“Called security and had me escorted out of the building,” she confirmed, and his jaw dropped.
“Seriously?”
“Yes. I felt so . . .” The tears overflowed again as she remembered the mortifying moment she was marched out of his office and back to her own desk. “Humiliated.”
“That guy needs his ass kicked! Tell your brother about it.”
“No.” She could hear the panic in her own voice. “No, Cal. Luc doesn’t hear about this. He’s not to know who the father of this child is.” She was too embarrassed to let Luc know what a colossal mistake she’d made with Dante, and she couldn’t ruin a friendship he held dear.
“But what will you tell him about your job?”
“I’ll tell him I quit or something. It’ll be easy enough for him to believe of his loser sister.”
“Come on, hon,” Cal said. “That’s hardly fair. This wasn’t your fault.”
“Please just leave it for now.”
Cal nodded reluctantly and Cleo reached over to squeeze his forearm gently.
“I’m sorry I snapped at you, okay?”
“Yeah.” He shrugged. “I’m sorry I wasn’t grim enough to suit the occasion.”
She giggled wetly at the lame joke, and Cal grimaced before reaching into his pocket for a handkerchief.
“Jesus, blow your nose,” he said. “Look at the state of you. You’re such an ugly crier, Cleo.”
“Shut up,” she laughed, and blew her nose gustily. At that moment she just appreciated his presence so much that she couldn’t hold back an impulsive hug.
“Thank you. Sometimes I just don’t know what I’d do without you.”
By ten the following morning, Cleo was still lounging around in her robe and pajamas. She had no real desire to do much. She felt flat. She’d spent the better part of the morning hugging the toilet bowl, vomiting, and now she felt completely wrung out. Her stomach still uncertain, she gingerly padded to the sleeper couch that Cal had, for once, made up before traipsing off to parts unknown earlier that morning. He always disappeared for hours on end doing God knows what, God knows where. Cleo had been relieved to see the back of him that morning because his relentless and oblivious good cheer was driving her up the wall.
She was thinking about attempting to eat some food when a knock sounded on the front door. She frowned, not used to being here during the day and not at all sure who it could be. They had an intercom security system, so knocks at the door without advance warning were extremely rare.
The knock sounded again, and she pushed herself up from the couch. She paused for an instant to get the nausea under control, before making her way to the front door. There was no peephole, so she’d have to go the other route.
“Who’s there?” she called through the door. There was a long moment of silence during which she wondered if the person had moved on to a different apartment.
“Me.” The voice, only slightly muffled by the thin wood of the door, was instantly recognizable, and Cleo froze. When she didn’t respond for a full minute, the knock sounded again, loud and authoritative and so damned like him she wondered how she hadn’t guessed who it was from the sound of the knock alone.
“It’s me, Damaso!” he growled. “Open the damned door.”
“No.”
“What?”
She could practically feel his incredulity through the wood.
“I said no. Go away.”
“I will not leave until we have settled this matter.” He sounded pretty adamant, and she chewed on her lip indecisively.
“I didn’t think there was anything to settle. You’ve made your mind up.”
“I refuse to discuss this through the door. If you do not open it, I will kick it down. I don’t imagine it will take too much effort, the wood is so thin.”
“We can’t all have fancy walnut oak doors,” she said with a sneer, and he was right: the wood was pretty thin if she could hear him sigh through the door.
“I will count to three. If you do not open the door, I will-“
She clicked her tongue irritably and snatched open the door. Only after she stood facing him in his bespoke-suited splendor did she remember that she wore fleecy, polka-dot pajamas with a fuzzy pink robe and pink-and-white bunny slippers. Her hair was a mess, and she probably looked pretty washed out after that morning’s puking session. And the way he stared at her told her everything she needed to know about how truly awful she looked.
“Your hair . . .”
She stared at him in complete bewilderment. Why would her hair be the first thing he noticed about her? And then she remembered. She reached up a trembling hand to run a hand through her short, sleek bob, trying to recall if the pink she and Cal had applied to the bleached tips of her hair the night before was particularly vivid.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.