Page 104 of Resist
STERLING
(One Month Later)
It’s notunusual to be summoned to my wife’s office at a moment’s notice, but it’s usually a text message. So, when a meeting request appears on my calendar, my palms start to sweat.
I’m not sure how I make it through the hour between getting the summons, and the time of the meeting. I was supposed to read the next few chapters of edits on my desk, but I think I just sat staring at the same damn page for the past hour.
Am I getting fired? I guess I’ll find out in a few minutes. I don’t think I am. It’s not my birthday. She’s given me no reason to believe my performance is sub-par. Despite the fact that she kissed me before work this morning and brought me my favorite coffee, there’s an unsettling weight lying heavy in my stomach.
“Ah, Sterling. Come in.” She drops the pages she’s working on, and her pen, and gives me an impassive look.
Shit. What the fuck have I done?
In an instant, her stern face and aloof body language negates the fact we’re married, and overrules any personal relationship between us. Instead of brushing it off, I give her a short nod, swallow down my anxiety, and walk toward her desk trying not to drag my heels or hold my body like I’m walking toward my execution.
Taking a seat, I’m relieved to be off my shaky legs.
“I’m sure you’re wondering why I brought you here at six o’clock on a Friday evening.”
I am. Most of the office is gone. Corabelle brought in a ‘half day work day on Friday’ policy for the whole office. I’m only here tonight because she is. I think I saw a couple of other people milling around, we have a release party for one of our authors coming up, and it’s pedal-to-the-metal to get shit done on time for launch.
Corabelle has a manuscript next to her half-empty cup of coffee on the desk in front of her. There’s no information on the cover page, it’s blank. Is that one of mine? Did I fuck up someone’s book?
“Sterling?”
I pull my gaze from the white paper with a black, spiral-bound spine. “Mmmhm?”
“Do you know what this is?” She picks up the book I was eyeing.
“No.” I swallow, hard, clueless about where this is going.
She slides the book across the table to me, and it’s only then I notice a tremor in her hand. I pick up the book, but don’t drop my eyes from hers. She looks away first.
She’s nervous.
I open the first page and my heart stops dead. My chest constricts, my head gets light, and I look back at Corabelle. “Where’d you get this?” My voice is strained, like my body’s struggling to force out the words around the shock strapped around my chest.
“I found it.” She shrugs, but she’s now not meeting my stare.
“Found it buried in one of my moving boxes?” My face heats, but considering the way she lost her shit at me poking in her boxes, this feels like an invasion of my privacy. Especially considering that the book she’s placed in front of me is something I’ve been fucking around with for over a decade.
Fucking around with being the operative word. It was for my eyes only. Not for the eyes of the owner of one of the most renowned, boutique publishing houses in the country.
Why does she have this on her desk?
Is this something she can fire me for? Surely not, right? Why would she fire me? It’s an irrational thought that won’t fuck off.
Rationally speaking, she can’t fire me for scribbling down words on a page. Sure, I’ve worked at it more since I met her, an hour here, thirty minutes there. It’s something I’ve been picking up and putting down. But I printed that copy two weeks ago and tucked it in a to-be-unpacked box because it’s out of my system.
I don’t need to do anything more with it. It’s on the page, it’s just one book, case closed.
She clears her throat, picking up the pen and flicking it against the notepad in front of her. Good, she feels uncomfortable going snooping.
“I saw you working at something every evening.” She shrugs. “I was curious. I’d hoped you were doing the book, but I couldn’t be sure until...”
“Until you went hunting in my shit to find it.”
Her face is the color of tomatoes. “Yes. But it’s for your own good because we want it.”