Nancy Warren - Aftershocks

The biggest irony was that if Patrick had held on to the high standards he’d believed himself to possess, the plot would have failed. But he hadn’t counted on falling in love with the woman who was his assistant.

Briana. He moaned her name inside his head. What possible reason could she have for such betrayal?

He was going to find out. Knowing he would be incapable of acting rationally tonight, he called and canceled his evening meeting.

Then he returned, with the tape recorder, to Briana’s desk, feeling about a hundred years older than he had an hour ago, and with a bitter taste in his mouth and bleak anger in his heart.

He sat down in her chair and tried to imagine how it had felt to be her, to make love with a man for the sole purpose of destroying his life, and he found he couldn’t. It seemed as though he was going to have a chance to ask her, though, because he heard her voice talking to someone in the hall.

She hadn’t gone home, after all. Soon she was going to wish she had.

“DON’T WORK TOO LATE,” Briana said as she turned toward the mayor’s office and the land titles clerk continued down the corridor.

“You either,” the clerk called back to her.

In truth, Briana wasn’t here for work. She’d decided to wait until Patrick returned so she could tell him what she’d done; she wanted to do it in the office setting and not in his home. Somehow that seemed important. It was only as his admin assistant that she’d been a fraud. Never, from the first moment they’d kissed, she realized now, had it been an option for her to go through with what Uncle Cecil had planned.

It was in the office that she’d been untruthful, and it was in the office that she would explain why. She wouldn’t pollute Patrick’s home, the home he shared with Dylan and Fiona, with the unsavory tale.

She walked into the office and stopped on the threshold, her heart jumping in her throat-first with gladness, when she saw Patrick sitting in her chair with his feet up on her desk, then with a sick foreboding when she recognized the object he held in his hand.

The tape recorder. And in it the tape, she’d made of them in the elevator. That wretched, stupid tape that had gone missing after their night together.

Any possibility that he didn’t know what was recorded in that small box was put to rest when she saw the expression on his face. His lips were clenched so tight it was amazing they didn’t crack. More than anger blazed coldly out of those searing blue eyes. There was contempt, too.

Her face flamed and she couldn’t hold his gaze.

“Patrick, I-” She what? Could she possibly make him believe there was an explanation that was innocent? Even as she considered trying to dredge one up, she knew she wouldn’t. She was done with lies and dishonesty. This man deserved the truth.

Instead of saying a single world, instead of yelling at her, berating her, all of which she deserved, he picked up the recorder and pushed Play.

“No,” she pleaded softly. “Please, don’t.”

But already the room was filled with the sounds of panting, the rustle of clothing, the sigh of flesh against flesh and a soft guttural cry that she knew must be hers, since it was distinctly female. Oh, and that female was having the time of her life.

“Oh, Briana, you feel so good,” Patrick said on tape, his voice hoarse with passion.

“Yes,” she cried. “Oh, oh, yes…” Her cheeks flamed, and Briana could take no more. Stepping swiftly forward, she grabbed the recorder out of his hand and pushed Stop.

She’d wanted the mechanical replay of that wonderful night to end, but now the dead silence seemed almost as bad. She put the recorder onto the desk with a soft click and stepped back. She’d wanted to tell him everything, but of course, she’d never in all her life intended to tell him about the tape. There’d have been no need if she could have destroyed it the following day, as she’d intended to.

Now, here it was, damning her before she’d had a chance to explain.

Her throat felt dry, so dry, and all the explanations she knew Patrick deserved and that she wanted to give him wouldn’t come to her.

When she didn’t speak, he did.

“So you wanted to set me up for a sexual harassment suit.” He put his hand on the recorder and pushed it toward her. “Go ahead. Call your lawyer.”

She glanced up, startled. “No.”

“You’ll need a lawyer anyway. You’re fired.” He laughed without mirth. “It’s pretty ironic, isn’t it? I wanted so desperately for you not to work for me anymore. I begged you to transfer, I had my eye open for challenging positions so you could get a well-deserved promotion. And when you, with all your talent and experience, wouldn’t take a transfer, I put it down to your loyalty.”

“Patrick, please.”

“I finally have a good reason to fire you. Sue me, do whatever the hell you want. Maybe you’ll even get your uncle Cecil my job after all. He sure wants it badly enough.” He stopped, and she saw the depth of his pain in the hard pewter of his eyes. “The only thing I can’t figure out is what was in it for you?”

“Nothing,” she said. She raised a hand toward him and he stared at her as though she were vermin.

“Nothing? Oh, honey, there has to be something you wanted bad. Is it tabloid fame? Maybe the three of us-you, me and Uncle Cecil-can go on one of those afternoon talk shows where everybody betrays everybody else and they yell and beat up on each other on national television. Is that what you’re after?”

“No. Look, I told you I wanted to talk to you tonight. I was going to tell you everything.”

“I’ll just bet you were.”

“I wish you’d listen to me.”

Patrick looked at her, and the lines of anger couldn’t hide the pain and loss in his eyes. “I really don’t think I want to. You and your uncle proved your point. I was corruptible.”

“No!” she cried, desperate to make him listen to her. “That’s not true.”

“I thought because I loved you that it changed the rules somehow.” He shook his head so stiffly it looked like his neck hurt. “The rules don’t work that way. What I did was wrong, and against my principles.” He snorted. “Some white knight I turned out to be.” He rose. “Take the tape and have your fun. Do your best to bring me down and see how much you enjoy it.”

He picked up the tape recorder and pushed it toward her.

She shoved her hands behind her back. “No. I don’t want it.”

“Take it. It’s your property. If there’s anything else here that belongs to you personally, you can take that, too, then I’ll need your keys back. I’ll be escorting you off the premises.”

“I tried to find the tape the next morning so I could destroy it. I never, ever would have used it. You must know that. I believed-” She bit her lip. “My uncle and aunt were so good to me. I owe them so much. I-well, I can’t talk about that part. I got my loyalties mixed up.”

“Why couldn’t you tell me what was going on? You had plenty of opportunity Saturday night,” he reminded her.

“I showed you the newspaper article, remember?”

He nodded curtly.

“I believed someone had fabricated that story about my uncle. Yesterday, I went to see the officer who originally made the arrest.” She shook her head. “You weren’t the only one who was betrayed,” she said sadly.

“I’m all out of pity. Let’s go.”

Briana couldn’t believe this was happening. It was a nightmare. She was being fired from the job she loved by the man she’d come to love. Oh, she’d made a big mistake, too. She’d been loyal, as loyal as she knew how to be. But to the wrong man.