After Hours (23 page)

“Who said that?”

“Cur--” She stopped and bit her lip.

“Who?

“Curtis,” she whispered, reluctantly remembering the strength his words had given her.

“Funny you should quote him.”

Amera pointed at her. “You can laugh at me. Just don’t say I don’t deserve the membership because I do.”

“How do you know that? You don’t even know the requirements.”

“Why are you saying these things?”

“Why do you care?” Rania said, picking up one of the bags and placing it on the couch. “Amera, you hide then blame people for not seeing you.”
“That’s not true.”

Rania pulled a blouse out of the bag. “Tell me about Maya.”

“She’s a little girl I met at Peale House. Curtis pointed her out and I asked her to dance.”

“For you?”

“No, for him.”

Rania took out another blouse and set it aside. “Why didn’t you ask her to dance for you?”

“I don’t know,” Amera said, perplexed by the other woman’s behavior and questions. “I just thought it would be better.”
“So you hid behind Curtis to get her to dance.”

Amera frowned. “That’s not--”

“And when did you tell Curtis that you loved him?”

Amera sat down and motioned to one of the tops. “Take as much as you want.”

“You didn’t tell him did you?”

Amera stood and grabbed another bag. “Since you’re here you can take them all.”

Rania pulled out a scarf, impressed. “Gorgeous color.” She set the scarf down. “So he didn’t say I love you first?”

“He didn’t mean it.”

“So he
did
say it?”

“I told you. It was a hasty decision he regretted. I’m glad I didn’t say I loved him back, that would have been worse. He’s the one who changed his mind. He didn’t really love me. He didn’t come back to me. He wants to adopt Maya instead.”

Rania sent her a sharp look. “Instead? Did you expect him to adopt you too? Are you a child?”

Amera waved her hand. “That was a slip of the tongue.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Rania said, pinning her with a hard look. “You’re still so worried about being picked that you don’t realize how powerful you are.”

“Powerful? Me?”

“Yes. Why didn’t you pick Maya out as special? Why didn’t you pick Curtis to be the man you would love? You keep waiting, like in the stories, to be the chosen one, but in real life many times you have to pick yourself and that’s when life truly begins. You take the lead and say ‘I will love you’ ‘I’m amazing and deserve happiness.’ ‘I will care about you’. Not ‘Will you care about me and make me happy?’ If you’d truly loved Curtis, you would have waited for the truth or uncovered it on your own because you would have known that whether he loved you or not, you deserve to be loved.”

Amera folded her arms tight. “Love hurts too much. It’s better to stay away.”

“No, Amera. You’ve grown too used to pain and I’m here to tell you it’s time to welcome joy. Stop avoiding Susan because you think she has the life you never will. Stop imaging that your future will be the same as your past. Remember the Black Stockings oath?”

“No.”

Rania sighed, tapped something into her phone then held the phone out to Amera. “Read it out loud.”

“As a member of the Black Stockings Society I swear I will not reveal club secrets, I will accept nothing but the best and I will no longer settle for less.”

Rania nodded. “You’re not supposed to settle. I want you to put all your clothes back in the closet and wear your last pair of stockings within the next two weeks.”

That didn’t sound too hard. “That’s all?”

“No, I want you to wear the stockings to the factory and tell Bill the truth. Isn’t it time you let go of your first love?”

***

How foolish it seemed now to have had an unrequited love for so long. He’d been a young doctor in his early thirties when he’d come into her life. She’d given him drawings and written stories and left sweets on his desk in the clinic. She’d desperately wanted him to like her and see her and take her away. But he’d chosen someone else instead. Someone else who’d needed him more. A young boy with albinism, whose tender skin was scoured by the heat and whose light eyes were legally blinded by the sun. A young boy who she’d spent many days reading stories to and who’d imagined the touch of ice and snow along with her.

Before going to the factory, Amera decided to dress her best, wearing a moderately short, red linen skirt, to show off her stockings. They were black silk stockings, with a contrasting red seam down the back, and silk-screened image of a rose on each ankle. She selected a fitted, short-sleeved cashmere top, in soft pink, and accentuated the look with a thin, brown patent leather belt. To finish off the look, Amera added a stunning pair of diametrically designed, silver hoops, then pulled her hair back, and up, leaving it just a little unruly, to add a sense of danger.

Amera knocked on Bill’s office door.

He opened it and stared at her then his face spread into a wide smile. “I don’t know what you did, but you did it. He’s a changed man. I don’t know how to thank you. You said you’d find a way to keep the factory open and you did.”

“I did?”

He ushered her inside. “Don’t be coy. I just got word from Bishop that the factory is safe. But aside from that he’s made the morale here increase twofold by discussing child care options.”

“Actually I didn’t come here to talk about him,” Amera said taking a seat.

“Oh,” Bill said closing the door. He sat opposite her. “What is it?”

She pulled out a worn photograph of her in the hospital with Bill, both smiling at the camera. “Many years ago, you saved my life--”

He snatched the picture from her and stared at it amazed. “I don’t believe it. For so many years I didn’t feel as if I made a difference.” He lifted his watery gaze to hers. “This little girl was you?”

“Yes.”

He closed his eyes. “I remember the scent of coconut oil and aloe. Children singing and the sounds of a soccer ball bouncing on the dirt.” He glanced down at the photo. “And I remember this odd little girl with a serious face, light hair and eyes.”

Amera’s heart leaped. He remembered her, at least that was something. “I wanted to thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me. I did what I went there to do.”

“But you didn’t have to adopt my brother.”

He looked at her startled. “Your brother?”

“Yes, my brother was a couple years younger than me.”

He shook his head. “No one told me there were two of you. I wouldn’t have separated you if--”

“It was for the best. The director wanted to keep it a secret in case you thought you had to take me too and she didn’t want to ruin my brother’s chances.”

“No,” he said fiercely. “They should have told me I would have taken you too.”

“Really?”

“Of course. I’d mentioned adopting another child, but the director said a single guy like me would be better off with just one child. She said a child with his condition would need special care. And at the time he was really sick. My god, I didn’t even think to question why I let her persuade me out of it. I’m so sorry.”

Amera flung her arms around him, her heart singing. Someone had cared. Someone had seen her. Someone had wanted her, even briefly. And not just someone. Him. “Thank you,” she said drawing away, not ashamed by the depth of her feelings for him.

“For what?”

“Even considering it.”

He leaned against his desk. “It’s like I’ve won the lottery or something. First the factory not closing, then my older son--your brother--won a scholarship he didn’t even remember applying for. He’d had to delay his schooling and help me when things got tight, but I’d always promised him that he’d be able to finish his degree, now he can. And my younger son was selected by a special needs program all expenses paid. Now this.”

For a moment Amera couldn’t breathe. Curtis had kept his promise. Why? He didn’t have to. It didn’t make sense. “I have to go.”

“Wait, you can’t just leave like this.”

“I’ll call you,” she said giving him one last hug before leaving.

Amera stumbled to her car as if in a fog. Curtis hadn’t lied about Peale House being crooked, he’d kept Valdan functioning and he’d helped Bill. Why had he done all that but coldly withdrawn his proposal? Was Rania right? Was there something more behind what he had said? She didn’t want to care, she didn’t want to love him, but she did.

She sat in her car and drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. Something about Bill’s words kept echoing in her mind. Bishop said the factory is safe. Not that it had a reprieve, but safe. How had he managed that? She knew Bishop Senior.... Amera rested her hand on the steering wheel as a realization struck her. She’d never thought about his father. She’d forgotten the power he had. No doubt Bishop Senior had something to do with Curtis changing his mind. Of course he’d never let her know. He’d prefer to push her away.

Amera pounded the steering wheel. “Curtis you bastard,” she said, remembering the look of pain that had crossed his face when she’d ripped Maya’s bracelet. “What have you done?” Amera put her keys in the ignition, determined to find out.

“Did you shake hands with the devil?”

Curtis froze at the sound of her voice. It was the last thing he expected to hear on his drive home from the office. He’d gotten into his car after a long day at work, never paying attention to who was at the wheel. “What are you doing?”

“Driving you home, sir. That’s what we cockroaches do. Or am I a rat?”

Curtis gripped his hands into fists. “Stop it, Em.”

“You don’t have to give me a nickname, sir. I know I don’t mean anything to you, but thanks for what you did for Bill.”

Curtis shifted his gaze to the traffic.

“He told me that the factory is safe. How did you do that?”

Curtis tapped the window with the back of his fingers. “You never used to talk this much.”

“I never used to love you this much either.”

His fingers stopped. “Pull over.”

“No.”

He met her gaze in the rearview mirror. “Why are you doing this?”

“Have you ever thought of hiring me as your driver? I could use the work.”

“Stop it, Em.”

“Your father doesn’t have to know.”

“I said pull over,” he said in a firm voice.

“No.”

“How can you be my driver when you can’t even follow directions?”

“I’ll pull over in two minutes.”

He unlocked the door and started to open it.

Amera looked back at him in alarm. “Are you crazy?”

“Either you pull over or I get out now.”

Amera swore then pulled over to the side and parked. “I just wanted to--”

Curtis jumped out of the car and slammed the door before she could finish.

She sighed and hung her head in defeat. He’d won again. She looked up when he knocked on the window. When she didn’t move, he motioned for her to get out.

She pushed the car door open and reluctantly rose to her feet. “Curtis--.”

His gaze drifted down from her hat to her stockings. “What kind of driver are you supposed to be?”

“A tempting one.”

His gaze heated. “You’ve succeeded.”

She reached for his collar and pulled him close.

He shook his head. “But I’m not kissing you.”

She grinned. “Right, I’m kissing you.”

He shook his head again. “You’re not doing that either.”

Her smile fell and she searched his face suddenly unsure. “Why not? Don’t you--”

He pressed a finger against her lips, his dark gaze hard. “Em, I’m the son of a bastard. There are few things I fear and my father--”

Amera removed his hand. “Will never let you forget your failures. Every great man has failures. But truly great men have families and friends. People who care about them and that’s something your father has never had, but you do.
You don’t have to live in the shadow of the Bishops anymore. You don’t have to do it the way it’s always been done and you don’t have to stay under your father’s grip the rest of your life. Stop waiting for him to die so that you can be free.”

He drew her close and held her. “I’m so tired,” he said with a deep raspy sigh. “Every day without you has been...like I was cast out of heaven.” He shook his head. “I don’t want to lose you again.”

She cupped his face then kissed him. “What would people say if they knew you were a man of such sweet words?”

“It would ruin my reputation.”

“I think that would do my fiancé some good.”

The corner of his mouth kicked up in a grin. “I’m listening.”

Two years later

The bastard still wasn’t dead, but the machines at Valdan hummed as normal. The workers didn’t care that Benjamin Marshall Bishop continued to rule his empire from his sick bed. Or that his son Curtis Bishop was the spitting image of his father, tall and dark, with ruggedly handsome features. When he suddenly appeared that Monday morning after the Thanksgiving holiday and stood high above the factory floor casting his gaze over the workers, the hum of the machines slowly came to a stop quickly replaced by the sound of applause and celebration.