The Vegas Rerun, page 21
The diamond on this ring is oval, and it’s set on a delicate white gold band. It seems to almost glow against the black velvet it’s currently sitting in.
My breath catches so hard it hurts my throat, but I don’t say anything, don’t react to the pain. The moment is too intense for me to do anything but stare at Joshua as he starts to speak.
“Molly Matthews,” he says, looking up at me, his face open and vulnerable, something I have never seen from him before. “I want to spend forever with you.”
My heart is thudding so hard I swear it’s shaking my ribs. My ankle is starting to really hurt, but there is no way I’m spoiling this moment by mentioning the pain or going to sit down.
“I want to wake up next to you every day. I want to make you laugh every day, and bring you coffee in bed, and kiss you when you are pissed off with me. I want to get to know our daughter, my daughter. And I want to be there for every scraped knee and every ballet recital and every damn parent and teacher night, even the ones I’ll hate.”
I start crying again. Of course I do, because how could I not? I thought my tears where all used up, but maybe it was just that my sadness was all used up. These after all are happy tears.
“But I’m not saying all of this just because of her,” he says quickly. “You need to know that. I want Autumn in my life whatever happens between us, but Molly, I’ve been in love with you since Vegas. Since before I even knew your last name. You stayed with me. I couldn’t get you out of my head. And then when you walked into my office three years later, I thought I was dreaming.
“I thought maybe I was crazy. That I’d built it all up in my head. But then we started working together. And I hadn’t imagined anything. That feeling, that chemistry, that deep connection of two souls - it was there. That thing between us grew. You made everything feel different. Real. And every time you laughed at one of my dumb jokes or finished my sentences or knew exactly what I needed before I asked for it, I fell for you harder.”
I press a hand to my mouth, trying to breathe past the tremble in my chest.
“I know this probably seems fast. And I know I screwed up leaving earlier. But I needed you to understand that it’s not just about Autumn, and I didn’t have the words to make you believe that it’s about you. It’s always been you.”
He pauses. Takes a breath. Then he takes his suit jacket off and rolls up the sleeve of his shirt. My eyes go wide. It’s back. The little black star.
Our matching tattoo is back. The one we got in Vegas on a whim, still giddy and half drunk, meant to be a reminder of one crazy night. I kept mine because long after Joshua had flown home and became only a memory, I didn’t want to forget that sometimes, I could be reckless and do something crazy. And although it’s taken me this long to admit it, even to myself, that little black star above my left hip was a reminder of Joshua, something to tell me that it really happened.
I could never have gotten rid of it, but he did. And now it’s back.
“I got it redone,” he says. “Tonight. After I left. I wanted to show you I’m all in and I hope this symbol, as small as it is, says what my words can’t.”
My mouth opens, but no words come out. I’m not even sure what I wanted to say. Joshua looks up at me, still on one knee, his eyes full of something raw and real. I want to throw myself into his arms and tell him I never want us to be apart again, but I have to be more cautious than that, because if I go all in with him, then that means Autumn goes all in with him, and for that to happen, I have to be sure this is forever.
“So, with all of that said, it’s actually quite simple,” he says, his voice softer now. “Molly, will you marry me?”
I cover my mouth with both hands, shaking with emotion.
“I …” I say, trying to speak. I fail miserably, just stuttering out the word I. I try again, and this time, I am able to ask the question I bit back the first time. “Are you sure this is what you want?”
His brows pull together, like he can’t believe I’d have to ask.
“Molly,” he says, his voice full of emotion. He rises to his feet slowly, leaving the box open on my coffee table. “If you say no, I’ll understand, but only if you say no because you don’t want to marry me, not because you’re afraid that I don’t want to marry you. I know what this is. I know what we could be. I’ve known it since the moment you smiled at me in that bar in Vegas.”
I let out a shaky breath, stepping forward. He meets me halfway.
“But I need to ask,” I whisper. “If Autumn didn’t exist, would you still want to marry me?”
He doesn’t flinch.
“Yes,” he says without hesitation. “When I left here, I walked for a while to clear my head, and I got the tattoo done. I didn’t go and get an engagement ring. I bought that the morning after we got locked in the office together.”
“Really?” I say, and he nods his head, and I melt inside. He does want me. Not just Autumn. He bought the ring before he even knew about her. I can’t believe I’m this lucky, that this amazing man wants me like I want him.
“But I probably wouldn’t have found the guts to ask you yet,” he admits.
“Why not?” I ask.
“Well, I figured it was a big ask, seeing as you wouldn’t even agree to go on a date with me,” he says, and we both laugh.
I shake my head, and another rush of tears come. I let them run down my face, tickling my skin.
“I’m an idiot,” I say.
“You’re not an idiot,” he replies.
He cups my face in his hands, gently brushing the tears away with his thumb.
“I love you, Molly,” he says. “And I want to build a life with you. With Autumn. If you’ll have me.”
I look up at him, like really look.
This man, who walked out on me just an hour ago because he knew I would never believe he wanted me unless he came up with the right words and in that moment, he didn’t have them. This man, who came back with a ring and a tattoo because he loves me and wanted to prove it to me. This man, who is not promising perfection, but presence. The three of us together as a family.
My heart swells until I think it might burst.
“Yes,” I whisper.
His eyes widen.
“Yes?” he breathes.
“Yes,” I say again, laughing through the tears. “Yes, I love you too. And yes, I’ll marry you.”
He pulls me into his arms, lifting me off the ground like I weigh nothing, spinning me around once before setting me gently back down and kissing me breathless. It’s everything I remember and more; familiar yet charged with something deeper now. A sense of finality, like we are the end game.
When we pull apart, I rest my forehead against his.
“I do want to marry you,” I say. “But I don’t want to rush into anything. If it was just us, I would happily marry you tomorrow, but we have to think about Autumn. I want her to have plenty of time to get to know you and to adjust to having you in her life. I want us to have time to figure things out as a family.”
He nods without hesitation.
“Don’t worry. I get it. And we can take as long as you need. We’ll have a long engagement and there will be no pressure from me. As long as we’re together, I’m happy,” Joshua says.
He picks up the ring from the box and slips it gently onto my finger. It fits perfectly. Like it was always meant to be there.
“I still can’t believe you got the tattoo again,” I say, tracing the star on his arm with my fingertip.
“I wanted to prove I remembered who I was with you,” he says. “That I never forgot.”
I lean in and kiss him again, a slow, tender kiss, one that’s full of promise. Outside, the city keeps moving. But in here, everything is still. We have a long road ahead of us, but we’re finally starting to travel down it. Together.
CHAPTER 45
MOLLY
The elevator dings softly as it reaches the seventh floor, the familiar chime echoing in the pit of my stomach like a call to arms. I grip the strap of my purse a little bit tighter, and I take a deep breath before stepping out of the elevator. It’s strange how a place I once walked into every day without a second thought now feels like foreign ground. Like a battlefield.
But I’m here. I’m back. And I’m sure that alien feeling will fade away. Hell by ten o’clock I will most likely feel as though I’ve never been away.
Joshua is waiting for me right outside of the elevator, leaning casually against the wall in his usual pressed shirt and tailored suit pants, his arms crossed, but the second our eyes meet, he straightens up like a soldier coming to attention.
“You didn’t wait for me to come down and get you,” he says with a soft frown as he takes the large file from my hand without asking and carries it for me. My foot is good enough now that I no longer need the crutches, but it’s still nice to not have anything extra to carry.
“I rode the elevator, I didn’t trek through a warzone,” I say, trying to inject some lightness into the conversation. “I’m fine.”
He glances around the hallway like he’s scanning for threats, then returns his gaze to me.
“You’re safe now. But I’m not taking any chances,” he says.
I roll my eyes, but I remind myself to cut him some slack. Because the attack happened at work, I guess he feels kind of responsible for it and if meeting me at the elevator makes him feel better, I can live with that. Plus, he’s not the worst thing to see first thing when I arrive to work on a morning.
We walk down the hallway towards his office. I haven’t stepped foot inside the building since Sarah pushed me down the stairs and I glance at the door to the stairwell and look away quickly.
If Joshua catches me looking, he will think I’m not ready to be back at work and that’s an argument we’ve had enough times over the last few days. Still though, just thinking about myself flying down those stairs makes my chest tighten. I instinctively touch my side where the bruising has only recently faded, the phantom ache more emotional than physical now.
I pause when we reach my desk which is just outside of Joshua’s office. I take a moment, taking it in. My chair. My computer. The little ceramic dish with peppermint candies that Joshua pretends he doesn’t sneak from. It’s still mine. Sarah hasn’t been able to take this from me. It still feels like my area, and I start to feel more at home again.
I go around behind the desk and put my purse on the ground. I hang my jacket on the back of my chair and sit down. I smile up at Joshua as he puts the file down on my desk. He lingers for a moment, like he’s reluctant to leave me, but eventually he sighs and backs away.
“I’ll just be in my office. If you need anything – anything at all -you call me. Ok?”
“I think that’s meant to be the other way around considering I’m your secretary,” I say with a laugh. “Now go, before you have me a nervous wreck and I break something.”
The first day back is a blur of welcome back hugs and genuine smiles. There’s no sign of Sarah, thank God, and while a few people can’t help but sneak glances at the diamond ring on my finger, no one says anything rude. In fact, most of them seem happy for us. There’s a bouquet of flowers on my desk from someone anonymous, with a little card that reads: “Glad you’re back.”
Joshua had a companywide meeting between Sarah getting fired and me returning to work, where he basically told everyone what happened with Sarah. He also let people know that we are an item now and that it won’t affect anything work related, but he would rather people hear it from him than through the grapevine. Funnily enough, after being so against the idea of an office romance, it was actually me who asked Joshua to come clean about us because trying to keep it a secret makes it feel dirty, and not in a good way, it’s like we’re ashamed to be together.
Still, I hear the whispers sometimes and I feel the eyes on me. And not all of them are warm.
“Yeah, I bet she got the ring and the promotion at the same time.”
“I heard she didn’t even press charges.”
Those are just a couple of examples of the things I hear, but I just ignore it. I have to. Letting it in would mean giving Sarah space in my mind, and I’ve already given her too much. I know what this place is like for the gossip – it’s mostly harmless – and in a week or two, someone else will be the subject of it all.
Joshua hovers around me a lot on my first day, keeps checking that I’m ok, and coming up with reasons to come to my desk and speak to me. All of them are things he would normally either say on the intercom on my desk phone or call me into his office to say.
Every time I so much as get up to use the copier, he’s right there, pretending to be heading the same way. When I laugh with Erin from accounting over lunch in the breakroom, he walks by twice in ten minutes.
I want to be annoyed and push him away gently and remind him that I’m not some fragile piece of porcelain. But I can’t. Because every time he looks at me like that - like I’m the most precious thing in the world to him - I remember how close I came to being taken from him.
So, I let him hover. It would be annoying if he wasn’t so damned cute.
CHAPTER 46
MOLLY
By my third day back at work, things start to feel normal again. Almost. Joshua has relaxed slightly. He’s still very protective and he’s more attentive than anyone needs to be to their secretary, but I can at least go to the bathroom without finding him waiting outside of it for me now, so that’s progress, right.
Joshua has a client meeting off-site today. He asked me to cancel it, and I refused to, telling him he needs to get back to normal. What I don’t tell him is that I purposely arranged the meeting to be off-site so that he sees that nothing bad will happen to me while he’s gone. He insists that I text him every hour, and I refuse, although I’m not mean about it. I tease him gently about being a possessive fiancé.
He whispers, “Damn right I am,” but he does finally leave after making me promise to call him if I need anything, no matter how small.
I spend the time catching up on paperwork, answering emails, and reorganizing some contracts that somehow got completely out of order while I was gone. The time flies by and I’m shocked when I glance at the time and see it’s after two o’clock. Around two thirty, the phone on my desk rings.
“Hello, this is Mr. Redfern’s office, Molly speaking,” I say.
A woman’s voice answers, her tone soft and gentle and her words slightly rushed.
“Hi, Molly, it’s Grace - Grace Jordan. We met a few months ago. I’m one of Joshua’s clients. I drove over to drop off some documents, but my baby’s asleep in the car seat, and I really don’t want to wake her. Is there any chance you could come down and grab them?”
“Sure, no problem,” I say.
“I’m in a Silver Lexus. I’ll flash the lights when you get out so you can find me,” she says, and she hangs up.
I sit for a second debating going along and asking Patty or one of the other secretaries to go down for me. But the paperwork might be something confidential. But I can trust her not to look, surely. But then the client asked for me to come down. Maybe she wants to ask something too or maybe she has a message for Joshua.
I make my mind up and I stand up. Nothing is going to happen to me walking to the parking lot and back. Maybe it isn’t only Joshua that needed this off-site appointment to prove that nothing bad will happen. It seems that maybe I need it too.
I go to the elevator and ride down to the lobby. So far, so good. I cross the lobby and head outside and into the parking lot. It’s not exactly a sunny today and a grey light hangs over the space, making it feel even colder. I wish I had put my jacket on now, but I’ll only be here for a few minutes, hopefully.
I look around and I immediately see the silver Lexus parked near the far wall, and to clarify I’m right, the headlights blink once in a quick pulse. I make my way over, my heels clicking softly on the concrete. As I approach, I glance into the front seat but can’t see anyone clearly through the tinted window.
I’m almost level with the car when the driver’s side door bursts open. It happens too fast for me to react. One moment, I’m walking towards the car, and the next moment, the door is open, and Sarah is in front of me.
My blood turns to ice. She doesn’t look like she’s doing too well. Her hair is messy and tangled, a wild mass framing her face. Her eyes are wild with a kind of desperation I’ve never seen before, like what I imagine people mean when they say a person’s eyes look like those of a cornered animal. She grabs my arm tightly, yanking me closer to her. I stumble, catching myself on the edge of the car and before I know it, I’m leaning against the back passenger door of the car with Sarah blocking my escape.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I demand and I’m pleased that my voice sounds strong and like I’m not afraid of her. I’m getting kind of good at this acting thing.
Sarah ignores me and she pulls something from the inside of her coat. Fucking hell. It’s a gun. An actual gun. It’s a small, black pistol, and it is shiny and real and utterly fucking terrifying. She brings it up and puts it against my chest and I freeze.
“Sarah,” I start, my voice quieter now as I try to think what to say to talk her down.
“Shut up,” she snaps. Her hand is shaking, but the barrel of the gun doesn’t move. “You ruined my whole life. I’m going to have a criminal record because of you.”
“I’m not the one pressing charges; the company is,” I say, hoping to deflect her attention for long enough that I can grab the gun away from her, but it doesn’t work. Her hatred is solely for me.
“If it wasn’t for you, there wouldn’t be any charges to press,” she says. It’s ironic that she doesn’t seem to understand what if she hadn’t pushed me down the stairs, there wouldn’t be any charges to press either, but I’m not stupid enough to say that.
