Page 71 of The Back Forty
“I’ve always called you sweetheart.”
“Yes, but maybe you should stop.”
I nod despite hating it. “Noted,” I say. I level her with a look. “Alright. That’s all my stuff. Your turn.”Sweetheart.
Her eyes narrow. “My turn?”
I nod. “Yeah, and start with who the hell Elijah is.”
She stiffens. Then she leans back and folds her arms across her chest protectively. "Okay, Lawson."
Chapter 28 – Lawson
“Elijah was my last boss,” she says, her voice soft. “The job that I had before this one.”?
I nod once. “Okay.”
“And I also dated him. We were in a relationship.”
I feel that. Low in my gut. Jealousy. I rub my jaw. “I see. What did he do?” Because there has to be a story for why they broke up, she quit her job and moved to the opposite side of the country.
“More like what didn’t he do,” she mutters. She stares past me for a second, then takes a long sip of her tea like it’ll wash the memory down. “He hired me. I didn’t know anything about tech sales, and he took a chance on me fresh out of school. Said he’d mentor me. And he did. I learned everything from him. I was hooked on the high of it all. Hungry. Then he took me out to dinner one night and said it was to talk about strategy. It was, but there was more to his approach.”
My stomach knots. I don’t say anything. Just let her keep going.
“I didn’t think dating him was smart, but he was charming and intelligent. He knew the business inside and out. Said I had potential. Said he saw something in me no one else did and he was willing to teach me everything he knew and bring me up with him if I'd only let him.”
Her voice cracks. She covers it with a laugh. A brittle one.
“And then it turned sexual. Fast. Suddenly, I was more than just his star employee, I was the one he took on business trips. The one he paraded around. The one he made promises to.”
I grip the edge of the table so tight my knuckles pop. “And then what?”
“I stayed in the relationship for too long,” she cuts in, like the words might burn if she keeps them inside any longer. “Longer than I should’ve.”
“I see.”
“And then… I moved in with him. Catalina was in her residency, and I needed a place to live that wasn’t with her and her crazy hours if I was ever going to keep pace with Elijah and his employees. I thought it’d be temporary.”
My chest tightens, but I just nod. “Hm…”
“And then things just escalated.” She exhales hard through her nose. “I was working fourteen-hour days. Every day. Weekends too. He kept pushing me. Telling me to work harder, be better, do more. And I let him. I wanted to be good for him. I wanted to be the best. And I think… I think a part of me just needed someone to tell me I was doing a good job. My whole life, that’s what I’ve chased. Approval.” She laughs and shakes her head. “Middle child problems. First from my parents, then from him. They say the wounds you have from your childhood spill intoadulthood if you don’t address them, and damn if that isn't true. He was older, smarter and polished. I thought he knew everything, and I wanted to prove that I could keep up with the competitive industry. So, I just never turned it off.”
I watch her closely, my chest burning with the pain behind her words.
“I never shut it off and neither did he,” she repeats, voice softer now. “We’d work all day, travel for meetings, come home and talk strategy over dinner, stats over drinks, quarterly goals while we were in bed together. I’d try to zone out, throw on a movie or something light to clear my mind, and he’d start asking about conversion rates or product KPIs and I'd have to pause it to focus on his drill sergeant like questions. Sometimes I’d try to sleep at night, but he’d wake me up to ask if I'd followed up on a lead. In my gut I knew it was bizarre and unhealthy, but I couldn’t get myself out of it and I wanted to succeed. I was in so deep wanting to please him and never let him down.”
Her eyes are glassy now, locked on a memory that I can’t see.
“My brain was on fire. I started downing energy drinks because I didn’t want to sleep and miss out on a potential opportunity. I was driving all over Los Angeles dangerously. Caffeine to stay awake, wine to fall asleep. It spiraled fast. And by the time I realized how deep I was, I couldn’t see a way out. My whole world was work, and my whole identity was tied to that career and him. And then the panic attacks started coming back. Like they did in college except much worse and constant. I finally got on medication, just to survive it.”
I clench my jaw. Jesus. All this time, I didn’t know she’d been carrying this much.
She blows out another breath and her voice drops to a whisper. “And then it peaked. Completely crashed. I was in the city, justfinished a major pitch, I nailed it, by the way, and then I woke up in the hospital. No memory of how I got there. Stroke in the middle of a presentation.”
“Damn.” I lean in and squeeze her leg like I can hold her together with just my hand. “That’s—Dani, that’s a lot.”
She nods. “Yeah. Catalina was the one sitting at my bedside. She told me directly I needed to change, or I was gonna die. I tried to reason a less drastic approach, but the cardio doctor reinforced that point. I knew it. So, I broke up with Elijah, quit my job, moved out, moved here and took this job. I moved in with Isla and completely started over.”
