Jealous in July (Spring River Valley Book 7) (11 page)

“Um…yeah. No…no. I’m sorry about this.” Mitzi collapsed into her
all-white leather recliner, sloshing a bit of wine as she did so. “I’m sorry about all his. I should have been in the office today, but I just couldn’t deal with…did Mason call everyone in for the ‘big talk’?”

“Yep.”

Mitzi rolled her eyes dramatically, then broke into a fit of semi-hysterical laughter. “I guess I ruined things for everyone. I know I wasn’t the only one who dared to fall in love with someone I worked with.” A hiccup interrupted the silence that followed her confession. “Oh, God. I’m drunk. I don’t usually drink you know. Brenda, I like you. I really do. You’re a nice kid.”

Brenda eased back into her seat on Mitzi’s leather couch. “Thanks. I’m twenty
-seven.”

“Right. You’re not a kid, but you’re still young
, and that’s what it’s all about. Youth and freedom. You can do anything you want to do and go anywhere you want to go and be with anyone you want to be with.”

“Well, within the limitations of company policy, apparently.” Brenda thought briefly of Riley
, but her concern quickly reverted to Chase who was waiting for her at the park. She pulled out her phone to text him that she was running late, but Mitzi held up a hand.

“I’m sorry. I’ll let you run, but before you go…let me give you one important piece of advice.”

“Okay.”
Just make it quick, please.

“Never get involved with someone you work with. It’
s a career killer.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Let’s order pizza. My treat.”

“I really can’t. I have an appointment.”

A look of utter bewilderment crossed Mitzi’s face. “I understand. I’m sorry for keeping you. It’s been a really bad day. Do you know, I don’t really have any female friends?” Mitzi placed a red-nailed hand in the center of her chest. “I know they call me the Dragon Lady—do you know where I got that nickname?”

Brenda had her suspicions, but she played it cool with an innocent shrug. “The courtroom?”

“Ha! High school. Nobody likes the head cheerleader. Nobody likes the smart girl with perfect grades. That’s okay. I did fine, but now…he dumped me. Who would you call if the man you were in love with dumped you?”

Brenda
thought of her confidante and sounding board. Her closest friend. “I’d call my friend Samantha.”

“I don’t have a Samantha. I don’t have anyone who would actually feel bad for me right now. I know it’s because I’m the other woman. I get that. But I loved him anyway…
I didn’t want to be involved with a married man. I didn’t plan it that way.”

What could Brenda say? She tried a sympathetic nod and glanced at the clock above the ornate mantle. Five
-thirty on the dot. Chase was waiting at the park, and Mitzi was sobbing. “Let me make a call, and then we can talk for a bit, if you want to, okay?”

Mitzi jumped up, sniffling, dumping her wine on the pale carpeting. “No, no. It’s okay. You go. Oh,
God, look at that mess. My cleaning lady will kill me.”

“Do you have club soda? That might help,” Brenda suggested, hoping Mitzi would run off to the kitchen to find some. The woman just stared at her blankly. “Mitzi? Are you okay?”

“I think I’m going to be sick.”

Oh,
please no
. “Not on this rug, you’re not.” She grabbed Mitzi’s thin shoulders and spun her toward the bathroom. Together they marched into the pink and gold powder room. Brenda positioned Mitzi near the commode and then did a neat about-face and marched herself back out. “I’ll be right out here. Splash some water on your face and take a few deep—”

The sound of retching interrupted Brenda’s instructions. Shoulders bowed, she leaned against the cool wall for a second, then raced back to retrieve her phone from the living room. She wanted to call Chase, but she figured even in her desperate state Mitzi might hear her, and she didn’t want to be caught talking about one of the partners. She texted as quickly as her fingers could move.
Stuck at Mitzi’s, lots of work. Sorry! Can we talk later?

As much as she wanted to slip out now, while Mitzi was otherwise occupied, some small part of her couldn’t bring herself to leave the woman in this kind of distress. Hopefully with the wine out of her system, she’d want nothing more than to sleep it off. Brenda kept her fingers crossed and knocked on the bathroom door. “Are you okay?”

The muffled reply sounded like an affirmative.

Brenda checked her phone. No response. What if Chase didn’t believe her?

A second later the bathroom door swung open, and Mitzi appeared. Mascara ran in zigzag lines down her cheeks and lip gloss smeared her chin. Brenda cringed. This was a side of her boss she would have never wanted to see, and she could imagine it was one Mitzi didn’t want anyone to know about either. “Maybe I should go now. You probably need to rest.”

“Brenda…I’m so sorry about all this.”

“You don’t have to apologize. I’ve been there. I’ve been dumped. I know it’s awful, but it gets better. You’ll be okay.” She put her arm around Mitzi and walked her back to the living room. The wine stain was probably too far gone for club soda to save the rug now, so she steered the woman away from the mess and sat her on the sofa. “Why don’t you try a little tea, maybe some toast, and then take a nap? You’ll feel a lot better in the morning, I promise you.”

“I love him. I really love him. It’s not just sex, you know.”

“I know.” Brenda had no idea, but it sounded good to agree. Glassy-eyed and shivering now, Mitzi curled up on the couch, hugging a pillow. Though she seemed oblivious to Brenda at the moment, she had no doubt Mitzi would notice her absence if she tried to quietly sneak out the door.

Resigned to her fate, she sat in one of the luxurious chairs. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“He pursued me, you know. He was so charming. He acted like he wanted to impress me.” A half smile curved Mitzi’s now naked lips. She rubbed at the mascara streaks, and Brenda searched the room frantically for a tissue, but there was nothing close at hand. “You can tell when a guy really cares, when he really wants you. He does certain things. He worries about you. There’s a look in his eyes. Do you know what I mean?” Now Mitzi turned her bleary gaze to Brenda, and something tightened in her stomach. She nodded. She had definitely seen that look…in Chase’s eyes last night.

He still hadn’t responded to her text.

“I don’t really know how it happened. I mean…I was doing my best not to let him get to me. I never intended to get involved with a married man, really.”

Brenda
hmm
’d in response. This was more a monologue than a conversation, but she couldn’t zone out. Mitzi needed a sympathetic ear, even if none of this was something an employee should be hearing about two of the firm’s partners.

“I don’t know…one day, he was there, I was there and everything changed. I wanted him. It was like lightning struck me.”

“Mmm. I know how that feels.” The words slipped out. God, that was how it had been last night. Thoughts of Riley had fled in the instant Chase’s lips met hers, and she’d been transformed. She’d never wanted a man more…and if the ache in her chest was any indication, she still did want him. More than ever.

Mitzi leaned forward. “So then you know
—it’s not something you can ignore. It’s primal. You can’t just walk away from it. Well, if you’re smart you do, but your brain stops working. Everything you thought, every logical plan you had goes out the window, and the next thing you know…you’re waking up next to him.”

Brenda shivered now. It was eerie to hear Mitzi describe her feelings so accurately. Was it really love or just an attack of lust? “How do you know it’s really right?” she found herself asking. “When it means your whole outlook on life gets turned upside down
, and everything you believed you knew or believed you felt isn’t what you know and isn’t what you feel anymore? Can you trust that feeling?”

A soft laugh broke through Mitzi’s frown. “Oh, you do know exactly what I’m talking about.”

“But are you saying it’s wrong to allow that feeling to take over? Should I ignore what I want?”

“Is he married?” Mitzi asked.

“No.”

“Then go for it. I should have ignored the feeling. Hell, I should have quit the firm and run screaming in the other direction
, and if I’d known I’d feel like this…oh my God, is this mascara?” She eyed the dark smudges on her hands and arms. “I’m a complete mess. I can’t believe I let this happen to me, all over a man!”

“But you love him,” Brenda cut in.

“But I don’t trust him. That’s the horrible part. Until yesterday I would have…” Mitzi cut herself off, and her expression changed. For a moment Brenda feared the woman would be sick again, but when Mitzi rose from the couch, it was with stony determination in her eyes. “Brenda, let me apologize again for putting you in this position. I have no right…no business telling you any of this. I hope it won’t get around the office.”

Brenda shook her head and rose also. Maybe this was her chance to escape. “Of course not.”

Mitzi straightened her blouse and swiped at her bloodshot eyes, then glanced at the scattered files on the coffee table and the bloodred wine spot on the carpet. “I have to get some things done. Thank you for coming over. I appreciate everything you’ve done. Would it be too much trouble to ask you to copy those affidavits and have them messengered to me at the court house by noon tomorrow?”

“Of course I can do that. No problem.” Brenda jumped up, grabbed her purse
, and scooped up the file she needed from the mess on the table. It was after six now, but maybe she could get in touch with Chase and tell him what she now understood she needed to tell him.

“Thank you again.”
Stone-faced, Mitzi led Brenda to the door of the condo and saw her out. “Again, I hope none of this gets around the office,” she repeated when Brenda stepped over the threshold.

“You can trust me, Mitzi. I’m not a gossip.” It bothered Brenda a little that she had to assure the woman of her loyalty. She’d worked for Mitzi for
almost two years and had always been discreet and professional. She chalked this sudden rudeness up to emotional upheaval and pasted on a smile as Mitzi pulled the glass door shut. “Call me if you…” The rest of her sentence died unspoken when she realized she was talking to a closed door.
Okay, fine.

It was certainly no mystery why Mitzi had no female friends,
but regardless, Brenda promised herself she wouldn’t say a word about this to her co-workers as much as she knew they’d kill to hear every detail.

Before she reached her car, she dialed Chase’s cell number. It rang and rang and finally went to voice mail. “Hey, I’m done at work. Call me…um…if you’re free.” For a long moment before she started her car, Brenda stared at her phone, but nothing happened, not a ring, not a text, not so much as a blip. Was he ignoring her?

She glanced up at the dark windows of Mitzi’s condo and considered the devastation she’d seen up there. She hadn’t lied when she’d said she’d been through it, and she didn’t want to go through it again. Loving someone was a big risk. She was already frantic wondering if she’d hurt Chase too badly to heal the rift between them. Like Mitzi, she had no idea what to do next. She wanted Chase back, but was it already too late to fix the damage she’d done?

Brenda arrived at her desk the next morning in a dark mood. Chase had never responded to her messages
, and her first call to his work number bounced to Danielle Lennox’s voice mail.

Apparently he was now going to great lengths to avoid her.

With several more frantic requests from Mitzi to fulfill and her co-workers dropping by her desk all morning to find out how her visit to the Dragon Lady’s condo had gone, she didn’t have much time to brood about the sorry state of her love life until almost noon.

Just as she was preparing to head to the cafeteria, Dani appeared at her desk, a stack of file folders clutched against her chest. “Hey, how’s it going?” she asked. “I hear you got called to the royal residence yesterday.”

“I did, and I can’t talk about it.” Brenda held up a hand. She’d already been offered a free lunch, movie tickets, and a thousand dollars to spill all the details of her time in Mitzi’s condo. Though she doubted the sincerity of the last offer, she knew people were buzzing about the crash and burn of the not-so-secret office love affair. The only person who hadn’t been by her desk hoping for a juicy tidbit today was Riley…well, and Chase.

“Oh, I’m not asking.” Dani grinned. “Officially, that is. Anything you want to spill privately, well, I can’t stop you, but that’s not why I came by.” She looked over her shoulder as though she had some deep secret to hide and slyly pulled a white envelope out from the center of the st
ack of folders she held. She dropped it on Brenda’s desk. “Read that, and then shred it.”

“Shred it?” Brenda eyed the plain white envelope and snatched up her letter opener. “Here’s the dagger
; where’s the cloak? What’s all this top secrecy about?”

“I’m not at liberty to say. I’m only the messenger.”