Page 98 of The Ice Queen in the Corner Office

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Alex

“Okay,” she said. “I’m ready. Let’s go.”

I ended my phone call and pulled in a breath. I’d been holding it, breathing shallowly, the idea that I’d screwed up badly enough that I’d lost her forever tearing at me like a physical monster in my belly trying to claw its way out.

I wanted to reach for her hand, but I hadn’t earned that right. I’d hurt her, and I needed to make it better. Even though being so close to her, having her scent fill the air around me, as I pushed the elevator button and waited, was a torture unlike any I’d known before.

She followed me onto the elevator. I leaned against the back wall of the car, so I could drink her in. Her back was to me, her shoulders tense, all the progress I’d made digging through to the real Jill gone.

Her hair was pulled back in a tight bun, but a few wavy strands had fallen loose, like they hated her cool mask, her pretended indifference, as much as I did. I wished I could go back, back to that moment when she’d laid in my arms, when she’d been mine, and promise never to let her go. To tell her everything that was happening. It’s what I should have done, but I’d been blinded by fear and the need to do everything in my power to keep her safe, even if it meant getting as far from her as possible.

The elevator stopped, and the doors opened onto the parking garage. I stepped out ahead of her, making my way to my car, praying she would follow.

I held open the passenger door and sighed with relief when she got in and sat. I closed the door gently, resisting the urge to lock it to keep her with me.

I drove slowly, wanting to prolong my time with her, even if she was silent and wary, but we soon merged onto the congested Atlanta highways and I had no choice but to go fast. So, I started talking. I wasn’t even sure what I was talking about, I just kept talking and hoped my words would keep her by my side, would chip away at those walls she’d built back up.

“I grew up less than ten miles from downtown Atlanta,” I said. “But I only left the neighborhood once, on a school field trip to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial and park. We drove across the city to get there and I saw the frenetic life of downtown, everyone moving with purpose, the tall buildings and the color and energy. I knew I wanted to live there some day. I knew I’d do whatever it took to get out of the neighborhood I grew up in. I was only twelve and I had no idea how I was going to do it, I just knew I had to find a way.”

I got off the interstate and turned down a familiar road. Just two blocks later, I parked on the sidewalk. “This is the house I grew up in. Dad’s inside. I’ll take you in to visit, if you want, but I have some other things to show you before my hour’s up.”

She shook her head, her lips pressed tight together. I saw my neighborhood through her eyes. The house I’d grown up in was clean, a one-story, shotgun-style house crammed in among similar houses, but the porch was sagging and the shutters were faded. The house on one side had boarded up windows and was covered in graffiti, but the house on the other side was well-maintained. There were no yards to speak of and the houses across the street were equally rough. “I used to ride my bike all around here. Rick looked out for me, taught me to ride a bike, gave me his because Dad couldn’t afford to buy me one of my own.”

“And your mom?” she asked, her voice quiet.

“She died when I was a kid. Overdose.”

“That must have been hard.”

“Yeah.” I was tempted to change the subject or make light of it, but she deserved more than that. “Dad tried, but he had to take on a second job to pay the bills, and he was always exhausted when he was home. Rick took care of us the way you and Noah took care of your family. He made sure we had something to eat and had done our homework. He was this huge guy, a football player, one of the best on the team, and he had ambitious plans for the future, but he always made sure Willow and I were alright. He gave up on having a social life to look out for us.”

“What happened to him?”

“Broken collarbone. It was the sort of thing that would have kept him off the field for a season at the most, but it happened off the field, the week before he was supposed to leave for college. He’d been messing around with some friends, playing ball in the street, and he landed wrong. The school was still willing to take him, but they wouldn’t pay his tuition for the first year if he couldn’t play. Rick could have gotten financial aid or deferred for a year, but he just gave up. It was like…” I rubbed my thighs, trying to remember that moment when Rick had chosen to forgo all his dreams. “It was like he’d just barely believed it was even possible his dream could come true and, when he had to wait another year,…” I shook my head. “Anyway, he was stuck here, laid up and miserable, and he started drinking more and more, getting angrier and angrier and angrier at the world and everyone in it. By the time he was healed up, he’d become this bitter, wasted, out-of-shape guy with a million plans to get rich quick because hard work hadn’t gotten him anywhere.”

“If he’d just held on a little longer…” she said.

“I think about that every day. The man he could have been. What he could be doing now. I’ll never understand why he threw it all away.”

“Because you’re a fighter,” she said. “You’re not built to give up.”

“Maybe.”

“How’s your dad doing? Have you had the funeral?”

“Couple days ago,” I said. “It was a small thing, just family.” I ran my hand through my hair. I’d had a plan and time was ticking away, only thirty minutes left now, but I had to let her take the lead on this if I had any chance at all. “You want to stop in and see him?”

“I’d like that.”

***

“So he convinced you to come back around, did he?” Dad said as soon as I walked in with Jill.

“He can be very persuasive,” she said with a gentle smile.

“Don’t I know it. He and Willow have convinced me to move to that little town in the mountains where your momma’s got her bed and breakfast. I always said I’d never leave Atlanta for anyone, but they’ve talked me into it.”

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