain any longer, and she cried again, much worse than she had in the ladies’ restroom at the office. She wept herself to sleep and then didn’t wake up until the alarm sounded.
Her morning was filled with anxiety and concern as she readied for work, wondering how the day would go, whether he would try to talk to her or not. Wondering if he would just ignore her and let her go, or if he would fire her so she wouldn’t say anything to anyone. He had called and texted throughout the night, but she refused to open any of them or check her voicemail. Before she left the house, she got a message on her phone from her phone company to let her know that her voicemail box was full and she could no longer receive messages.
She walked into the office and went straight for Hector’s door to talk to him. He was sitting at his desk as he usually was, and he looked up at her when she knocked softly on his door.
“I hope you got my note yesterday. I wanted to tell you that I was sorry for leaving so abruptly, but I just had to… I needed to…” She trailed off and he gave her a nod and waved his hand.
“I fully understand. I got your note, and it’s no problem. You finished the files that I needed yesterday, so nothing was left undone. Also, I’m not docking you half a day off of your personal time for that because you’ve more than earned it.
You have yet to leave for lunch even once, so we’ll just call it a makeup afternoon for all of your lunch hours, though I don’t want you to do that again. Take your lunch when you should, and leave when we close the office, and if you need another personal day, then we’ll talk about it.” He gave her a smile and she nodded, smiling back a little at him.
He looked away from her and turned to his monitor. “Oh, also… you’ve been requested to go to the top floor. It’s where we were yesterday.”
Her heart nearly stopped in her chest. She swallowed hard. “The top floor? For what?” she asked, not really needing to ask, and wishing that she didn’t have to go and that there might be a different answer from him than the one she already knew.
“You’ve been requested for a special job, though I can’t say more than that about it and I don’t know what it is. You should go ahead and go up now.” He began typing, and she knew that he was done talking about it and that she would not be getting out of it.
With a heavy heart and a deep sigh, she tucked her purse into her desk and walked slowly to the elevator feeling dismal about what she was about to face.
When she reached the top floor where she had been the day before with Hector for the meeting, the receptionist stopped her and when she got Celeste’s name, she sent her into a room down the hallway.
It was with tremendous trepidation that Celeste opened the door and walked in. She hadn’t wanted to be there as she had no doubt in her mind just who she might see there. She was right. Kevin, or rather David, was pacing back and forth across the floor, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. His tie was on the table, his shirt was partly unbuttoned, and his hair looked as if he had run his fingers through it several times.
“You look awful,” Celeste blurted out, not meaning to, not really wanting to talk to him at all, and yet not being able to stop the concern that welled up in her the moment she saw him. He looked much worse than she had ever seen him, including after intercourse with her.
He stopped in his tracks and spun to look up at her. His eyes were red. “Celeste!” He called out her name and rushed to her, but she held her hands up and backed up closer to the door.
“Don’t,” she told him sternly. He stopped just before her.
“I’m so sorry. I was going to tell you, I wanted to tell you, but the timing just wasn’t ever right, and things have been busy here and you’re on your crazy double job work schedule right now. There are a million reasons, or excuses, or whatever, but I did want to tell you the truth, and I was going to.” He spoke earnestly, and his eyes were wide with hope.
“I cannot believe that you lied to me this whole time!” she snapped at him. “All this while you let me believe that you were an employee in the accounting department here and all along the truth was that you run the company?” She narrowed her eyes at him sharply.
He cleared his throat and looked somewhat sheepish. “I own the company.”
She gaped, staring at him. “And you never thought you might mention that to me. You just let me be a fool, going on believing that you were more like me, sort of a run of the mill person, rather than the king on the hill!”
“No!” he began, shaking his head and reaching for her, but she pushed him away and took another step toward the door. He stopped short again, giving her the space that she obviously wanted.
“It’s not like that. It was never supposed to be like that, or like this. I can explain,” he began, but she stopped him.
“I don’t want you to explain. I don’t want to hear it, any of it. You lied to me. Not just one little lie, no… you lied to me about who you are, and because you did that, we’re done.” She shook her head.
“No, listen! I have done nothing but try to help you and be good to you! I wanted to—” he started again, but she cut him off with a dangerous look.
“I’m here to work. I was told that you needed a special job done and I was sent up here to do it. Answer me honestly. Am I the job or is there actually something that you want me to do within the scope of my employment here?” She was cool to him, though inside she was a tangled mess of emotion.
Part of her wanted to run to him; to listen to him, to talk with him, to hold him and kiss him and to tell him how much she cared about him, but the bigger part of her wanted to shut him out forever and punish him for hurting her so deeply. That part was winning by a mile, and it looked just then like it always would be.
His mouth was open though no sound came out of it for a moment. He only stared at her as realization washed over his face followed by tormented emotion. She said nothing, and only watched him.
After a long moment, he spoke again. “Yes, there is actual work, and no, it isn’t you.”
“Well fine then, let’s get to it. I have work to do downstairs too.” She crossed her arms in front of her chest, and her voice and demeanor were all business.
“We’re working on a merger and we could use your help with it,” he answered quietly.
“A merger,” she replied, eyeing him carefully. “Fine. Let’s get to work, but you better remember that I’m here only to work, and I’m not here for any other reason.”
He paused a moment and then spoke with a soft tone, his eyes beseeching hers. “I never intended to lie to you, not after I met you the first time. I have to be careful about who I date because of who I am here. I was going to tell you the truth. You must believe me. Honesty is so very important to me, and I wanted to be honest with you.”
Something in Celeste snapped. “Oh, you went out searching for a woman who was real because all the women here are fake and tied up in money, and here you are, fake and lying and tied up in money, and not real. That’s rich.”
David clenched his jaw and his eyes narrowed somewhat. “I’m as real as it gets.”
“I don’t want to hear it. I have no idea if I’ve ever heard an honest word from you, and there’s no way to know if what you’ve told me is real or not because the lies that you’ve told me already are the biggest lies that anyone could tell!” She felt emotion rising in her body, coming dangerously close to her throat, and she did not want to cry in front of him. It took every bit of her willpower to hold it all in.
“Let me just ask you this one thing, and you better by god be telling me the truth about it.” She paused for a moment and stared hard into his eyes. “Are you married? Do you have children?” It had been on her mind since she had walked out of the meeting room the day before.
He shook his head. “No, I’m not married and I don’t have children. I don’t even have a girlfriend. You are the only woman in my life right now.” He seemed to mean it.
She didn’t care, she didn’t want to hear any more of it. “Fine. That’s all I wanted to know. We’re not going to talk about it again. Let’s get to work.”
He was silent for a second and then nodded. “Okay. If that’s what you want. We’ll work together.”
David showed her the documents that they had already for the merger. All of them were laid out on a table in the room where they were. She leaned over the table, placing her hands on the flat surface as she read them and perused through each one of them.
For a moment she had wondered why he had asked her to help work on the merger, other than the obvious reason of having her there to try to talk to her, but when he put that aside and agreed to work, she saw that he meant it, and he still wanted her to work on the merger. That thawed her iciness toward him somewhat, because she knew that he wouldn’t have someone working on such an important business transaction unless they were really good.
That showed her that he did value her as an employee, even if he didn’t value her at all as a friend and lover. It was something in a huge sea of nothing, and something felt like a tender balm to her tattered heart and soul.
They worked through the morning on it, and she found him to be respectful if not terribly distracting. He stood too close, he smelled too good, his voice was soft and it filled her ears the same way that it had when they were in bed together, or on the phone. His hand brushed hers a couple of times, and part of her wanted to reach out and touch him, and the other bigger part of her wanted to slap him away and tell him to leave her the hell alone.
He ordered out for lunch and they worked through lunch together. In the early afternoon, she was writing some notes about a page that she was reading, when she felt something off around her, and she looked up to see him watching her, or more than that, staring at her.
Her heart skipped a beat and her breath grew short. He had looked at her that same way many times already, when he wanted her, when he needed to hold her, when the only thing that could satiate that look was his mouth on hers and her in his arms.
“What is it?” she asked, feeling immediately defensive.
He took a few steps toward her and she held her ground. He stopped. “I just can’t stop thinking about you. I don’t even mean today, I mean at all. I didn’t sleep last night. I couldn’t. You said I look terrible today, well that’s why. I couldn’t sleep. I was up all night worrying about what you were going through. You are almost constantly on my mind and in my thoughts. I miss you. I miss you so much. How am I ever going to stop thinking about you?”
She wanted to run to him, but she shook her head. “No, you can’t do that. You can’t be like that. You have to stop thinking about me! We’re working together now, and that’s all there is. There’s nothing else. As soon as I’m done helping you with this merger, I’m going back downstairs where I belong, and I’m not going to see you here. You’re going to work up here running this company, and I’m going to work downstairs for Hector, helping him with the files and the clients, and that’s how it’s going to be.”
David looked as if she had cut him to the quick. He drew in a breath and tried to speak, but it took a moment. Then there was a tenderness to his voice. “If we can’t be lovers, could we at least be friends? I care so much about you. You know that. You must know that. Please… let’s at least be friends if we can’t be anything more. Give me that much, at least.”
He waited and she considered it for a long moment. He had been good to her. He had given her a job without seeing her resume or without even interviewing her. He had just told one of his employees to hire her and give her a position, and it had happened. He had given her an unprecedented signing bonus and had it spread out over all of her pay periods for a year, and he never told her. Never said one word about it. He had cared about her in many ways over the time they had shared, though it wasn’t much time, it might not have been great in quantity, but was deeply rich in quality.
She considered that perhaps they could be friends, if she could keep her mind focused on work and not let her thoughts stray to his body, his arms that she missed so much, his lips that beckoned her to kiss them. She told herself that she could do it.
Giving him a slight nod, she pursed her lips. “All right, we’ll try it. We can be friends. I can’t see a reason not to be, other than if I ever hear another lie from you, I’ll never talk to you again.”
He nodded adamantly. “You won’t. Don’t you worry about that.” He sighed with what looked like some relief. “Friends is a start. Good. Friends… thank you.” David smiled at her and she wished that she could smile back. Instead she turned her attention back to the work at hand.
Minutes passed in silence and David began to speak again, talking of other things that had nothing to do with their romance.
“Are you still working the other job at the grocery store?” He kept his eyes on the papers before them, rather than looking at her.
“Yes, for a little bit longer. I’m nearly done there,” she answered, and then left it at that.
There was a bit of silence, and he talked again. “How is school going?”
She sighed long and heavy, reaching her hand up to her head and rubbing at her temple there. “Not good. Not good at all. I’m flunking out of my classes because I can’t get to them since I’m working both jobs, and because of both of the jobs, I really don’t have enough time to do my homework.”
He was immediately sympathetic. “I’m so sorry to hear that.” He twisted his mouth thoughtfully. “What if you went to school here in downtown Atlanta, rather than in your area of town? Wouldn’t that be easier?”
Celeste shook her head regretfully. “I can’t. I don’t have the time to go in and do the transfer to come to school in town here.”
David watched her out of the corner of his eye and grew deeply thoughtful.
***
The next morning when she came in to work, relieved that she wasn’t going to be working with David again, she went to her desk and was just putting her purse away when Hector called her into his office.
She walked in and looked at him curiously. “Good morning. What’s going on today?”
He looked at her with a small smile on his face. “Well, I have some news about your hours here.”
“My hours?” she questioned in confusion.
“Yes. You’re going to be getting off of work early three times a week.” He tried to keep the smile small, but it grew, and Celeste saw it on his face.
“And why is that?” she asked with uncertainty, wondering if it was some trick of David’s to get rid of her.
Hector reached into his desk and pulled out a colorful glossy folder, and then handed it to her. It read ‘Atlanta University’ across the top of it. She gasped and opened it, staring at what was inside.
“Because you have school right here in the city, just a few blocks away, at Atlanta University, starting next week,” he finally broke, and beamed at her blissfully.
She shook her head. “That can’t be! This can’t… um… I didn’t change anything!”
“I know that.” He was still grinning at her like it was Christmas.
“Did you have anything to do with this?” she asked him, flipping through the pages in it.
“No, I didn’t, other than to give it to you.”
“Oh my gosh…” She trailed off, reading through the pages. “All my classes this semester have been dropped with no negative consequences, so I can take them again with a fresh start! And...” She gasped and stared. “All the tuition for them has been refunded. There’s a check right here for all of them!”
She looked further through it. “So now I have all the same classes at the university, starting this coming week?” she asked, looking at it and reading it, and not believing it was real.
“Yes!” Hector was still giddy.
“They’re all paid for!” she whispered, looking at the sheets of paper in her folder. “All of them… my whole tuition for the entire year is paid! How can that be?”
She looked up at him seriously, with tears stinging at her eyes and a wild, wild heartbeat. “Who did this?” she asked, not daring to guess.
“Not me,” Hector admitted honestly.
She knew. She didn’t even really have to ask Hector, because she already knew. As her voice caught in her throat, strangled by emotion, she swallowed back her tears and spoke just above a whisper to Hector. “Could you please excuse me for a few minutes? I need to run upstairs.”
He nodded and waved his hand dismissively. “No problem, go on.”
Like a flash, she nearly ran from Hector’s office and went straight to the elevator, and from there up to the top floor where she raced to David’s office. She didn’t bother to stop and talk to his secretary, but went directly in and didn’t stop until she reached his desk.
He looked up at her in surprise, and she set the folder down on his desk. “Did you do this?” she asked quietly.
David nodded. “Yes, I did.”
He shook his head gently. “I’m just a friend, helping another friend.” He stood up and walked slowly around the desk to her as she watched him like a hawk.
“Because believe it or not, I care deeply about you, and everything that I have ever done for you has been to help you.” He stopped near her and slid his hands down into his pockets, gazing at her.
She saw the genuine love in his eyes, and she heard the heartfelt emotion in his voice, and she knew that he meant what he said. She went to him and wrapped her arms around him, hugging him close to her.
With a sigh of relief, he held her in return, burying his face in her neck. She could feel hot tears on her cheek and it amazed her. Closing her eyes, she spoke in a soft voice in his ear. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
He leaned upward again and looked into her eyes. “I’d do anything for you, especially to help you.”
Emotion roiled through her and overtook her, and before she could even stop to think about it or argue with herself, she leaned up and kissed him tenderly on the lips, and he kissed her in return, hesitantly for a moment, but then blazing hot fires surrounded them, and the tension, anger, emotion, frustration, and love that they both felt ignited inside them both, connecting them, and their kisses turned passionate, stealing away their breath and burning away inside them with a magnetism that they could not resist.
In no time at all, they had each other’s clothes off, and they were locked in each other’s arms on the sofa in his office, lost in each other, lost in bliss, lost in love, and the world went on by all around them.
When they were satisfied and blissful, he held her close to him and gazed into her eyes. “I want to ask you again about the condo. I want so much to get you a condo here in the city. You’ll be close to work, you’ll be close to school, and admittedly you’ll be closer to me and I admit that’s a totally selfish move on my part, but I’m not ashamed to say it, and I just feel like you’d be safer.”
Thoughts of Wendell suddenly crossed her mind and the seeds of fear began to sprout in her heart. She knew that she had better take Wendell seriously. “Okay. I’ll take you up on it. Thank you.”
He laughed with joy and sat up, reaching for his clothes; a huge grin on his face. “That’s fantastic! I’ll take care of it immediately today, so you can move in anytime you like. The sooner the better!”
She got up and pulled her clothes back on, stopping to share kisses with him as she did so, in between buttons and pantyhose. “Thank you again.”
He shrugged. “Hey, I’ve got to look out for my girl.”
With a soft laugh, she kissed him once more and went out the door to go back downstairs. She didn’t want to use him, and she didn’t want to be obligated to him, but Wendell was a dangerous man, and no one knew it better than her, and she knew in her heart that the best thing that she could do would be to get as far away from him as possible, as soon as she could.