It’s pointless to try and put it back in my pants though, not yet. I haven’t been this hard since… well, I don’t think I ever have been, come to think of it.
Confirming what the guard said, I can see she does work just a few blocks away, and I frown when I see her address.
A rough side of town. Not somewhere I want her staying a minute longer than she has to.
But why run?
I ask her in my mind, going back to her photo.
For the first time in probably twenty years, I feel something I haven’t ever felt. Self-doubt.
I know I’m Mason Thorne. I know I own half this town. I know I get whatever I want.
But what if?
What if she’s really just not into older guys?
I have to push the thought aside. I can’t afford to think like this.
Leaning back, still keeping her picture up, I put my feet up on my desk, noticing how hard I still am. I start to thumb through the program.
Wondering if there’s anything about her in here somewhere.
It doesn’t take long.
There’s a list of all the candidates, hundreds by the looks, who’ve signed up to be auctioned for the charity of their choice.
Jules’ photo is the same one as her employee profile, and it looks like she’s auctioning her services for a soup kitchen downtown.
I feel a swelling of something else inside.
Pride.
I’m proud of her, putting others ahead of herself, going through all the nonsense of some auction style public humiliation.
That’s how I’d see it.
But when I see the starting bids in a Column next to the names and faces, I plant my feet back on the ground.
Standing, I push myself back into my pants and zip up.
I feel my anger rising again.
Starting bid: Twenty-five dollars.
I notice some of the other girls, even the men have bids ten times that.
There must be a typo?
Out of habit, I call aloud for Nicholas. Groaning when I remember he’s not here.
It takes a little doing. I’m ashamed to say I’m not quite used to having to look up information for myself and even dial my own phone calls.
But in a few moments, I’m talking to someone from Jules’ office.
Someone named Karen.
A quick glance at the auction program has her pegged for five hundred bucks starting bid, although I just can’t hear that kind of value in her voice.
CHAPTER FIVE
Jules
I can hardly see through the tears I’m holding back, but I feel myself skidding over some of those stupid programs.
A part of me knows I must be wrong. Mason Thorne just carried me to a couch, he was a mere inch from my face, practically groaning with... satisfaction?
But no.
I can’t believe it. I don’t see how a man like Mason could see anything in me, I must have a fever nearing delirium if I really believe he’d want me from anything. And now I’ve messed up the one job I had all over again.
Somehow, I make it to the elevators and out of the building, back to the street but I decide to walk this time.
I’m pretty sure the last cab ride took all the money I had on me anyway.
After about a block I start to calm down a little, having to stop only once because I still feeling so dizzy. But hey, I haven’t thrown up yet, so maybe I’m getting better.
Sighing loudly, I resign myself to returning to the office, not expecting Karen to be their anyway.
I may as well get started on the rest of the stuff she put on my to-do list anyway. I can always just say I dropped off those programs like she asked, which I did.
Kind of.
She wouldn’t believe me if I told her Mason Thorne was there anyway. The man is an enigma, rarely seen by anyone, and only briefly when he does make an appearance.
It’s not as if he’s gonna call her up and tell her there was a problem, we’re a small department. A cog in the Thorne machine.
Nobodies.
Getting back to the office a lot quicker than I thought I would, I feel the pit of my stomach lurch all over again and the room sway from side to side once I step inside.
I can hear Karen’s voice, and it fills me with dread.
Worse than that, once I step past her office door, I can overhear what she’s saying… who she must be speaking to.
It can’t be. It isn’t.
“Yeah? Well, I’m tellin’ you, whoever you are, we had the proofs checked twice during editing and once more before they went to print…oh really…? Is that a fact…?”
She sees me out the corner of her eye and starts snapping her fingers, looking mad, and ordering me inside her office with a wave of her skinny finger.
I gulp down hard and feel a painful lump at the back of my throat.
It’s not Mason. He’d never call, not over something so…
“Well, she’s just walked in, so maybe you’d like to ask her yourself,” she says, pressing the phone to her chest and rolling her eyes, hissing at me in a whisper.
“Whatever you did. You fucked it up, idiot! Now I’ve got some bug from Thorne’s office crawling up my ass. He’s trying to say you sent the wrong programs over. That there’s something wrong with them. Deal with it!” she spits, thrusting the phone into my hand. She sits back for a moment with her hands to her temples, then gets up and storms into her bathroom.
Holding the phone to my ear, I feel like the floor’s about to swallow me up. I kind of wish it would.
But as soon as I hear his voice, that deep, commanding tone with a degree of concern still, I feel myself melting all over again.
Mason Thorne is calling and he wants to speak to me!
“Is she gone? Jules, don’t let on it’s me. It’s Mason.”
I stifle a squeal as my heart leaps into my throat, it’s like someone up there has finally decided some good needs
