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  Nicole could tell her cheeks were burning, and she hated herself for being so overt with her emotions. A man like Red could look at her and know instantly what she was thinking from one look at her blotchy cheeks. “I thought we were a team,” she sulked.

  “We’re a team, but I’m still the captain,” he said, his voice low, almost inaudible.

  He picked up his glass and threw the rest of the liquid back in one quick gulp. He put the empty glass down and cleared his throat. “Why don’t you go take a walk outside or perhaps explore the rest of the house?”

  “Alone?”

  He nodded. “A little alone time is always nice. Time to reflect on the day.” He sat back in his chair and turned to look out the window.

  It was clear that she’d been dismissed.

  ***

  Outside, it was cold for just a light dress. Also, it was dark, even though the road was still lit and there were beautiful floodlights in the expansive yard that gave everything an ethereal look.

  Nicole crossed her arms, shivering, and walked the grounds, trying to clear her head. She didn’t understand what was happening between them.

  Everything had been fine one minute, and the next his personality had drastically changed. She replayed the last hour or two in her head, rewinding certain scenes and going over the little interactions they’d had, to try and untangle the truth.

  The first strange moment had come when Red had taken that one phone call about Germany. For some reason, whatever transpired during that conversation had put him on edge—she’d immediately sensed it from his body language, his tone of voice.

  However, he’d snapped back to himself when they’d come home and he’d shown her the mansion. It was only when they’d started to get intimate that something had shifted in him. But why this time? She wondered, coming to the edge of the pond and staring out at the small family of ducks swimming nearby.

  In the semi-darkness she heard them paddling and quacking softly.

  Why did he act so differently this time than he had when they’d been intimate in the past?

  Nicole heard Danielle’s voice in her head, imagined her cynically laughing.

  You call having a few dates over the course of a month, a past? Are you seriously delusional?

  And then following quickly on the heels of that, her mother’s voice. Red’s personality hasn’t drastically changed, Nicole. You just didn’t know him well enough to realize how strange and cold he really is.

  Her stomach muscles clenched as she stood by the duck pond, the tears close to the surface now. She tried to fight them off. Relax, she told herself. So you had a weird moment. Red’s a powerful man with huge responsibility resting on his shoulders, and sometimes he gets stressed.

  But when she pictured him calling her a slut, and the way he’d given her those stinging lashes across her bare behind. It made Nicole question whether his feelings for her had changed, especially with how distant he’d become afterwards, as if disgusted by her mere presence.

  She kept hoping to feel Red’s hands on her shoulders, and then hear his voice, soothing her. I’m sorry, he’d say. I’m sorry I acted aloof and cool toward you. I love you so much. I’ll never be that way again.

  It never happened, though.

  After the wind picked up and Nicole started shivering, she walked slowly back inside the house.

  The place felt empty and lonely, much as Red had described it when telling her how it was before she came into his life. This wasn’t supposed to be how it was. Red was supposed to be telling her how happy she made him and they should have been lying together in bed or on the couch by the fire.

  Instead, Nicole wandered the halls of the first floor. There were other grand rooms that he hadn’t yet showed her. There was an entire gym—treadmills, elliptical, stationary bikes, free weights and Nautilus machines.

  He should charge me a membership to work out here. She smiled at this thought, but the smile died on her lips with the next. He still might—you never know with Red.

  After the gym, she saw a full racquetball court and then past that, a home theatre that rivaled most large movie theaters she’d been to recently. It had huge, comfy seats in rows—two levels of them, and a large screen with a projector at the back of the room.

  She wondered what Red watched here, all by himself.

  Nicole sat in one of the seats and curled up, feeling suddenly tired and homesick.

  Homesick for her parents’ simple home, for her college dorm room, even her apartment with Danielle in Brooklyn.

  Nicole drifted off to sleep, comfortable enough for the time being in the soft, warm theatre chair.

  ***

  She woke to the sound of shattering glass.

  Her eyes snapped open and her heart was instantly racing. She didn’t even know where she was at first, and then it all came back to her.

  Another loud crash from somewhere in the house.

  What if there’s been a breakin? She thought, imagining masked intruders with guns throwing everything that wasn’t nailed down into giant duffel bags.

  In her mind’s eye, Red was on the floor, his head bleeding from where they’d hit him.

  She heard a wild scream, a shout of rage and pain. It was primal, like an animal.

  Nicole crept out of the theatre room, her hands shaking with terror. Down the hall, she couldn’t see what was happening, but she had an idea where the sound was coming from.

  “Oh, god, oh god, please don’t let them hurt me,” she whimpered. She contemplated hiding, but couldn’t bring herself to cower like that. What if Red was in trouble, what if he needed her help?

  Finally, the sounds got louder, and she knew she was close.

  There were shadows on the wall from inside the dining room. Nicole crept toward the doorway, leaning just far enough to peek inside and see who was in there.

  It was Red, and he was alone.

  He was wearing only his silk black boxers and he was glistening with sweat. There was broken glass all over the floor, pieces of china and dishes everywhere. He’d torn the room apart.

  Red Jameson was a maniac. Terrified for her life, Nicole turned and ran past the dining room, hoping to get outside and down the road before he could catch her.

  But Red must have heard her footsteps, because a moment later he was chasing.

  “Nicole!” he shouted. “Nicole, wait!”

  She turned and looked over her shoulder, horrified at the sight of him. He was a madman, his curly black hair blown backwards as he ran at full speed to catch up.

  Near the foyer, he caught her arm and stopped her forward progress. Nicole turned and tried to fight him off, screaming as loud as she could for help.

  “Nicole,” he said, quieting his own voice and trying to get her attention. “Calm down. Honey…”

  “Please leave me alone.” She tried desperately to pull away, but Red was far too strong. He held her effortlessly, as if she were a child.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I don’t care.” She glared at him. “I want to go back to my apartment now.

  Please.”

  “Let me explain.”

  She shook her head, closing her eyes momentarily. An image came to her mind, of him throwing wine glasses against the wall and screaming. She didn’t want to be with him here alone, not after all of this.

  “I need…I need to go home. Immediately.”

  He must have seen, from the look on her face, that she meant it. “I’ll take you now.

  Just let me change.”

  She looked at his feet. “You’re bleeding.”

  He glanced down. “Oh. I must have cut myself from all that glass.” He tried to laugh.

  “I don’t want you to drive me anywhere. Please call me a car.” She hugged herself, retreating from his nearness.

  “Nicole…” he tried once more and she turned her head. Red sighed, a deep sigh that sounded as though it came from the very bottom of his beleaguered s
oul. “I’ll call a car. It should be here in minutes.”

  “I’m going to wait outside,” she told him, already walking away. “Please stay in here.”

  “Of course.”

  Suddenly, she felt a pang of regret that resonated in her chest. A pang of remorse for how she was treating him. She didn’t even know what had caused his outburst.

  Perhaps he’d gotten terrible news; a death in the family, someone was paralyzed. She had no idea and hadn’t bothered asking.

  But then she remembered how oddly he’d been behaving all night—the coldness with which he’d treated her. Even during their sexual interplay, he’d called her slut and treated her far too roughly—cruelly, when you got right down to it.

  She deserved better than this. No matter how beautiful the house, no matter how wonderful the pond and the scenery, the cars and clothes and money. She wouldn’t be treated so shabbily at Red’s bizarre whims.

  Outside, the air had grown very cold and she shivered uncontrollably. Nicole didn’t care about the chill night air, though. She only wanted to get in that town car and go back to her old apartment where it was reasonably safe. The most dangerous person there was a bitchy roommate who would just be happy to say, “I told you so.”

  The black car slid up to the doorway not ten minutes later. Nicole got inside and told the driver her address, to which he merely nodded and then the car glided away.

  She looked back at the house as they left, and her heart truly sank. Red was in there somewhere, alone, looking out at her as she went away.

  For the first time since deciding to leave, she realized she was abandoning her fiancé, running away from someone she had meant to spend her life protecting and honoring. She’d known Red had problems, but she hadn’t realized it would be like this.

  It was too much.

  Nicole arrived home about an hour later, thankful when she entered the apartment that Danielle appeared to be in her room, asleep. Danielle was a night owl who could just as easily have been up watching some late night infomercial, scarfing down ice cream.

  But the apartment was dark and quiet and Nicole was happy to tiptoe into her old room and close the door behind her softly. Then she took off her dress and slid into bed, naked. She was happy to be back, in a way, although exhausted.

  As she lay there, drifting, she thought of Red. The way he’d looked when she told him she didn’t want him to drive her home. His expression had been one of total devastation.

  She didn’t want him to hurt, ever.

  Nicole drifted off to an uneasy sleep, where she dreamed she was wandering down dark hallways in a maze that moved and changed. She needed to wait for certain passages to connect with one another before she could walk forward. Eventually she became confused and lost, wandering in circles.

  She wandered and wandered until the night finally ended and she awoke.

  When Nicole’s eyes fluttered open, light was streaming in through her bedroom window. And she could hear Danielle out in the common area making noise, which meant the hour was rather late. Danielle never got up before seven.

  Springing out of bed, Nicole grabbed her clothes for the day and started for the shower, hoping against hope she could keep the questions and explanations to a minimum.

  When Nicole left her room, Danielle was humming to herself and making a sandwich for her brown bag lunch. She looked up, saw Nicole, and went back to making her sandwich. Then she seemed to have a delayed reaction of pure shock. Danielle looked up again and shrieked. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m back,” Nicole sighed, trying to smile bravely.

  Danielle stepped back from the counter. “You’re back, back?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not just for a day or two.”

  Nicole shook her head. “No. I’m back. And I’d rather not talk about it right now.

  I’m late for work.”

  “So you still have a job.”

  For the first time, Nicole wondered. She might not have a job, actually. After all, she’d sort of dumped the CEO last night, and what were the chances he would let her keep working at his company after that?

  “I think I have a job,” Nicole replied slowly.

  “You think so?”

  “We’ll see.” She started for the bathroom. “I better get in the shower before they have even more reasons to fire me.”

  Danielle watched her go, still looking completely dumbstruck.

  ***

  It seemed as though life was always unbalanced, Nicole thought. On the one hand, her relationship with Red seemed to have imploded—again. On the other, things at work had somehow improved overnight.

  Remi swung by her desk that morning and said hello, asked how Nicole liked working for Edward.

  Nicole was honest and admitted that she’d rather have kept working for Remi.

  Remi said, “Maybe I can arrange that,” with a little smile.

  Later, Remi dropped by and invited Nicole to have lunch with her, which she immediately agreed to.

  During lunch, Remi apologized for being so horrible. She told Nicole that her mother had fallen ill the past weekend and she’d been so upset about it, she’d obviously taken her anxieties out on Nicole.

  They made up, and Remi once again promised to see if she could convince Edward to let Nicole come back to work for her.

  That greatly eased Nicole’s mind. Meanwhile, she tried her best to work diligently on the tasks Edward had assigned her, which were plentiful and dull.

  She wasn’t sure whether she was hoping to see Red again or not. Part of her definitely wanted to make sure he was okay, the other part was scared of what he might say to her if they did run into each other.

  But she didn’t see him.

  In fact, she didn’t see him for a full week. Nicole had no idea if he was even in the building at all, but if he was, he certainly didn’t set foot in her neck of the woods.

  Other people started to notice that Red wasn’t coming around her desk. There were those furtive looks again in Nicole’s direction from her coworkers, only now the looks were pitying, as if people already knew what had occurred and assumed she was dumped.

  Women especially were inclined to give her a sad face and tilt their heads just so, without uttering a word.

  They knew how to make her feel low.

  She stopped wearing the engagement ring. It was at home, packed in tissue paper and stuffed in the tip of one of her shoes in the back of her closet.

  Things had even returned to normal between her and Danielle. Nicole got the distinct impression that it was far easier to have friends when you were scraping the bottom of the barrel. Then everyone could feel superior and act really sorry for you, instead of wondering why you’d gotten something they hadn’t.

  She was becoming cynical, and she hated it.

  More than that, she was confused and sad and lonely. She missed Red.

  She missed his calls, his humor; the way he looked at her and made wry comments and little observations about things she said or did. He was so attentive, so watchful over her.

  She wished again and again that somehow she could have erased that first night at the house when everything had gone so inexplicably and horribly wrong.

  Nicole still didn’t understand what had happened.

  The weekend came and went, and Nicole spent the majority of it on the couch with Danielle, watching television and trying to act like she was fine. However, the nights were long and mostly sleepless, as she went back in her mind to the good nights with Red, and the way he’d looked at her and touched her.

  The next Monday morning, after their weekly team meeting , Edward approached Nicole at her desk. “I just got a message from Red,” he told her.

  Instantly, her heart skipped a beat and she couldn’t speak. She simply nodded at him.

  “He wants me to come up to his office at eleven, to present the organizational changes I’m making on the network. Since you’re kind of taking the lead on that project
, I figured you should come too.”

  “Red wants us to tell him about the new file structure?” she asked, flabbergasted. It was hardly a major undertaking relative to the company as a whole. Sure, it would mean some changes for the creative group, but nothing that should concern the CEO.

  Edward laughed. “Red’s always been this way. Sometimes you can be working on a two hundred thousand dollar contract and he doesn’t want to hear a peep about it. Other times, you’re doing some pro bono work for a local supermarket and he’s totally involved in every last piece of the thing.”

  “That’s…” She shook her head. “I don’t know what that is.”

  Edward smiled sympathetically. “Also, I just want to say that you don’t have to do this if you’re uncomfortable. Red didn’t specifically ask for you to come.” At the last sentence, his expression turned serious.

  “He didn’t?”

  “No. I’m sure he’d be fine either way.”

  Now she was more confused than ever. She’d assumed that Red had specifically requested her presence, that this little presentation about the file structure changes was just a ruse for him to see her.

  She took a deep breath and let it out. “Of course I’ll go. I’m the one working on the changes, so it would be silly not to.”

  “Okay, then. See you in a few. I’ll swing by.”

  Edward left and went back to his office, and Nicole went to the bathroom, where she freshened up. She was dressed in tight white slacks, dark red heels, and a blue blouse with a plunging neckline. Last week she hadn’t been herself, and some of her outfits had suffered. Luckily, today she’d worn one of her best and was feeling more confident as a result.

  Nicole found she was getting butterflies. Incredibly, she wanted to see Red again.

  Despite everything that had happened last week, the time apart had given her time to really think about things. Red hadn’t contacted her, hadn’t sent a text or email, nothing. Red had done none of those things, and for all she knew, was glad to be rid of her.

  She was sweating as Edward swung by her desk and told her it was time to go up for the presentation. On the elevator ride, he studied her closely. “Don’t be nervous,” he said. “Red’s going to grill me at least as much as he does you.”