BenOn Tuesday, the Investors wanted to talk. A handful of wealthy people were invested in my company, pumping in money when we needed it. Their returns were worth their while, and I had always had a good working relationship with them, despite how many times the company had changed hands.Everything was up in the air, now. They weren’t as happy with me as they were before. Now that everything had come out on the news, they weren’t happy at all.“How credible are these rumors about the mafia?” one of them asked.“We’re losing money over this,” another said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. It’s affected the company horribly.”“Gentleman,” I said, stopping the conversation. “I know you’re worried. You have every right to be.”“How are we to know what’s going on?” another one of them said before I could say anything else. “You just took off without an explanation.”“Nothing like this ever happened while Lambert was involved. This looks bad for all of us.”When he talked about Unc
BenWhen I got off the phone, I was drained. The shit with this company was just never-ending. When it had been all about business, I hadn’t minded it so much, but it had bled over into my personal life, and I hated that.“Honey, can you help me with something?” my mom asked, coming into the room.I nodded. “Sure, what?”“I want to paint a few rooms. Paul will be away on a business trip this week – he’s leaving in the morning. Do you think you can help me? It will take a few days, so if you need to go back sooner, it’s okay.”I thought about it. When I had been younger, before Paul had come into the picture, my mom and I had done all sorts of things together to bond. We had built things, rearranged the house, taken on any kind of project we could think of. It had been a distraction for both of us after Dad had left, and it had been good for us to open up to each other instead of shutting down and moving on without talking.“I’d love to,” I said. “I can stay a few more days, I’m sure.
MilaBy Wednesday, it had been three days since I had been back at work. All I had wanted when I went back to work was to fall back into my normal routine and do what I did best – help others without thinking too much about myself.Unfortunately, it didn’t work that way.Everyone had been worried about me. I was flattered that so many people had panicked when I had disappeared. It was great to know that I meant something to so many people. But I didn’t want to remember anything about the kidnapping or why it had happened, and it was hard to forget when everyone was asking me questions about it.By this time, the questions had started dwindling, but they didn’t treat me the way they always had. They were still treating me as if something might be wrong– as if I needed special treatment. They were coddling me. I hated being coddled. I didn’t like it when all the attention was on me and not on the people that really needed it. There were patients in the hospital that needed all the atten
MilaI could have taken my break, of course. But it was difficult for me to carry on with life as usual when a man was fighting for his life and looking like he was going to lose. I couldn’t worry about the patient making it the one moment and have lunch in the cafeteria like nothing was wrong, the next. I would take my break when I could stomach the idea that sometimes we lost patients.Before the kidnapping, I had struggled with the concept of losing a patient, but it wasn’t this bad. Now, I felt like throwing up, like I was going to break apart if this old man didn’t make it. I had always been strong in situations like this even though it had affected me badly. What had changed? Why was I so much more emotionally involved than before?Maybe it was because I had been through a difficult time. When I had thought that my own death was around the corner. Maybe I wasn’t emotionally as alright as I thought I was. For the first time since the incident, I considered going to see someone ab
BenStaying with Mom a few more days had been a good idea. I hadn’t been ready to go back to New York yet, no matter how upset my investors were. Even though it had had no direct effect on me that Mila had been kidnapped, I felt like shit about it. Going back to sit in the office and work for the company that had caused all of this was difficult to stomach.I wasn’t even sure why I was working so hard for the investors to not pull their funding. The company may have been my father’s and Uncle Dean’s legacy, left to me in both their wills, but I just couldn’t see it as a positive thing anymore. Yes, it was an investment, but it had brought so much baggage and had hurt the person I loved most.What was more, I couldn’t even be with Mila because of the stupid business and everything that went wrong. I was seriously considering closing the company and paying off Victor Brantley with all the money that came out of it. Even if it ended up being more than a hundred million. I was ready to pu
Ben“You know, you’re mad about Mila, but I’m leaving so it’s not like we’re going to be together,” I said. Maybe it was a bit of a cheap shot. I was pissed off. But it was true. Yeah, I fucked up. But surely Jerrod could get over that, especially since the reason why he hated my guts now wasn’t even there anymore.Jerrod shook his head, leaning on the bar with both hands.“You’re a son of a bitch to leave her like this, you know that?” Jerrod asked.I frowned. “So, now I’m wrong for leaving?”“You said you were serious about her. Not serious enough, obviously. Must be nice to live a life where you can change your mind like that all the time without worrying about how people feel. Is it the money that’s doing this to you?”“What the fuck are you talking about?” I asked.Jerrod looked over my shoulder at the diners. Maybe it was because I was swearing. No one was close enough to have heard me, though. And he had been just as bad. I was almost sure of it. Besides, if Jerrod and I had b
MilaBy Friday, I still hadn’t spoken to Skylar about our fight. I hated that we weren’t okay. Skylar had been my best friend since high school, and we talked all the time about everything and anything. It sucked that I didn’t have my best friend with me, just now that I was going through what was easily the worst time of my life.The only other thing I knew how to do in the face of adversity was to escape. I eventually faced the music, but when things became too hard to bear and too much to think about, work was my way out. I buried myself in my routines and rounds, taking care of the patients as if they were the only thing that counted in my life. I filled my reports out meticulously, and I took shorter lunch breaks and worked longer hours.Maybe it wasn’t the best thing to push myself so hard, considering that I had been through a traumatic experience and I was pregnant on top of it. But it was exactly the reason why I was pushing so hard.Ben wanted to see me again, and it was jus
MilaI was suddenly terrified. I looked around the parking lot, looking for people who might come to harm me. A young man was walking to his car. I watched until he climbed in and drove away. He wasn’t a danger to me.But he’d had dark blond hair, and he hadn’t been very muscular. It reminded me of Victor.I climbed out of the car, leaving my food behind, and hurried to the hospital entrance. I couldn’t handle being in my car. I had hoped to doze off for a couple of minutes to reboot my tired body, but I was safer inside. Even if it was just from my own demons.When I sat in the locker room on one of the wooden benches, my back against the cold tiles, I could finally breathe again.Everyone knew what I had been through. They tried to be there for me, asked me how I was doing and offered me all the time I needed to myself. Even if I was already far over the number of days off I was allowed each year. But none of them knew what I was struggling with. There was nothing they could do to m