38
Juliet’s hand flew to her mouth. “No,” she muttered into her palm.
One of the insurance adjustors scowled. “Shhh.”
Shaking her head in disbelief, she scooped up her pen and notebook, grabbed her purse, and stood.
“Excuse me,” she whispered, making her way past the attorney sitting to her left. Another attorney sitting in the row behind threw up his hands. “Hey, sit down,” he scolded, not bothering to keep his voice lowered. “You’re blocking the monitor.”
She gave him a vacant look and turned for the door, fully aware everyone in the room, including Greer, now watched.
Her hands pushed through the doors, and she quickly glanced up and down the empty hallway.
How could she have been so stupid?
She moved in the direction of the lobby, questions swirling inside her mind. But one topic parked itself front and center.
When exactly had Greer gotten romantically involved with Alexa?
A ball of anger slammed against the pit of Juliet’s stomach. It was highly likely that snake with the gorgeous blue eyes had been playing her, maybe the entire time.
She marched to the elevator and punched the button, her mind rehearsing all the times she’d felt professional tension, knowing somehow that Greer never quite had her back when it came to their boss.
The elevator doors opened and Juliet moved inside, then leaned against the back wall.
And what about her boss? Alexa was considerably older, married—had a teenage son. Were all those happy faces in the frames in her office a pretense?
All the mentoring, the phony discussions, concerns, and promises. All suspect. Everything out of Alexa’s mouth could have been a lie.
An arm suddenly burst through the closing doors. Startled, she looked up.
“Juliet? Where are you going?”
“Greer, I guarantee this isn’t a good time.”
He scowled. Ignoring her warning, he moved into the elevator beside her, letting the doors close behind him.
Unable to keep the disdain from her voice, she squared her shoulders and repeated herself. “Perhaps you didn’t hear me clearly. I believe I said this isn’t a good time.”
In a remarkably stupid move, he touched her shoulder.
She flinched and pulled away. “Keep your hands off me.” Her eyes narrowed. “What kind of game are you playing?”
He laughed lightly, as if she was teasing him. “You’re going to have to quit being so subtle, Juliet.” He took a deep breath, pulled at his cuffs. Then, as if speaking to a child, “You can continue to make me guess what this is all about.” He widened his eyes innocently. “Or you could just explain.”
“How dare you take that condescending attitude with me?” She couldn’t help herself—her face flushed and she rushed on. “Did you ever stop to think I might find out about the two of you? About you and Alexa?”
His face turned to cement. Except for his jaw, which twitched wildly. “How—”
“Men are so stupid.”
Of course, Greer was instantly on that remark. “Oh, I see. You’re going to act out the junk with your dad. But I’m not your father. Although it was never explicitly expressed, I believe we had an understanding.”
The elevator stopped and the doors opened to the lobby. “Is that what we had? An understanding?” She brushed past him and marched across the tiled floor. She pushed through the front doors, aware he followed close behind.
Outside, a white mist of clouds floated across the sky, obscuring an airplane that droned overhead. Despite the air growing sticky hot already, she felt a shudder run down her spine.
She’d shared too much. Let him in her head too far.
That creep knew her tender places—the ways she hurt inside.
She hurried and climbed inside her Jeep, tossing her bag and the notebook on the passenger seat. Weary, she rubbed her face, knowing Greer followed and stood near. “Look, just leave me alone.” She moved for the door to pull it closed.
Greer stepped in the way. He shook his head in disbelief. “You broke it off—remember?” Incredibly, he said it as if she had pushed him into a relationship with someone else. With Alexa.
Except the timing was a bit off.
Her fists balled in rage. “Do you think I’d still want to be with you after finding another woman’s earrings on your bathroom counter? What—was I supposed to maybe wear them the next time we went out to dinner?” A self-satisfied smile played on her lips. She had him. “Better yet, to an office meeting so your boss would find out about me?”
Greer looked at her intently—and said nothing.
Juliet stared back at him, understanding dawning. “Oh,” she said, stripped of her dignity. So she had been played a fool the entire time.
She sensed Greer’s mind at work, knew he was mentally calculating the damage done and how he would react. More importantly, how he would protect himself—even if it meant throwing her into jeopardy.
She too was estimating what all this meant to her personally—and professionally.
An argument could be made that she was the victim of an outrageous betrayal. Her career had been washed out at the hands of two conniving, disingenuous co-workers. One of them her own boss.
While she’d been maneuvering the outbreak, they’d likely been pulling up the sheets, laughing at her the whole time.
Her inclination would be to cling to the pretense that she’d held no part in any of this. She had every right to be angry and place the blame squarely on these others.
But in the back of her mind, she heard her mother’s voice. “Oh, sweetheart, what empty place inside makes you keep trying so hard? You knew what you were doing was wrong. You even saw the signs and ignored them.”
It was true.
She’d so wanted her life and work to matter. But she’d somehow ended up nothing more than a tired cliché, an ambitious woman so focused on getting ahead she ended up losing herself along the way.
The implication of it all was so powerful, she felt like that tiny spider all over again—being swept away. So swept away she barely comprehended that the outcome of all her striving was as inevitable as the tide.