I stopped squirming, stopped fidgeting. It felt like even my heart stopped beating as I waited, phone slick in my clammy hand. I stayed still so I could hear, but Michael's voice came through the line crystal clear.
"What? Who? Listen, I told you to have those quarterly reports to me thirty minutes ago and I still don't have them. I don't know what I'm paying you for if not—"
With my movements robotic and mechanical and devoid of feeling, I hung up, deleted the call from my phone, and ripped up the number at the bottom of the instructional guide. I tried to keep my mind blank as I returned to work on the furniture. I focused on the sound of the hammer, convincing myself that if I kept the pounding of the hammer steady, I could keep the pounding of my heart steady as well.
I worked in total silence, skipping lunch and dinner, till it was finally finished. I centred it in the middle of the room and stepped back.
I didn't need him.
And I wouldn't need him.
That was my new motto.
I didn't need him.
And I wouldn't need him.
We wouldn't need him.
I'd almost managed to get that through my head when suddenly the bassinette I spent all day putting together wobbled unsteadily and then folded in on itself, crashing to the floor with a thud I couldn't hear over the rushing of blood in my ears. I stared unblinking at the mess of wood and nails at my feet, and I could no longer hold back the tears that I'd damned up inside of me with cardboard and spare patches of duct tape.
They came hot and fast down my cheeks. I sank down shakily against the wall. I pulled my knees tight to my chest and wrapped my arms protectively around my legs. I sobbed, struggling to suck in air as I cried. My whole body quivered and I cried even harder realising there was no one to wrap their arms around me.
There wouldn't be.
I cried till my vision blurred and my nose ran and my breathing stuttered and shook. I cried till the front of my t-shirt was wet and my throat raw and my eyes puffy and red. I cried till I fell asleep.
I dreamed that my tears turned to rain and Michael and I danced barefoot beneath the downpour.
Michael
Nine years later…
Three hundred or so men and women rose immediately to their feet when I stepped into the ballroom of the Merrion Hotel. I didn't bother glancing at, let alone acknowledging, a single one of them as I strode confidently to the stage. My hands were stuffed into the pockets of my Gucci suit, fingers twisting round the silk thong of the woman I fucked in the back of the limo on the way over. I knew the name of the shade of her red lipstick still smudged on the shaft of my cock, but not her name.
I leapt easily to the stage as the ridiculous applause continued. Nine years ago I felt like a fish amongst a sea of vicious, ruthless sharks, their teeth pearly white and their fins adorned with diamond cufflinks. But as I snatched up the microphone, I grinned wickedly at how foolish I had once been. These assholes were still sharks, dead-eyed and constantly hungry for blood. But I wasn't a fish.
I was the man standing on the other side of the glass.
Whether they knew it or not, these sharks, so feared and loathed, were swimming in my fish tank. I decided when they got fed, if they got fed. I decided how much room they had to swim. I decided whether the glass remained intact or whether with a snap of my fingers it shattered, leaving them to flop and gasp amongst the wreckage. I could see it in their eyes as I looked out over the crowd: they feared me.
When I opened my mouth to speak, they all stopped clapping and sank into their chairs without a word further like dead moths falling after flying into an electric trap.
"Thank you all for coming out tonight," I said into the microphone in the pervasive silence. "And sorry to keep you waiting. I was…handling some business."
An image of the woman's hands pressed against the fogged-up windows of the limousine parked outside the hotel flashed through my mind, and I grinned wickedly.
"It is obviously a tremendous honour to become the youngest senior partner in the long, illustrious history of the firm. PLA Harper is the best the world has to offer for corporate law, and I intend to become the best the best has to offer."
My smile was more like the baring of fangs as I accepted another wave of applause. Nine years ago I saw this all as a game, the back scratching, the parading, the posturing and positioning. And I was right. It was a game. Even tonight the banners, the balloons, the fine linen tablecloths were all just decorations on the game board. It was, all of it, just a ridiculous game.
What I didn't realise nine years ago was how goddamn good I could be at it. Nor how much fucking fun it was to win.
Lifting my hand and lowering it worked to silence the crowd just as easily as three hundred or so guillotines lifting and lowering. I pulled the microphone close again.
"Look, I know you all just want to get drunk and fuck and do the cocaine you definitely don't have in your breast pocket," I paused during the laughter to wink at no one in particular. "I'll let you get to it. I just have a few people to thank before you do…"
My assistant, Caroline, was waiting for me a with a glass of champagne when
