Rise Read online

  “Simon” her watery plea pulls me out my reverie. We’ve been standing in Henry’s room waiting for the doctor to bring the discharge documents.

  I just glance at her. I am exhausted, angry, and guilty. That emotional cocktail makes me feel like I am on hair trigger waiting to go off.

  “Simon…I…” her voice wavers. I decide to spare her, and myself, the agony of this conversation.

  “Sharon, it was an accident. I’m just glad Henry is okay and I’m able to take him home.” I try to keep the acid churning in my gut out of my voice, but I fail and she starts weeping again.

  Kyle walks over and puts an arm on her shoulder and walks her out of the room.

  “Sharon, let’s go and get some tea while we are waiting.” His voice is soothing and he gives me a withering glance over his shoulder as they exit.

  Maybe I am being unfair to Sharon, but I feel like I’ve already let Henry down. No more leaving him with my neighbor so I can run off and have fun.

  I’ve got to get my head out of my ass. I don’t have time to chase a woman. I feel a keen sense of disappointment and loss at the thought, but I push it aside. I made commitments to Henry when I took him on, and I won’t be like my mother and sister who put their desires and wants ahead of the children they chose to bring into this world.

  Henry needs me. I need to focus on what is important. Henry, Kyle, my job, those are my priorities. Quick fucks are not.

  A voice inside my head screams Addie would have been much more than a fuck. I silence it. I can’t afford to get distracted. Henry can’t afford for me to get distracted. It will be work and family.

  I know I’m lucky to be leaving the hospital with Henry sleeping soundly in the backseat of the Uber I ordered. Kyle and I don’t say much as we ride home. We are both lost in our own thoughts and feelings of guilt.

  When we arrive home and get Henry situated in his crib, I pull out my phone and text Addie. I know I’m a coward for not calling, but if I hear her voice, I don’t think I could say what needs to be said.

  Simon: Hi. I’m sorry I ran out on you like that today. It couldn’t be helped. Listen, I’ve had all day to think. I think it’s for the best we were interrupted. I’ve got a lot going on and just don’t have time for much else right now. It was nice to meet you, Addie. Wish timing would have been different. Stay well. Simon.

  And then, because on top of being a coward I am also a jerk, I block her number. This will serve two purposes: I can spare myself from her deservedly harsh response and to prevent myself from having a moment of weakness and messaging her to beg for forgiveness.

  I turn my phone off. Turn my computer on and get my mind focused on the mountain of work I have waiting for me.

  I’ll get over this woman. I have no choice.

  August 31, 2014

  After Simon left, I spent the rest of my afternoon working and waiting for my phone to ring. I was a ball of nerves and anxiety. I was also basking in the afterglow of hands down the best oral orgasm I’ve ever had. Orgasms do not always come easy for me, no pun intended.

  I haven’t always felt comfortable telling men what I want. I didn’t have to tell Simon anything. He played my body like an instrument he built. My lips still sting from our kisses.

  I feel like I only got a taste of Simon’s magic and I hope we get to finish what we started soon. My feelings of satisfaction are tempered by my worry over his nephew and the look of panic in his eyes when I said I was coming with him. He obviously really didn’t want me there and part of me understands, but I can’t deny that it stung a little.

  Either way, the interlude had been just what I needed to get my mind off my impending call with the FBI. I hate talking about my father. I don’t know anything about where he might be or what he might be doing. Just thinking about him agitates to me enough to pour myself a shot of Patron to ease my jitters while I wait for her call.

  When Agent Walker calls, exactly three hours after we last spoke, I am ready to speak with her.

  “Miss Dennis, thanks for being available as agreed. I know you’ve got a busy schedule and that it’s a Sunday.”

  I sigh. “You didn’t give me much of a choice Agent. I just want to get this conversation over with.”

  “I’ll get straight to the point. We’ve gotten a very reliable tip as to your father’s whereabouts. We even have what we believe are images of him from a CCTV camera in a parking lot.”

  My breath catches. I am shocked. They have seen him? I can’t help but wonder what he looks like now. Has his handsome face aged? Has his dark red hair – just like Milly’s—greyed? Oh Daddy…

  Agent Walker’s brisk voice breaks my train of thought. “Now, there is a long way to go before we can apprehend him. He is in a country which does not have an extradition agreement with the United States, but we are working on it.”

  “Okay, so, what do you need from me?” I ask impatiently.

  Agent Walker coughs and continues. She sounds nervous. “Well, we wanted to ask you, your sisters, and your mother for assistance. We think you could appeal to him. Maybe make a video asking him to turn himself in, he would listen to you. We have reason to believe, from some of our intelligence, he deeply regrets leaving you behind and the impact his disappearance has had on your lives.”

  I can’t help myself, I laugh. But it’s humorless and cold. “Yeah, right, Agent Walker. He doesn’t care about us. And when you say video, what do you mean? How would you get it to him? By email? Are you going to mail it to him on a flash drive?”

  The agent clears her throat again. “No, Miss Dennis. We would actually hold a news conference. Invite all of the major networks to attend. You would make a statement. We are confident that he would see—”

  I cut her off mid-sentence, unable to keep the anger out of my voice. “No way in hell! You can forget that right now. I am finally moving on with my life. I have a job. I have friends, a reputation. I am not going back to being Omar Hassan’s daughter again.”

  “But Miss Dennis, Adelaide—” She begins but I interrupt her again.

  “No. Don’t call me again about this. Unless you can get a judge to order me to do it, and even then I will go to jail before I do it!”

  I hang up, seething. I have stop myself from throwing the phone across the room.

  I want to call my sisters and rage at them. They knew what she wanted and didn’t think they should warn me. I bet they have agreed to do it. Well good for them. I will never take part in anything like this.

  I am glad I had brunch with Simon today. I am glad I brought him home with me. I can’t wait for him to call me so we can pick up where we left off. I finally have something to look forward to. It makes the panic subside faster. I am soothed by the thought.

  I am able to stop thinking about my phone call and focus on a memo I’m writing for the partner I’ve been assigned to recently. She has asked me to answer a fairly complicated question about the statute of limitations and the research required consumes me.

  So when, at almost exactly 9pm on the dot, my phone alerts me to an incoming text, I don’t jump for it immediately. I finish my paragraph and absently reach for the phone.

  What I read makes me wish I hadn’t bothered. Simon’s casual, brutally direct text message cuts me to the quick. It is the last thing I expected to hear from him, and I feel the sting of tears as I lay my phone back down.

  I start to respond, but stop myself. What would I say? He made himself clear. He is not interested. Despite his pursuit and enthusiasm just hours earlier before, he has no problem casting me aside because he doesn’t “have time”.

  I try, vigilantly, to hold back the broken sob which escapes me. I fail. I can’t. It’s too much. I am such an idiot. Why did I think he would be back?

  This is what people do. They put themselves first and don’t even have the decency to tell it to your face. Fuck him and his fucking text message. I delete it, delete his contact, and turn my phone off. I get up to go to the fridge to get myself a b
ottle of water and grab two painkillers from the bottle in the cabinet next to the fridge. My head is pounding.

  This doesn’t matter. Simon Phillips is nothing to me. As he should be.

  September 1, 2014

  As I stride into my office Monday morning, I feel like a fraud. I am wearing my power suit. A black, Stella McCartney skirt suit which had been made to fit and had been a gift from Milly when I graduated from Harvard. I had only worn it once before—on my interview for this job—and I felt like I needed it today.

  I have never felt so low. I walk through the lobby and everyone sees a confident, well dressed, up and coming attorney.

  If only they knew that the night before the FBI had called to ask me to do a news conference to convince my father to turn himself in and then the man I’d almost let fuck me dumped via text message less than five hours later, they’d laugh in my face.

  I walk past my secretary and say good morning. She barely deigns to return the greeting. I don’t care, though. She has to work for me and I am not going to let her make me feel like this prestigious law firm, the coveted position, is one I don’t deserve.

  I walk into my office and shut the door, fire up my computer and start going through the emails I’d flagged as important during my train ride in this morning.

  Suddenly, there is a knock on my door and before I can even let the unknown person know they could come in, the door opens. It’s my mentor, a partner in our Project Finance department, Jack Westin.

  He is a short, fifty-five-year-old man with a full head of greying dark brown hair, wire rimmed glasses, and wearing a bespoke, three-piece, navy blue pinstripe suit. From his crisp white shirt, to his pink tie, and the gold signet ring on his finger, he looks like the quintessential Eton to Oxford to Fleet Street lawyer.

  “Adelaide, I’m heading to a meeting and I’d like you to join me. We have a new client, and if all goes well, you’ll be working on a project that will be based in their office.”

  He pauses and looks at me expectantly like he is waiting for me to do something, and I realize he wants me to come with him now.

  “Oh, you mean now? I just got in.” It was barely 7:30am. “I have a meeting at 8:00am and a memo due to Belinda at 10:00am I need to read through—”

  “Cancel your meeting. This is a huge client. They have the remodel of the Royal Albert Hall, it’s potentially 30 million pounds in billing fees from one client alone. Whatever you’ve got to do can wait. Anyone who has a problem with it can talk to me. Come on. Now.”

  Jack is a powerful partner. I do not hesitate again before I grab my phone and my ever present memo pad, and follow him out of the office. I turn to Taylor and tell her to cancel my calls and meetings for the morning and then continue swiftly down the hallway.

  As we walk, my mind races. I didn’t know our firm has been chosen to represent the firm which had landed this deal. That is huge. London has not seen an architectural project of such scope and significance in over a century. The firm that won is not well-known, but their star has certainly risen. For me to get a chance to work on this will be amazing. I will be doing grunt work, no doubt, but it means all types of exposure. Project Finance is where I want to be, not white collar crime, which by some stupid twist of fate, is the department my last assignment was from.

  As we walk, Jack starts telling all me the players who will be in the meeting. There will only be four lawyers from our firm attending, for me to be one of them is incredible. The client’s lead architects and their General Counsel will be present.

  “I think you’ve shown tremendous initiative and potential, Adelaide. I want you to pay attention to the senior associates as they talk to the client. Just take notes and listen.”

  This is the kind of opportunity I’ve worked so hard for. I follow Jack into the room and I am almost giddy,

  As I walk to the seat next to Jack’s, my eyes move around the room and when they land on the man sitting to the left of the head of the table, I stumble and have to grab my chair to straighten myself. Jack’s hand shoots out to grab my elbow. “Adelaide, are you all right?” He asks, his voice heavy with concern.

  “Yes, I am fine. I just tripped. I’m sorry.”

  I sit down and close my eyes briefly. Of the swirl of emotions coursing through, the one that asserts itself most strongly is one of utter disbelief.

  I cannot fucking believe it!

  Simon is in this meeting. What the hell is he doing here? Am I having a nightmare? Please, let this be a nightmare. Please? I cannot deal with this reality.

  I school my expression and glance around the room and see Simon staring at me with something akin to panic on his face. It makes me want to laugh. Does he think I am one of those women who can’t handle being dumped? Does he think I am going to scream at him? Or start crying and throw my phone at him? Yes, it is a shock to see him. Maybe he is the architect’s apprentice—is that still a thing? I don’t even care why he is here. I am going to act like he is not present from this point on.

  I am here to work. I am here to win. This is my dream. Yes, last night I was willing to give Simon a chance, but he reminded me, with painful precision, why that is something I should never consider doing again. Dreams aren’t made of fairytales and romance, they are made of hard work and grit.

  I open my notepad and turn my attention to Jack as he opens the meeting and makes introductions.

  He goes around the room and starts with the man sitting right next to Simon. Turns out he is the firm’s General Counsel. He is young, no older than thirty-five, to be in such a senior position. And damn, he is handsome, if you are a fan of Jamie Dornan.

  And then Simon is introduced—as the Senior Architect. On this project. And I feel like I have just been punched in the face. He is the senior architect on the biggest project London has seen in a century? Of course he is.

  It doesn’t matter. He is a client, I will treat him with the respect he deserves and not a drop more.

  With that resolve in place, I listen as the rest of the introductions are made and the meeting begins. I take notes and make my mind focus on the business at hand. Simon Phillips and his cheap words and even cheaper kisses, are the furthest thing from my mind.

  September 2, 2014

  When Addie walked into the room I instantly broke out into a sweat. I couldn’t believe she had tracked me down here. How the hell had she found me? I didn’t ask Louis if Cara’s friend was crazy; she seemed normal. But how else did I explain her walking into a meeting I was having with our new lawyers?

  Then my brain tripped as I connected the dots. She is a lawyer. She must work here. Of all of the places in London, she would work at the law firm we just hired to guide us through our financing process. We’d won the bid, now we had to pay for the work. We were not just the architects, but the investors in the project as well. From design, to construction, we were doing it all. It was unusual and risky, but we could do it.

  We needed to raise the money for it and so we were looking to these lawyers to help us structure the right deal. They were the best firm in the city. Addie working here meant she had to be a fucking genius. They only hired the very best.

  I wonder how she will react when she sees me. My text had been a dick move, and then I’d blocked her number. God only knows how many times she’d tried to call and text me.

  I watch her as I wait for her to notice me. Fuck me. This woman is beautiful. Her hair is pulled back completely in some tight looking thing I can only describe as knot, but it leaves her perfect face completely open to my gaze. Her eyes, so wide and clear. That freckle on her nose. Her mouth so lush it was almost obscene.

  She is wearing this black suit that looks like it was made for her and her sexy little body looks so good, I feel a pang of regret I’ll never get to see what’s underneath it again. I remember how juicy and dark her nipples were and how hard they got from me just looking at them. As if she can hear my thoughts, at that very moment, she sees me and stumbles.

  I panic
, fearing she is going to say my name or yell or something. But she rights herself, sits down, and doesn’t look in my direction again, except for when I am introduced. But, besides a small twitch in her eyebrow, she remains expressionless. Even when they announce their plan for her to spend the next few months working out of our office doing some document review for our due diligence, she looks like she was just told the sky is blue.

  When the meeting ends, we all stand up and shake hands. Her eyes are the color of cold amber and her smile has all the warmth of the coffee that has been sitting in my mug for the last hour. Addie shakes my hands like I am someone she just met an hour ago. Like I’m not the man who had my tongue in her pussy less than twenty-four hours earlier. I grip her hand tighter than I should and whisper urgently, “Addie, I am sorry about yesterday.”

  She only continues to give me that wintry smile. “Sorry for what, Simon?”

  Then she pulls her hand out of my grasp and walks around me. I stand there stunned. It’s like she doesn’t even care.

  As I round the table to gather my things, I hear Matthew, our General Counsel, chuckle. I turn around to see him and Addie standing near the window talking. The smile she is giving him is positively radiating with warmth and he looks like he has just seen a fucking unicorn or something. What an idiot. I’ve never liked him.

  I don’t know why I am acting like this. He is her client. She is just being nice and I don’t really have any right to care who she smiles at. If I told her what a mess my life was she would run a mile. I don’t have time to deal with a princess who probably doesn’t know anything but luxury and easy street. She wouldn’t understand my family and the situation with Henry.

  I grab my bag and head out without bothering to wait for Matthew.

  September 8, 2014

  It is the first day of the rest of my life. At least that is what I am telling myself as I step off the unbelievably crowded train at Canary Wharf. I steel myself for my first day working out of Simon’s office. I have dressed to kill. I am wearing all of the things I consider my armor. Black pencil skirt, black one button blazer with a white silk camisole underneath, knee-high boots with a pencil thin high heel, my second splurge after I got this job, sheer black tights, and a black Chanel satchel.