CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Of course, the right thing to do would be to catch the flight, take the weekend, and tell Austin about her new plan face-to-face. But Bea both shied away from and rebelled against the idea at the same time. She and Austin had had a lot of fun together but, ultimately, they were just sleeping together, right?

There wasn’t a ring on her finger. There’d been no conversations, no discussion about their future or their present, for that matter, since the original one in her apartment.

They’d just been living in the moment.

Also…if she did go back, they’d end up in bed together. Bea knew that as clearly as she knew the sun would rise tomorrow, and that would only muddy the waters. What she needed—what they both needed—was a clean break. She’d loved her time in Credence. It had welcomed her with open arms and given her a place to hide and lick her wounds, but right now, she needed to do this.

So, best to make the cut quick and clean.

Bea ignored the ache around her heart as she tapped Austin’s contact in her phone and waited for him to pick up. He was at work, so he might not be able to answer, in which case she’d leave him a message to call her back. But Bea really hoped he would pick up.

Now that her mind was made up, she just wanted it done.

“Hey.” Austin answered on the third ring, his voice quiet as if he was answering it at work when he probably shouldn’t be.

The low burr to his voice was sexy and intimate. It slid into all her good places as well as wrapping fingers around her heart and squeezing.

“You on your way to the airport?”

Bea shut her eyes as a wave of something hot and charged filled her chest. Something a lot like guilt. She gripped the phone harder.

“Beatriss?”

Oh no. No, no, no. Why did he have to do that now?

She gave herself a shake. Stop this, Bea. You’ve known him for three months! Why on earth would she blow this amazing career opportunity over him? Putting her career on hold and breaking all the rules with a guy—a much younger guy—a few months ago had been just what she’d needed, but it was time to be sensible again.

“Sorry.” She cleared her throat. “There’s been a change of plans.”

There was the slightest of pauses. “Oh?”

Bea heard the pause loud as a jumbo jet. “I’m…not coming ho…” She stumbled over the H word. “Back.”

“You need to delay another day?” His voice was brisk and efficient now, no signs of hesitation.

“No. I’m not coming back. At all. Period.” There was more than a pause now. Silence stretched taut—fraught—between them.

“I…don’t understand,” he said finally. It was quiet and calm, but there was a very definite edge.

Bea could hear shuffling as if Austin was walking, then the opening and closing of a door, then the sound of a nearby car passing by. He must have walked outside.

“Kim’s offered me an executive role in charge of advertising for Greet Cute and I’ve taken it.” Bea breathed out shakily.

“Oh…kay.”

“They’re offering me executive privileges, carte blanche with their advertising budget, an opportunity to build the department from the ground up. And a corner office. They’re giving me everything I ever wanted.”

“I thought you didn’t want it anymore?”

The question was direct as an arrow strike and just as deadly. He was still calm, but his words cut into her logic, making her defensive. Which made her annoyed. And she was already pissed enough at Charlie Hammersmith to burn down the whole damn town.

But that was a good thing. Anger was better than the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, the ache around her heart.

“Neither did I,” Bea admitted, fighting to also stay calm. An emotional response was too risky. She straightened her spine. “But this is the best of both worlds. I get to do something I know and love, something I’m really freaking good at, but in the best environment possible. I get to call the shots. To be the boss. But a good one. A better one. The kind who influences workplace culture for the better. And works collaboratively with a broad range of diverse interests. I get to bring people along with me instead of setting them against each other.”

All those hundreds of little irritations that had crawled like ants under her skin when she’d worked at Jing-A-Ling she could make better.

And maybe she wanted that most of all.

“I get to stick it to Charlie Hammersmith for once and for all.”

“Wait, what?” There was a long pause. “This is about your asshole ex-boss?”

“Of course not.” No. Nope. “But he rang me earlier and offered me my old job back and when I declined, he threatened me. He actually threatened me.” Her hand trembled a little, thinking about it once more. “He implied that I’d never work in advertising ever again if he had anything to say about it. And then he told me I was too girlie to make it in the big end of town, so screw him.”

“He’s an asshole, Beatrice. You know that. You shouldn’t let him get under your skin like that.”

“He didn’t.”

“Oh come on.” He gave an incredulous laugh. “He pissed you off and now instead of coming back to Credence, which is what I thought you wanted, you’re staying in LA.”

No. Charlie was just the catalyst not the reason. And besides, it went deeper than that. “Austin, he didn’t just piss me off. He humiliated me.”

Her voice wobbled just thinking about. She didn’t blame Austin for not understanding the depth of her feelings over this because apart from her initial ranting about what an asshole Charlie was, she hadn’t really opened up to him about that day she walked out on the job she’d given her all.

“I’d worked my ass off for that company. For that executive office. Twice as hard as anyone else. I brought in a shit ton of money for them and won more awards for my campaigns than all of them put together. I stayed late and I worked weekends and I picked up whenever he called no matter the time or day or whether I was on vacation. Not that I had many of those.”

Everyone else had gone to Cabo or the Caribbean for their summer breaks and skiing in the winter. But no, not her. Bea had rarely taken any time away.

“And when head hunters knocked on my door, I sent them all packing because Charlie valued loyalty above all else. Except when it came to me, apparently. Giving the corner office that I’d earned ten times over to this guy who was utterly incompetent and, in doing so, said to the entire advertising community, my peers, that I wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t executive material. That I was sub-par.”

Her voice cracked on the last word. Losing out on that job had made her feel so damn powerless, just like when she’d been a kid and hadn’t been able to control the circumstances of her home life.

“Beatriss, honey…I’m sorry that happened to you. You are amazing and he’s a fool.”

The softness in his voice heightened her state of emotion. Here she was breaking up with him, but he was showing her nothing but kindness and compassion.

“So why give him any more control over your life?”

Bea shut her eyes. It was a fair question she realized as she loosened her death grip on the phone and tried to quell the tightness in her lungs. But he just didn’t understand. He was too young and had grown up in a family where everyone was normal and life had been peachy. She knew it wasn’t fair to ask what she asked next. She knew it was wrong to play on that honorable streak, but she did anyway. “I need to do this, Austin. For me. Not Charlie. It’s important. Please understand.”

Another long, long pause followed. “Then that’s what you should do,” he said eventually.

A hot lump lodged in Bea’s throat at the heaviness of his voice, and she shut her eyes as tears threatened to spill. “Thank you.”

“Of course.”

His response was stiff, but that was to be expected. “I’ll…send for my stuff when I get sorted here.”

“I’ll take Princess out to the ranch with me.”

Gah! Princess…another connection she’d made in Credence. She wanted to tell him she’d send for the cat to come live with her in LA, but Princess was as much a part of Credence as Austin. She swallowed. “Thank you.”

“Yeah.” More silence that stretched to the point of discomfort. “Well…anyway, go kick some corporate ass, Beatrice.”

The phone went dead in her ear, and Bea stared at it for the longest time, a tear trekking down her face. She would kick ass. This was what she wanted.

So why did she feel so horribly wretched?