“Yes.Now!”Mr. Cavanaugh snapped back.
After a few tense seconds, Gage released me and stepped back. I stood there feeling stupid, scared, pathetic, and confused as hell as Mr. Cavanaugh maneuvered himself between me and Gage.
His back towards me, he said, “I have to draw the line somewhere, Gage.”
I could hear Gage scoff, even if I couldn’t see him. Lorcan Cavanaugh was every bit as tall and broad as Gage. “Since when doyouacknowledge lines?”
Mr. Cavanaugh straightened to his full height. “Since the conference room, in which you’re standing in, has windows for anyone to look in and see you with your hands on Ms. Anderson, Gage. Nine-one-one being on everyone’s speed dial is that line.”
Before Gage could respond, Mr. Cavanaugh turned to me. “Go back to your desk, Ms. Anderson.”
And I did.
I fled like a coward.
Twice now.
Chapter 24
Gage~
The ice in the tumbler clinked with another pour gone; an entire bottle of scotch nearly gone.
What the actual fuck?
After Lorcan had kicked me out of his building, I’d gone straight home and have been nursing my rage with all the available liquors at my disposal.
Lorcan had been right to intervene, or else I’d probably be in jail right now, but I still couldn’t shake howrighteverything had felt the second I had accosted Mystic in that conference room. It had felt like a bear awaking from hibernation; alive and ready to do what’s in its nature to do.
There had been a lot going on in my mind-and in my fucking pants-but more than anything, I had wanted to break and ask Mysticwhy. I had wanted to ask her why did she fucking just up and leave me. But I hadn’t. Partly because I hadn’t been thinking straight, and partly because did it even matter all these years later?
I also knew, after my first three glasses of liquor, that I wasn’t going to be able to work with her on the Darwin proposal. There was no way I could stand to be near her and not lose my shit. I’d either kill her or fuck her, and neither was a good idea. I had too much to live for in regard to the former, and I valued my sanity in regard to the latter.
However, I still haven’t managed to calm down and I still found myself wanting to know why she left me. I knew it shouldn’t still bother me all these years later, but it did. I had loved that fucking girl with everything in me. I had loved her beyond reason, and she had walked away from me without any thought to what that rejection was going to do to me.
And it had done a lot.
While my father might have damaged me, Mystic had broken me.
She had managed to do the one thing that I had been fighting against ever since I first caught my father being a sonofabitch. Mystic had given me everything I had needed to cope, and then she had taken it all away. And now, all I could think of was doing the same thing to her.
I wanted to hurt her.
God, how I wanted to hurt her.
I wanted her to suffer in her own misery like I had to.
Fuckin, like I still was.
With that decision made, I called Lorcan. Sure, it was late, but Lorcan hardly ever slept. He was like me in that work ruled his world.
“How much?” he asked in lieu of a greeting.
“How much, what?”
“Is your bail,” he clarified.
Dick.
