Restraint - Adriana Locke Page 0,90
say,” I tell them.
“Say that I’m in charge,” Wade says as he turns toward his car.
Oliver follows. “You’re so full of shit. You are not in charge.”
I laugh as I slip into my driver’s seat and close the door.
A part of me wishes I was going with them. But a bigger, more important part of me needs to find its other half.
And that half is in Chicago.
Thirty-Two
Blaire
“And this is why I don’t drink wine,” I groan, holding my temples.
The sun is too bright outside my office windows. The staff is too noisy. The sandwich that someone made in the break room is too stinky for me this afternoon.
“Can two glasses of wine in the evening cause this much pain this many hours later?” I ask Yancy as she enters my office. “Because I swear my head is going to split open.”
Yancy sets a cup of coffee on the edge of my desk. “Maybe this will help.”
I don’t have the heart to tell her that the smell makes me want to gag.
My blood pulses in my temple. It’s almost blinding. The pain is unrelenting despite the migraine medicine I took this morning.
It’s unbearable.
“You look really bad—in a sick, not a rude kind of way,” Yancy says.
“I don’t even have the energy to be offended by that.”
“Good.” She leans against the wall and crosses her arms over his chest. “You have a pretty tan.”
“Thanks.”
She’s trying to cheer me up, and I’m grateful for that. But the truth is that I don’t want to be cheered up. I want to wallow in my misery for a day or two, get it over with, and then move on with my life.
After Sienna left, I looked up heartbreak. Everything I read said that you really have to own your feelings before you can proceed with life. It matches what I know from my experience with Jack. So I’m going to feel this pain unless it kills me.
And it might.
“Yancy,” I say, standing up from behind my desk, “I’m going to go outside for some fresh air for a few minutes. I just need to clear my head. That sandwich that Barnard is eating is making me sick.”
“It’s tuna fish.” She curls her nose. “I saw it in the fridge this morning. I almost threw it out so we didn’t have to endure this, but I thought that was improper.”
“You work for an attorney. I can get you out of trouble.” I look at her and laugh. “Throw it away next time.”
“You got it.”
She steps to the side as I pass.
“I’ll be back up shortly. I won’t be gone long,” I tell her.
I keep my eyes focused on the wall ahead of me as I make my way to the elevators.
The office is bustling with people catching up from the shut-down and gossiping about whether they really found a dead body or if it really was asbestos.
It’s only when I’m in the elevator that I can put my guard down.
I punch the number for the ground floor and lean against the metal rail along the back wall. It’s cool under the thin fabric of my dress. I close my eyes and wish I was at home.
Or at Holt’s.
The pain that the website swore I had to endure comes roaring back like it knows it has a free pass. I can’t help but wonder if I had found another website that instructed me to ignore any discomfort if this hurt would go away.
I doubt it.
This bullshit is very, very real.
The doors swing open, and I’m met with a barrage of bodies. People scramble through the lobby like ants looking for a picnic blanket.
I step outside the elevator cart and freeze.
My entire body tenses as the leathery scent of Holt’s cologne billows my way. I allow myself three seconds to close my eyes and breathe it in. Then I lift my chin and march myself around the corner.
I have to stop this.
It will get easier.
I just need to— “Whoa!”
Something, or someone, hits me from the side. I go flying across the foyer, into a mailman, and onto the cold tile floor.
The impact breaks my spirit. All of the confidence I’d managed to muster this morning drains into the floor.
I try not to cry.
I sit on my knees on the floor and let my hair hang in my face. People scurry all around me, no one giving a second thought to the girl on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
I should stand and just go to my apartment. I’m