Actually, you’re doing a damn fine job of doing that yourself lately, mister.
“Don’t you speak French?” I argued timidly, a bit shocked and fearful in the wake of his fury. “I mean, I’ve heard you say—”
“Oh? You’ve heard me, have you?” His eyes narrowed sarcastically as he paced toward my desk. “I suppose you heard French coming out of my mouth at the same damn time you claim I was walking around with an ink job? Perhaps that is why you smashed a pastry in my face? Della, what the fuck is going on with you? Don’t they have proper mental facilities across the pond?”
“Listen, Robert, I don’t know what the hell kind of game you’re playing, but I’m done with it, okay?” I practically screamed, on my feet and feeling just as angry and worked up as he was. “You’re a big boy, and you can mess around all you want, with whomever you want, but we’re done.”
“Della Jones, you are the most beautiful but most confusing girl I’ve ever met! I want to strangle you and fuck you at the same time!”
I blinked, then sank slowly back into my chair. “Uh, Mr. CEO, you might want to shut the door, before all your underlings start thinking you’re into that sort of thing.”
“You want me one minute, then you hate me, then you want me, then you don’t.”
“I obviously mistook you for someone else. And I’m so sorry.”
Robert glanced behind him, then stiffened dramatically. He had started the shouting, but he seemed perfectly content to blame that on me as well. “We’ll talk about this later,” he said in a low, dangerous voice. “In the meantime, I suggest you rejoin your team and figure out a way to sort this mess out.”
Forbidden tears prickled in the corners of my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. I merely nodded, with a stiffness to match his own, and powered my computer up again, knowing lunch would have to wait. I emailed a quick note to Chloe to return to my office. I was determined to set things right, but by the time I looked up from the monitor, Robert was already gone.
* * *
The day’s troubles didn’t end there. I managed to sort out the French catastrophe, but Robert was still on the warpath, living up to the meaning of his last name and catching unsuspecting victims in his Crosshairs left and right. Just a few hours later, I heard him shouting again.
My heart quickened anxiously, and I crept over to my office window and witnessed his attack on poor Caleb in the hall. It was one of the most bizarre showdowns I’d ever seen. Not only did Caleb have no idea what the hell he’d done wrong, but Robert was so irrationally angry that he wouldn’t let the man get one word in edgewise.
“Sir, I’m sorry,” Caleb tried for the umpteenth time, hoping to calm the raging madman and return him to the laughing gentleman he’d dined with the night before, “but I truly have no idea what you’re—”
“The Miltin account, you imbecile!” Robert snapped, banging the wall beside them with his fist in frustration. “I was supposed to have a copy on my desk this morning, but—”
“It didn’t come this morning, Mr. Cross, because I sent it last night,” Caleb explained, as respectfully as he could. “I finished early and forwarded it the second I was done. Did you check in your in-box, beneath some of your other paperwork?”
Robert paused a moment, obviously thrown off his game, then took as step forward just to glare into Caleb’s eyes. “If that’s true, why are we still a point down? I checked the market values this morning, and with Miltin in the mix, we’re still nowhere near where we need to be. My father will shit a kitten!”
Caleb’s eyes flickered nervously over to David before returning to Robert with a touch of dread. No one wanted to be the bearer of bad news, but there was no way around it, not in the wake of such a direct question. “Robert, the truth is that we’re still down by one because the deal you made with the Japanese over the weekend didn’t account for well over half our product line in the field.” He spoke quickly and quietly, trying to minimize the inevitable explosive fallout before it even began. “Of course, it’s never too late to fix anything. Your father set up a contingency plan, so—”
“Don’t you dare mention him!” Robert growled, stepping away from Caleb with a threatening glare. “He may have started this company, but it’s mine now. I really don’t care less about his contingency plans. We’ll do things my way. Is that understood?”
Caleb’s jaw stiffened, but he just stared blankly ahead as people in all other corners of the room stopped what they were doing and glanced over at the melee with that same collective dullness in their eyes. “Yes, sir. I understand. I only brought him up because you said he would have a kitten if—”
“Not a word!” Robert said before he nodded stiffly and walked away.
Quickly, I disappeared back into the safe confines of my office and shut the door noiselessly behind me. It seemed as if every encounter I had with the man left me feeling shaken and numb. While I didn’t realize it till that day, it was clear that I wasn’t the only one who felt that way. He seemed to have a sickening effect on everyone in the company.
Suddenly, in a wave of shock and awe, it hit me, a revelation so simple that it was a miracle that it took an entire month for me to discover it: I might not be able to change the past, but I can go back. I can go back right now!
* * *
It took me forever to find the place, hours upon hours of weaving my way through the streets of London, tracing my steps back to the places we’d been and trying to find the way back.
It wasn’t raining anymore, but it was cold, the kind of merciless chill that cut through my jacket, no matter how thick and warm it was supposed to be. I pulled my coat tighter around my shoulders. Just one more street, and if that’s not it, I’ll head home.
“Oh my gosh!” I muttered when I realized that my last bit of tenacity had paid off. As soon as I rounded the corner, I saw it: the dilapidated old building where my beautiful mystery man took me so many weeks before. It looked exactly how I remembered it, with the cracked bricks, ivy-covered walls, and even the landmark broken mailbox dangling from its hinges out front.
I obviously didn’t have a key, but I was in luck, because just as I jogged up the front steps, a couple walked out, hand in hand. When the man saw me coming, he held the door open for me, offering a polite smile, and I scurried past the lovebirds and up the stairs.
The memories hit harder with every step I took, attacking me from every angle the higher I climbed: that twinkle in his eyes; and his beckoning invite before walking bravely into the darkness himself. For some reason, though, I couldn’t imagine the Robert Cross I now knew doing or saying any of those things himself. Rather, they seemed like things he would delegate or just write off completely as a whimsical waste of time.
By the time I got to the top of the landing, I was an emotional wreck. I didn’t know why I was there in that crumbling structure. What do I possibly hope to find? His freaking DNA? I only knew if I didn’t return to see it for myself, I would forever wonder if some desperate part of me just made the whole thing up. Weeks of repeated denials and little inconsistencies urged me on, as they’d made me doubt myself in ways I never thought possible. I was tired of nothing seeming real, and I had to prove that it was or that I was crazy after all. One way or another, I needed an answer to that dilemma.