What the Heart Needs (20 page)

She needed to stop sleeping with him. The thought caught her off-guard and she laughed at herself. Why couldn’t she resist him? The second he was within six inches of her, her brain just went to mush. Any reservations she was firmly holding onto, slipped away. Granted, he was gorgeous. No woman would be able to deny how sexy that man was. But he wasn’t overly kind or charming.

Hannah let the overly hot water run down her body for a long few minutes. The man was truly talented with sex though. She never would have thought she would be a woman who would be into a man being so dominant and demanding. She definitely didn’t think she would tolerate, let alone enjoy, being pinned, or slapped, or choked. But she did. Every pore of Elliott’s body screamed with dominance. And every inch of her wanted to be dominated by him.

She should have screwed around more in college. Maybe she could have built up some kind of defences to her own body’s desires. It was extremely difficult to deny herself something that she had been ignoring for so many years. Her lady bits clearly had a mind of their own and she didn’t stand a chance.

And as much as she wanted to hate herself for it, a darker, larger part of herself was enjoying it. It was wonderful to realize she could experience a healthy sex life. She had gotten to the point where she didn’t even recognize she was a sexual creature anymore. It was easy to forget after a while. But when someone comes around and brings that part out of the dark, it was all-consuming.

She wished he wasn’t her boss. A little voice even suggested she quit just so she could enjoy him without having to worry about the consequences. If there was ever a man she wanted to spent a night staying up and doing nasty things with, it was none other than the impressive Elliott Michaels. He was the perfect lover, giving but also very demanding.

Apparently all those things she had read about female orgasms and how long they take and whatnot- was not entirely true. She just needed someone who knew how to work her body. She was sure that if she spent a full night with Elliott, he would make her orgasm enough times to make those sex scientists tear up their papers.

Hannah climbed out of the shower, wrapping herself tightly in a towel and carefully drying her hair just enough so that it didn’t drip all over her. She walked out to the kicthen, grabbing the tea kettle and putting it on the stove before rummaging around in the refridgerator for something to eat. Suddenly she was ravenous. She forgot she even had a appetite lately.

She sat down and plowed through two yogurts and a bowl of sugary cereal. It was pretty much all she had left in the house to eat that was any good.

Hannah sat down with her tea, cradling it between her hands and considering her situation. She didn’t want to stop sleeping with Elliott. But she also knew it was bound to blow up in her face if she didn’t put a stop to it. She wondered if maybe she and Elliott sat down and talked about it if she would feel better.

He had to value her as an employee. And he obviously wanted to keep having sex with her too.

Maybe they could be two rational adults about it.

Hannah felt satisfied at that idea, though she knew she would lack the courage to ever bring the subject up to him. She glanced up to the counter, expecting to see Ricky running around his cage.

But something was wrong.

She didn’t see Ricky at all.

She got up quickly, turning the light up, walking up to his cage and looking in. He wasn’t there.

But there was something in his place.

A picture. Hannah picked it up and felt everything she just ate rise up in her throat. It was a picture of her sleeping naked on top of Elliott in the office.

Someone had gotten into her apartment and actually taken her guinea pig. What kind of lunatic did something like that? Hannah turned the picture over and sprawled across the back in angry red lipstick was one word: whore.

Hannah dropped the picture, rushing to the bathroom and barely making it before she started throwing up.

She sat there on the cold floor after, tears drying on her cheeks, feeling hot and cold at the same time.

What the hell was she going to do?

Why the hell would someone take her pet? What kind of message was that supposed to be? Leaving the picture was one thing. It went along with all the notes and emails and all that nonsense. But to take Ricky?

Hannah felt a pain in her chest. She knew it was stupid, but she really loved that guinea pig. He wasn’t much to come home to, but he was something. He had been a constant for almost four years. And she could have accepted if he had somehow died of sickness or old age, but to know someone just… took him? That hurt more than she thought it could.

She had to do something. She had to put and end to this somehow.

Eleven

He walked onto the floor almost a full hour earlier than usual. He wanted to be sure he caught Hannah before the office filled up. Judging by the timestamps on many of her emails, she was almost always in around six in the morning. It explained how she managed to get so much work done. Though he wasn’t sure how she managed to not burn out. It also explained the dark circles under her eyes all the time.

Elliott filled the coffee pot and switched it on. It occurred to him that it was the first time in many years that he actually handled the task himself. Sometimes he got so wrapped up in everyday work and future work plans that he didn’t realize how much of his life was taken care of by other people.

He had spent his entire young life taking care of everything. His father had been a deadbeat who walked out one night without warning when he was seven and James was just an infant.

And his mother had had nothing. An apartment she couldn’t afford, a high school diploma, and two small children. He remembered the look on her face when she sat down at the dining room table the next morning, staring into open space. Even as a young child, he had recognized the hopelessness and misery, but the intense set of her jaw that suggested she wasn’t defeated.

They had packed up everything they owned with James crying on and off in his carseat, loaded up her old car, and drove for hours into the night. They had ended up in a congested neighborhood, lower-income housing in a sturdy brick building that was never quiet.

James got carted off to a downstairs older lady with too much makeup, deep voice, and a kind heart for most of the hours of the day.

His mother would wake him up early, putting together his breakfast and packing his lunch, and send him to the busstop as she got dressed for work. He would come home to an empty apartment and quietly do his homework and chores without having to be told. Around four in the afternoon, she would come breezing through the living room door all dark hair and shadows under her eyes.

He always had the coffee pot brewing before he heard her keys in the lock. They would sit and talk about their days for a while before she would slip into a hideous pink dress with a yellow apron and shuffle off to the diner where she worked dinner shift before rushing off to clean office buildings at night.

She always came in well after bedtime, James in her arms with leftovers from the diner she would put in the fridge for the next day. Then she would lay James in the crib and crawl into bed next to him, falling asleep almost instantly.

By the age of twelve, he had become the man of the house. He met James by his kindergarten class at the end of the day and rode the bus with him home. Then he would help him with his homework while trying to do his own, make dinner, clean, do laundry, go grocery shopping. He handled everything while his mother slaved away doing twelve to sixteen hour days to make the ends barely meet.

When he was old enough, he had gotten a job and stashed half of it away for a college fund and gave half of it to his mother. It gave her just enough slack to leave her waitressing job behind. She could be home in the afternoon with James, a luxury he had never gotten.

And James had grown up a bit spoiled, always having had a life without worry thanks to an older brother who tried his best to fill the shoes their father had left.

He had even paid for James’ college tuition.

Elliott ran a hand down his face. It wasn’t often he thought about those things. His entire life from a young age had been to try to ease some of the burden off his mother’s shoulders. He had managed along the way to replace her ancient, battered car, and help her with rent every month even while away at college.

It was the biggest disappointment of his life that he could never fully take care of her the way she wanted. Nothing had hurt more than getting the call from a despondent James in the middle of his senior business class that their mother had been hit and killed by a drunk driver.

Then there was more work to be done. Making the arrangements. Paying off debt-collectors. Taking legal custody of a sixteen year-old James. Moving out of his dorm room to a cheap college-adjacent apartment with one bedroom.

Elliott smiled. How James had hated him at times, raging against losing his mother and his friends, everything he had ever known and loved. Forced to sleep in a bunk bed with his older brother and live on ramen and store brand soda.

But then it was over. James started college and turned from a lonely, angry high schooler to a confident, over-zealous college student. Elliott remembered night after night of their apartment full of drunk kids while he slaved away trying to turn a loan from the bank into a company. Into a future. For them.

He used to do everything.

And now Hannah did.

Elliott sighed, pouring a cup of coffee and placing it on his desk.

It was then that he noticed it. A small white envelope with his name scrawled on the front. Turning it over, he pulled out a piece of white lined paper with a handwritten note.

Mr. Michaels,

I am writing to inform you of my intent to take a two week vacation. Effective immediately due to cirumstances beyond my control. I apologize for any inconvenience.

Sincerely,

Hannah Clary

Elliott felt the air rush out of his lungs. She was taking a two week vacation? Effective immediately? What was going on? Was she actually that freaked out about them hooking up that she felt the need to run away? And if so, why hadn’t she just quit?

He heard the chime of the elevator doors and grabbed the letter. Tad was just putting his coffee down on his desk and powering up his computer. He looked up, startled when he heard Elliott’s footsteps. Elliott threw the letter down on the desk impatiently. “Do you know about this?” Even to his own ears, his voice was harsh and grating.

Tad’s eyebrows drew together as he read the note. “She didn’t say anything to me,” he said, handing the note back to Elliott. A worried crease was forming in his forehead. “This isn’t like her.”

Elliott felt a sinking feeling in his chest. Hannah and Tad had seemed very close. The fact that she hadn’t said anything about some kind of emergency to him then she was lying. Apparently she hadn’t said anything to Tad about them having sex so she obviously wouldn’t tell him that was the reason she left. To avoid him. To put some space between them.

“Alright, thanks Tad,” he said, retreating back into his office.

“Mr. Micheals,” Tad called.

“Yeah?”

“I’ll let you know if I can get in touch with her.”

“Thanks,” he said again, closing his door and leaving Tad to marvel that the notoriously crass and nonchalantly rude Elliott Micheals had just thanked him twice in one minute.

--

Hannah could feel her pulse in her ears and a slow, heavy, sick feeling seemed to have permanently settled in her belly. Her hands felt clammy on the steering wheel and she couldn’t help but keep checking her rearview mirror, even though she had been driving for hours and there had barely been a car in sight for the previous twenty minutes. The road was becoming blurry and she reached for her cup of coffee.

She hadn’t even tried to sleep the night before. By the time she had finished checking every corner of her apartment with a frying pan in one hand and a flashlight in the other, she had decided for certain that she couldn’t possibly spend another night there. She had packed a duffle bag with clothes and books and poured a pot of coffee into thermal cups and hit the road before sunrise.

For the first hour and a half, she had driven around aimlessly, cursing herself for not having made a plan when she left her apartment. She could just drive to some secluded inn somewhere and try to regain her composure. But sleeping somewhere alone in a room where there wasn’t any security save for a middle aged married couple who ran the place asleep a floor below didn’t exactly fill her with confidence. She needed to find someplace where she felt safe.

And the first word that came to her mind was… Sam.

Hannah swung the car into a u-turn and started off for Star’s Landing. She hadn’t seen Sam in ages. They had kept casually in touch since they broke up before college. Why he had popped into her head when she thought of a safe place to land was beyond her. Maybe it was just because they had history. Because he wouldn’t ask too many questions if he knew she wasn’t in a talking mood. Or maybe simply because he was male.

Her parents would be nosy, would pester her about her emotional state, would pry until they got answers because that’s what loving, concerned parents would do. She could go stay at the inn. Emily was always working and she could desperately use some girl talk and a junk-food, chick-flick binge night. But if she stayed at the inn, everyone in town would know she was back and she would never get a moment of peace.

She had never been to Sam’s house. Farm, she corrected herself. He ran his own farm. He grew food and raised goats and some other nonsense. She always knew he was never going to leave Star’s Landing. His roots were too deeply planted in that small town dirt. From what she heard from her parents, who never fully understood why she had broken up with him, Sam had made quite a successful little business for himself. He had built a home and barns and employed people they had gone to school with.