Break Away
Authors: Ellie Grace
Break Away
Copyright © 2014 by Ellie Grace
Smashwords Edition 2014
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Break Away
Copyright © 2014 by Ellie Grace
Smashwords Edition 2014
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without express permission from the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover Design by Sarah Hansen of
Okay Creations
(http://www.okaycreations.com/)
Interior Formatting & Design by Angela McLaurin,
Fictional Formats
(https://www.facebook.com/FictionalFormats)
Epub ISBN: 978-0-9914060-1-2
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For everyone who’s helped me along the way.
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For the first time since I’d arrived at the office, I glanced up from the piles of reports and spreadsheets that littered my desk and checked the time. It was already almost noon, and despite the fact that my morning coffee and muffin were practically untouched, it was also time for my lunch break.
It never ceased to amaze me how quickly time went by while performing the menial office tasks that went along with working at an investment firm in New York City. My official job title was “Assistant Analyst,” which was really just a fancy term for someone who pushes paper all day and takes care of all the tedious duties that all the higher-ups were too busy and important to do themselves. I’m not sure what I had originally planned to do with my business degree, but being a glorified secretary wasn’t exactly what I’d had in mind.
I’d been working at Chambers International for almost a year, since graduating from New York University. Investment banking wasn’t something I was particularly interested in, but my fiancé, Steven, was a senior analyst at the company, and his father also happened to be the CEO. Oh, and his grandfather was the company’s founder. Needless to say, Steven had planned his whole life around working there and eventually taking it over, so when he suggested how great it would be for us to work together, I eventually agreed. He ended up proposing to me a few days later, leaving me to wonder if he was motivated by love or by the fact that I had finally added myself to the grand equation of his life.
Of course, Steven’s office was upstairs with the other big-wigs and executives, so we didn’t actually work together or see each other aside from the occasional lunch when his schedule permitted. Not that I minded. I wasn’t working at his family’s company because I wanted any handouts or special treatment. The truth was, I had taken the job because it was convenient, and I hadn’t known what else to do.
I normally ate lunch by myself in the employee cafeteria, but today I decided to call up to Steven’s office and find out if he wanted to join me. The phone rang only once before his secretary answered in her usual cheerful tone.
“Good afternoon, Steven Chambers’ office. How may I help you?”
“Hi, Lynn, it’s Olivia,” I said. “Is Steven available by any chance?”
“No, hon, I’m afraid he’s not. He went home for the day… said he wasn’t feeling very well and thought he might be coming down with the flu.”
“Oh, no problem. Thank you, Lynn.” I hung up. That was strange; he hadn’t mentioned that he was sick, and normally nothing could keep him out of the office. I hoped it wasn’t anything too serious.
I made my way down to the first floor, but instead of going to the cafeteria, I decided to go to our apartment to check on Steven, stopping at a bistro along the way to pick up a bowl of his favorite chicken noodle soup. He was always making comments about how “cold” and “distant” I was, and even though he claimed to be joking around, I had the urge to do something nice and prove him wrong.
After greeting the doorman of our building, I stepped into the elevator and made my way up to our apartment on the fifth floor. Steven moved into this exclusive apartment complex when he was first hired full-time at the company. At the time, I was still a junior at NYU and hadn’t wanted to move from the cozy, on-campus apartment that I shared with my roommate, Nora. However, after graduation when Nora moved back home to South Carolina and Steven and I got engaged, moving in with him made the most sense.
I still hadn’t adjusted to living in such an elegant place and being a part of the glitzy lifestyle that Steven had always known. It was an entirely new world for me, and I would probably never get used to it. The only way of life I’d ever known was penny-pinching to make ends meet, shoebox apartments, and always earning my own keep. I didn’t like Steven to pay my way, but he insisted on it. I did my best to reciprocate by always taking care of him—cooking his meals, cleaning the apartment, doing his laundry, ironing his shirts and basically catering to his every need. He seemed to like it that way.
I would have preferred paying rent.
Still, I was grateful to Steven. He’d come into my life and taken care of me when I had no one else. So no matter how much I hated cooking and cleaning, I would always do it for him.
The summer after I graduated high school, and only a month before I was to begin my first year at NYU, my mother died in a car accident. I’d never known my so-called father; he left when I was three, and we never heard from him again. My mom was an only child and lost both of her parents when she was young, so she was all the family I had. We moved around a lot while I was growing up. My mom would relocate to wherever there was work available, and since we were never in one place for an extended period of time, I’d never had any true, lifelong friends who stayed in touch. When I lost my mom, I was all alone.
As devastated as I was when my mom died, I began college in the fall as planned, mainly due to the simple fact that I hadn’t had anywhere else to go. I went through the motions of school and classes, but it was all a haze. I’d become completely numb to everything around me. My roommate, Nora, was a big help, but she had her own problems. Within the first couple weeks of school I’d met Steven at the college library. He was a junior at the time and, unlike me, seemed to have his whole life together. He was determined, and always seemed to know the right thing to say. All of a sudden, I wasn’t so alone anymore. He took care of me and was there for me when no one else was.