Chapter 11
Cole
It was not fucking possible for me to concentrate. Monday morning had come way too fast for my liking. I had gotten up for my usual morning run around Central Park, but that hadn’t eased any of the tension brewing in me since leaving Violet’s apartment outside of Manhattan. I felt mechanical and detached from my own body while I moved about my office with an iPad in my hand.
Violet’s desk was empty. A part of me was relieved to see that she had followed my advice on taking the rest of the week off. The other part of me squirmed uncomfortably. I fucked my best friend’s daughter in my office. I fucked my best friend’s adult daughter who was a virgin of all things. What sort of person did that make me?
A shitty one. A real fucking shitty one. I deserved that special place in hell if there was any for men like me.
Nothing was going to make this easy. My cock ached at the memory of that tight and unpenetrated heat surrounding me. She had moaned so hard in my ear. Her fingers had clenched into the muscles of my arm. Even if I felt guilty as hell for what happened, I still couldn’t erase that possessive fire burning in me. Violet had been untouched until me. Smugness filled me before I stomped that away with an agitated sigh.
“Don’t go there,” I muttered to myself, rubbing an angry hand over my face. “Don’t you ever fucking feel proud about this shit.”
So far, I hadn’t received any angry phone calls from Alan yet. I know that Violet had returned to the Hamptons for a break, but then again, I know Alan wasn’t the type of man to confront others on the phone. He confronted them face to face.
I would let Violet down gently when she returned. Maybe moving her to a different position would be the best option to spite that possessive fire in me, wanting her to stay with me all the time. She was so young, though. Twenty-two years old, and maybe she had no idea of what she wanted in life. I had no idea what the fuck I wanted at twenty-two years old, but this was Violet. She was determined, ambitious, beautiful. She knew what she wanted. It occurred to me then that Violet had planned on getting close to me for a long time, and now that she was close enough, I didn’t know if I could let her go.
“Mr. Crayton?” Cheryl asked.
“What?”
“Have you heard a single word that I have said?’
I turned around to face Cheryl who stood near my desk with a paper pad propped on her knee. Her pen was poised, ready to write down whatever my answer should’ve been. Her lips stretched into a concerned frown.
“I’m sorry,” I said, snapping back to reality. “What did you say?”
“I asked if you wanted me to move your morning appointments around,” she said. “You don’t look well. I can move some of those meetings to Wednesday if you need the time off.”
“I don’t need time off,” I said.
Cheryl arched an eyebrow at me. “You don’t? You’ve been walking around your office all morning like you’re a zombie. You’ve lost all the color in your face. Is there something you need to tell me, boss?’
I reached up to wipe the cold sweat that covered my brow. “I guess that I don’t feel very well today. I might be coming down with something.”
Coming down with a case of Violet. I grimaced at that thought. Loosening my tie, I walked over to grab my cup of now cold coffee from my desk. I avoided Cheryl’s eyes the entire time.
“And what about Violet?” she asked. “I got your rather hasty email this morning that she is going home to the Hamptons for the week.”
My stomach churned at the mention of Violet. It was a good thing that I was facing the other direction so Cheryl wouldn’t see the emotions playing on my face.
“She isn’t feeling well, either,” I managed to say in a calm voice. “A bit homesick I think. She misses her parents, so I told her to go visit them for a week.”
“In the busiest week we have here at the office?”
“Meetings can be rescheduled,” I said, turning to look at Cheryl who sighed in irritation. “Don’t look at me like that. I pay you enough to deal with things like this.”
“I suppose that you do.” She rose from her chair, tucking her paper pad under her arm. “I can see that something is going on, boss. I don’t know what it is, but other people here in the office are talking about it.”
Shit.
“If there is anything going on,” Cheryl continued, leveling a long and hard look at me. “I suggest you think hard about what you are doing here, Mr. Crayton. While Violet is a grown woman, she is still very innocent.”
My throat went dry, and hot guilt flooded through me again. There was no telling what Violet what was thinking now that I had encouraged her to go home for the week. Unable to stand the silence in my office, or the sight of Violet’s unoccupied desk, I took my coffee mug to the break room to freshen it up. I needed something to get me through the rest of the day.
The break room was empty when I stepped inside, away from the chaos of ringing phones and chattering employees. I couldn’t even remember a time anymore when it was quiet at Crayton, Inc. The past ten years were a surreal and numb blur of various events and people that came and went. The Summers were the only steadfast friends throughout my entire life.
And I had violated their sense of trust in me in every way imaginable.
I poured myself a cup of hot coffee before taking a seat on the leather couch with an exhausted sigh. Sleep had been evading me, no matter how much I tried to drink myself into oblivion, but now, I had to deal with the upcoming work week without Violet around to help.
She really did make a good assistant. She was attentive. She could hit deadlines without any issues. The only problem the both of us had at this point was letting our personal emotions get tangled up in one another. How was I supposed to look at Violet after telling her that evening in my office was a mistake? It would crush her.
I knew that much about virgins. Their emotional stability often went off-kilter because it was a big deal. After twenty something years of sex, I could turn anything off inside of me without a problem. Violet didn’t have that ability just yet.
Which made the idea of pursuing a sexual relationship even less likely. I had to end it before anything went further. For Violet’s sake, but also for my sake. I pulled out my phone with the intention of finding her work number, but the break room door opened before I could even think of what I could possibly say to make things easier. My mood only worsened when Michael Foster stopped short in surprise when he saw me sitting in the break room.
“I’m sorry,” he said, hesitating near the door. “I didn’t think you took breaks in here.”
“I own this building,” I remarked, coolly. “I can take a break anywhere I want to. What are you doing taking a break so early in your shift?”
He held up his own coffee cup. “Just getting a quick refill, sir. The rest of the department said that I could come in here to get a quick refill whenever I needed to.”
“That is what scheduled breaks are for,” I said. Irritation swept through me as I got to my feet. I needed silence to think, and with Michael in the breakroom, I couldn’t be alone with my thoughts. “Get back to work, Foster. I’m not paying you to have coffee breaks.”
Michael scrambled to where the coffee pot was. “Of course, sir. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that I couldn’t come down here for refills.”
“Everyone would be down here if they needed refills,” I said, pouring my cup out into the sink. I needed something stronger than a cup of coffee to get through the rest of the day. “I’ll let this one slide, Foster. Don’t let me catch you in here again.”
The color in Michael’s face drained. Stepping out of the break room, I strode up to Cheryl’s desk where she was reading over a document with a frown. She looked up when I approached, unbuttoning the front of my jacket.
“I think I’m going to take that suggestion of yours,” I stated, clearing my throat. “I might need some time off to get my head screwed back on right.” Like that would help, given what happened.
Cheryl set the paper down on her desk and pulled her keyboard close to her. “I can reschedule your entire week if needed. Just say the word, Mr. Crayton.”
“Do it.”
Her fingers danced along the keyboard but stopped when I leaned down to look at her with a small and relieved smile that only she could see.
“Thank you,” I whispered. “When I come back, make it a point to take some time off too, Cheryl. You deserve it after all the work you have done for me.”
Cheryl smiled up at me. “Anytime, sir. My job is to make your life easier here in the office.”
“You’re doing a good job of it.”
I locked up my office a few minutes later. Lifting a hand to wave goodbye to Cheryl, I took the elevator down to the private underground garage to find my driver already waiting for me.
“Where to, Mr. Crayton?” he asked and opened the back-passenger door. “Any meetings we need to attend to or—”
“Just to my place,” I replied, sliding into the cool leather seat. “I’m taking the week off, so consider this your vacation, too.”
“You don’t need me to drive you around at all this week?”
“I’ll call you if I need you to drive me anywhere.”
He didn’t question it any further, but I could see the relief on his face. My employees and staff worked hard right alongside me. They never questioned any personal time off because it happened rarely for me, let alone them.
Manhattan was busy as I expected it to be, and it took twenty minutes for us to arrive at my penthouse suite on the very top floor of the building. The housemaids had already left for the morning. I stepped in through the front door with a relieved sigh. Everything was scrubbed clean from what I could see, and the dry cleaning had been placed in the closet without question.
Everything around me moved seamlessly. Nothing was out of place.
I took a long, hot shower with thoughts of Violet in my head again before dressing in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. I scrolled through my phone to settle on Violet’s work phone, but it went straight to voicemail when I called. I didn’t expect her to take work calls on vacation, but my heart still clenched anxiously. My fingers were heavy with dread when I dialed the Summers landline. It was the only way I could check on her since Violet wasn’t answering her personal or business phone.
It was Gloria who answered cheerfully on the third ring.
“Summers residence. This is Gloria.”
I swallowed the nervous bulge in my throat. “Hi, Gloria. It’s Cole. I just wanted to see if Violet made it back to the Hamptons without any problems.”
“Oh, yes. She arrived yesterday evening,” Gloria said. The tone of her voice didn’t suggest anything was amiss, and I let out a pent-up breath. “She said that you had told her to take some personal time off to come see us. I appreciate that you gave her some time off. The poor girl looks like she didn’t sleep well.”
Because of me.
“It’s the job,” I managed to say in an even voice. “It can be hard to adjust to the office because it’s so busy. That’s why I wanted to make sure that she got some time off with you and Alan. A refresher.”
“Well, it’s much appreciated. I’ll make sure that she gets some sleep while she’s here. Although, we do have a nice party coming up here. I found a very nice young man that I think would make her happy. Violet is so picky when it comes to any man who's interested in her.”
That jealous fire burned my chest again, but I cooled it quickly. That was what Violet needed. A man her age. She didn’t need someone like me. I had no idea if I even had the ability to love anyone after Stephanie. The hole in my heart seemed bottomless despite how much I tried to stuff in there.
“Good luck with that, Gloria. I just wanted to make sure that Violet got back okay.”
“I will pass the message on to her. Thanks for calling.”
She hung up without waiting to see if there was anything else. I left my phone to charge in my suite before heading down to walk my usual jogging route through Central Park. The park was abuzz with various activities while I walked along with my hand shoved deep in the pocket of my jeans. My sour mood only worsened when I replayed the short conversation with Gloria in my head.
I needed to let Violet go. I had to let her go. It was for the best, but something told me that my dick wouldn’t let it go very easily. That carnal part of me wanted to explore this further, despite what my head urged me to do. Even my own heart didn’t agree with my head.
“Just let it go,” I muttered, running a hand through my hair. “Let it go, Cole. Let it go before you break the poor girl’s heart.”