She Left Me Breathless (15 page)

“Yes I did and I am,” Karen said, nodding her head in an exaggerated fashion.

Jason Kindle cleared his throat. “The public has a right to know.”

Karen’s cheeks flushed red, matching the fiery color of her hair. “It’s none of your freakin’ damn business, Mr. Kindle, and it damn sure isn’t the public’s business.”

“I have repeatedly called you over the last hour and I have better things to do with my time and I demand an answer!” Jason Kindle yelled through the speakerphone.

Sydney and Caitlyn both stifled a laugh at the expression on Karen’s face. The man had no idea who he was dealing with.

Karen shook her head, floored by the man’s boldness. “Oh, you demand, do you? Well, Mr. Kindle, you’ve just been redirected to the office of
I don’t give a freakin’
shit
. You have a great day now,” Karen laughed and then promptly disconnected the line.

“What the hell is he talking about?” Sydney asked.

“Come on, I have something to show you,” Caitlyn said, motioning for Sydney to follow her. They walked past several offices and stopped in the doorway of the break room where a group of employees sat huddled together watching the TV mounted on the wall. As soon as they saw Sydney and Caitlyn, the room went instantly quiet.

Caitlyn pointed at the TV. “That’s what he was talking about.”

Sydney watched the TV as several pictures appeared on the screen. The photos showed Sydney along with Meredith and several other women who were either entering or leaving the downtown Dayton Lesbian bar called Covers. One photo showed Sydney and Meredith with their arms around each other. A caption at the bottom of the screen stated that Meredith and Sydney had split up after ten years together.

Sydney took a deep breath as her eyes fell on the photo of her and Meredith engaged in a kiss and it wasn’t the friendly peck on the cheek type of kiss. Another photo clearly showed the tip of Meredith’s tongue tracing an outline around Sydney’s bottom lip.

“Damn her to hell,” Sydney muttered under her breath. Meredith had threatened her but Sydney never thought she would stoop this low. If winning her back was Meredith’s goal, she sure was going about it the wrong way.

Sydney glanced at the employees in the break room, their eyes glued to the TV screen. She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the doorframe for support. She felt her anger rise to the surface as she made a deliberate show of loudly clearing her voice. When the employees turned to look at her, she said, “I think all of you probably have something better to do with your time.”

Chairs scraped on the linoleum, and a pop can tumbled over on the table as the employees, embarrassment written on most of their faces, mumbled apologies as they made a hasty exit from the room.

“Look on the bright side, Syd. Welsh stock shot up six bucks a share when the news broke,” Caitlyn said with a nervous laugh.

“I’m sure that’s a small consolation to some of our old-school male stockholder’s,” Sydney said, shaking her head. “To them, reputation is more important than the size of their bank accounts.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that. You’ve made your major stockholder’s very wealthy, besides, if they have a problem with your sex life, I would venture to bet they’re just jealous because you can get a better looking woman than they can,” Caitlyn chuckled.

Sydney couldn’t help but laugh. She wrapped her arm around Caitlyn’s shoulders. “Have I told you lately how glad I am that you work for me and not my competitors?”

Caitlyn smiled. “Ah, maybe once or twice but you can tell me again. Do you have time for a quick meeting?” she asked, her expression turning serious.

Sydney glanced at her watch. It was a little after six and Jackie wouldn’t be here for another forty-five minutes. “Sure, your office or mine?”

“Mine. I have some news regarding our Salami problem that I think you will be interested in.”

Edward glared at the TV screen. His knuckles were white from squeezing the glass in his hand. He looked up as Rachel came over to refill his glass.

“Did you know that she was a fucking dyke?”

“Who?” Rachel played ignorant. She knew exactly what he was talking about and had stopped dead in her tracks when the announcer on the TV mentioned Sydney’s name.

“Sydney Welsh. She’s a God damn dyke,” he said between clenched teeth. “I knew something was wrong with her.”

“Um, no. I had no idea,” Rachel lied. She could see the anger in his eyes and the last thing she needed right now was to say something that would set him off.

“Why didn’t you tell me she bought your company? Were you trying to hide it from me?” he asked, accusingly.

“No Edward, I wasn’t. It just slipped my mind.”

The news reporter began talking about the EMCOR takeover and how the news about the self-made millionaire’s sex life didn’t seem to be affecting Welsh stock. If anything, it had risen in value. The reporter went on to describe the woman kissing Sydney in the photo as Meredith Lansing, an executive at Welsh Enterprises who also happened to be Sydney’s long-term girlfriend of ten years. Rachel looked at the gorgeous woman in the photo and then something unexpected happened. She felt sick to her stomach as a deep-seated pain settled in her chest. Her face flushed as she realized what the pain was—jealousy.

Edward jumped up from his chair, startling her. He jabbed his finger at her face. “I don’t want you around that woman and if that means quitting your job then that’s what you’ll do.”

Rachel sighed. “Fine, Edward. I will look for another job,” she said in resignation. She was too tired to argue.

“Women like her are trouble. She’ll try to turn you queer. She’s probably trying to turn Caitlyn queer, too. Hell, she may already have. That’s what her kind do, you know.”

Rachel shook her head and had to try hard not to laugh at the absurdity of his statement. “No, Edward, I didn’t know that’s how they recruited their women.”

“I meant what I said. I don’t want you anywhere around that perverted woman,” he said as he downed half the contents of his glass.

“Whatever you say, Edward,” Rachel said as she turned and went back to the kitchen. She had fully planned to tell Edward about her new job assignment but after seeing his reaction toward Sydney, she knew that was no longer the smart thing to do. She would keep to her usual routine in the morning and dress in her business attire as if she were going to her job at EMCOR. She would pack an extra set of clothes and change into jeans once she arrived at Sydney’s house. If she was going to do this, she might as well be comfortable, at least as comfortable as she could be around Sydney Welsh. She wondered if Sydney would be there or if she would have free reign to make whatever changes she saw fit. Whatever the case may be, she hoped with any luck, she would be able to go in, get the job done, and be out of there and out of Sydney’s life for good. If she could pull this off, she didn’t see any point in telling Edward.

She sat down and laid her arms on the table. She felt a lump in her throat and was powerless to stop the tears streaming down her cheeks. She laid her head across her arms. How in the world did she ever let her life get this messed up? This was not even close to the life she had dreamed of for herself. She raised her head and wiped the tears from her face just as the back door opened.

“Hi, Mom,” Alyssa shrieked happily when she saw Rachel. The bubbling eight-year-old was the spitting image of Caitlyn. She came over, wrapped her arms around Rachel’s neck, and kissed her on the cheek.

“Hi, baby,” Rachel said, forcing a smile on her face as she tucked a strand of Alyssa’s hair behind her ear.

Alyssa leaned back to look at her mother’s face. Her eyebrows pinched together. “Are you okay? Have you been crying?”

Rachel felt her heart break as she looked at her youngest daughter. She could see the concern in her bright blue eyes. Just like Caitlyn, Alyssa was just too intuitive for her own good.

“I’m okay, babe, I just have a slight head cold,” Rachel said with more confidence than she felt. “Did you have a good time at Christy’s?”

“We had a blast. Oh, and I made you something,” Alyssa said as she reached into her coat pocket. She pulled out a small yellow colored daisy made from felt and handed it to Rachel. “There’s a magnet on the back so you can put it on the refrigerator.”

“And that’s exactly where I will put it. It’s beautiful, baby. Thank you. I love it.” Rachel wanted to cry.

“Is Daddy home yet?” Alyssa asked.

“He’s in the living room honey and I’m sure he will be happy to see you, too.” Her heart swelled with love as she watched Alyssa leave the kitchen.
She is the reason why I have to stay and make this marriage work
she told herself for the thousandth time.

Sydney closed the door to Caitlyn’s office. She laid her briefcase on the table next to the coffee maker. She grabbed two coffee cups and filled it with hot steaming liquid. She took the cups over to the desk and sat them down.

“Thanks,” Caitlyn said without taking her eyes off the computer monitor.

Sydney slid a chair over next to her. “You’re most welcome,” she said as she watched Caitlyn maneuver the mouse around the screen.

Within a few seconds, several pages of code scrolled down the screen. Caitlyn clicked her mouse and the page stopped. “See this line of code here?” she asked, pointing at the gibberish on the screen.

“Yeah, kinda looks like all the rest,” Sydney laughed. Although she knew how to use computers, the intricacies of how these things actually worked still baffled her.

Caitlyn shook her head. “Well, it’s not. In fact, it’s very different.”

“I have no idea how you can tell but I sure am glad you can.”

“We had a visitor Friday night,” Caitlyn said, turning in her seat to look at Sydney. 

Sydney frowned. “How can you tell?”

“Remember the key loggers I installed on the executives desktops and laptops?”

Sydney nodded.

“I also installed them on my desktop as well as yours.”

Sydney’s eyebrows shot up. “Why ours?” she asked, wondering what could have possessed Caitlyn to do that.

“I figured that if whoever was behind the embezzlement somehow figured out that we were onto their little scheme, maybe they would use mine or your computer to access our system, hoping to throw us off.”

Sydney was impressed. “And?” she asked, her lips curving into a smile.

“They did. Actually, they used mine,” Caitlyn said.

“You’re kidding?”

Caitlyn shook her head. “They accessed it Friday night, Syd.”

“Friday night,” Sydney repeated the words. They were silent for several seconds. “That was the night of my Christmas party,” Sydney said as she sipped her coffee. “Do you have an idea of what time?” she asked.

“Eleven-ten,” Caitlyn said then added, “I could kick myself in the ass over this.”

Sydney’s head shot up. She looked at Caitlyn. As long as she had known the young woman, she couldn’t recall ever hearing Caitlyn swear. “Why do you say that?” she asked.

“Because, when I wrote the new code to alert me if our system was accessed I also added code that would forward the information to my Blackberry the second it happened and it just so happens, I locked it in my desk drawer and didn’t find it until this morning.”

“You are way too hard on yourself, Caitlyn.

“It was irresponsible of me, Syd. If I had taken my Blackberry, we may have been able to catch the perp in the process.”

Sydney laughed. “The perp, huh?”

“You like that?” Caitlyn asked, grinning from ear to ear. 

Sydney chuckled. “Yeah, I do but I don’t want you to even think about confronting anyone by yourself. If and when you get another alert, the first thing I want you to do is call me.” When Caitlyn didn’t say anything, Sydney nudged her with her shoulder. “You hear me, Caitlyn? I’m dead serious, here.” 

Caitlyn shook her head. “Trust me, Syd. I have no intention of confronting anyone by myself.”

Sydney rubbed the sides of her temples with her fingertips as she thought about her Christmas party and the time regarding the so-called break-in at Welsh. “You said it came in on your Blackberry at eleven-ten?” When Caitlyn nodded, Sydney continued. “It could have been any of the execs seeing that the only ones left at the party at that time were you and me.”