“Will you be all right, boss?” Jim said, with concern written all over his face.
Christian squinted, the image of his driver dancing in front of his eyes. He waved Jim away—all three versions of him—and shut the door. He stumbled towards his bedroom and fell onto the bed with all his clothes on.
Hours later, he woke up with a stiff body and a dry throat. The moment he lifted his head, pain rushed in. Christian groaned and turned over but his thirst got worse by the second. He dragged himself out of bed and flicked on the light switch, and then immediately regretted it, and turned the lights off once more.
In the living room, he checked the time. It was two in the morning.
He drowned a cup of cold water from the fridge, poured another and returned with it to the bedroom. He undressed and slipped back into bed. He needed a plan. He could not drink Raina away; besides, drinking himself to a stupor every night did not appeal to him in any way.
If he lay still enough, he could almost hear her soft breathing and smell her scent and almost imagine that she was lying next to him.
This was lunacy! Christian had never been affected in this way by a breakup. To him, moving on from a relationship was like flicking off a fly from his suit with a single movement of his fingers.
The solution was to immerse himself in work. It had always worked for him in the past.
But that would not be enough this time, he grimaced at the thought, knowing the truth behind it. He enjoyed giving talks on business and consulting and he could do that to fill any stray hour that wasn’t taken up with running his own empire. He could take up jogging or tennis. Hell, he would take up knitting if it helped him take his mind off of Raina, he thought wryly.
If he was exhausted enough, within a few weeks, he would not even recall what Raina had looked like—the way she threw her head back when she laughed, or the way she bit her lip when she was worried, or the way she could look professional and confident giving a talk to her staff. The way she looked when he made her come … no, he would definitely not remember that.…
He wondered if she was happy now wherever she was.
Was she counting the money she had stolen and patting herself on the back, literally laughing all the way to the bank? A sneer crept across his face at the thought. She was a greedy thief and a liar, he reminded himself. No matter how good his cock felt when he was buried inside her, he had to keep that thought at the forefront of his mind.
“Oh, Raina,” Christian said out aloud, “Why?”
If only he could see her and hold her one more time. Except that it wouldn’t be the same. Her betrayal and deceit would always be a barrier to them, separating them like an invisible force field.
If he saw her, who knew what he would do to her, with his anger still so fresh, his pain still so raw? He wanted revenge, but he knew the people who would ultimately get hurt would be the children—so he could not act on his wishes.
Still, it puzzled Christian that she could be so kind and caring to a stranger, going as far as inviting him to her own house and then turn round and steal from the very company that provided her and the children financial security.
It was difficult to fathom.
13
“I’m looking for Christopher, the maintenance guy, is he off today?” Raina asked. She kept her voice light and casual, hoping no one would notice the strain or the worry she felt.
It had been two days and Christopher was still avoiding her calls and he had not been back to the house.
“Oh him, no, he just went AWOL, I guess,” Genevieve, the human resources manager said with a shrug. “Another one bites the dust, huh? Ugh. Staff are so unreliabl
e these days, aren’t they? Did I tell you about the contractors who are building my garage? Can you believe they—”
“Oh, thanks,” Raina managed to say and stumbled out, leaving Genevieve to pratter on about her own troubles.
How could he? How could Christopher just leave? Without a single word? Her eyes were flooded with tears and she staggered towards Kelly’s office. Before entering, Raina tried to compose herself. She needed another opinion from someone not involved.
“Hi,” she said softly.
“Hi. You look terrible,” Kelly commented. She leaned back in her chair and assessed her friend objectively.
“Gee. Thanks.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I do. I do look terrible.” Trust her friend to say it as it was, Raina thought wryly. She sat down without an invitation.
“I feel as terrible as I look. Would you believe that Christopher just took off? Without even a single word to me?” Raina choked. “He just left. Just like that.” She waved her arms in the air, like a magician showing off his disappearing act.