Meet Me in Paris. Simona Taylor
looked surprised that she had expected anything less. “Verbally, for the time being. You’ll have formal, written notification from human resources delivered to your home by courier this afternoon. But right now I want you off the premises.”
“But you can’t. I need this job. I need the money!”
His gaze swept her clothes and jewelry again. “Obviously, you’re a woman of expensive tastes. Nonetheless, I’m sure you’ll agree I can’t afford to keep an untrustworthy employee on staff.”
She was outraged by the slur. “I am not—”
He cut her off with an upraised hand, as though he’d had his fill of the unpleasantness and wanted to bring an end to it. “If I were you, I’d consider myself lucky the company isn’t pursuing prosecution.” He gave her a hard, dismissive look. “If I were you, I’d leave quietly.”
“But….” She flailed, unable to comprehend what was happening. Shock made her giddy.
“Good day, Miss Forrest.” He sat heavily in his big chair, and folded his hands on his desk. His expression invited neither opposition nor further conversation.
Struggling to maintain her balance, Kendra turned and walked away. Mrs. Mertz was waiting outside the door. Kendra expected gloating, but saw instead a mixture of surprise, curiosity and the tiniest sprinkling of compassion. She accompanied her downstairs in silence.
From the moment she set foot on the floor, it was evident the glass office above had worked to her disadvantage. Although they could hear nothing that had taken place, everyone knew something was afoot. As she approached her desk in the wake of an electric silence, she could sense every pair of eyes upon her, even though all and sundry were steadfastly pretending to mind their own business.
From the rubble in the corner of her cubicle, she fished out a cardboard box and slowly began to fill it with personal items. Spare makeup kit, toothbrush and toothpaste, thesaurus and atlas, candy jar and bud vase.
She hesitated over the mess of knickknacks given to her by grateful clients. Tiny rum bottles from Barbados. A stuffed camel. A Brazilian rain stick. They were hers, weren’t they? But if she took them, wouldn’t they all be an indictment of her and the trust her clients had placed in her? Could she ever bear to see them again?
She packed in as many as could fit, and left the rest on her desk. It was enough to take a walk of shame in front of one’s colleagues; it was too much to do it a second time just to pick up another box of stuff.
She said nothing as Mrs. Mertz, not being as mean as usual, silently took inventory of all she was taking, as per company procedure. Kendra signed her name at the bottom of the single sheet of yellow legal paper.
“Kendra,” Mrs. Mertz began.
“What?” Kendra asked wearily. It was only a little past ten, and already she felt like she’d put in a brutal day’s work.
“I know we haven’t always…I know sometimes I can be a little…well….” She coughed self-consciously. “I don’t know what made you do…this….”
Kendra looked away.
“But, well, it was a…a pleasure working with you.”
If there was anything more that could have surprised Kendra today, that would be it. She’d always thought her supervisor had hated her guts. She’d thought she was a horrible, mean person. Maybe she’d been wrong about that, too.
“Thank you.” There wasn’t anything else she could say.
“Take care of yourself,” Mrs. Mertz added. She sounded sincere.
Kendra nodded, balancing the box as best she could, and focusing dead ahead to blot out the gaping faces surrounding her, she walked out of the main doors and headed for the stairs.
Chapter 3
Devil Cuts a Deal
K endra couldn’t bear to unpack the box. She set it down on the floor inside her front door, and there it stayed. The lock on the door stayed closed, too. But she wasn’t alone, fortunately—or unfortunately, depending on how you looked at it. She had the company of a few old friends she thought she’d ditched a long time ago: the seductive, unpredictable Miss Betty Crocker and those shameless old scallywags, Ben and Jerry.
For two days, she subsisted on turtle brownies topped with gobs of ice cream. The tight control she’d held for so long over her urges and her eating, was slipping. That scared her. But the feeding frenzy was welcome, too. It kept her mind off her the shame and guilt of what she’d done.
Every time she made it to her fridge door, Fat Kat was there waiting. The old photo was taped to the door, slightly askew. More than once, caught in the act of helping herself to a spoonful of ice cream straight from the tub, or pouring shredded mozzarella into her mouth from the bag, she wanted to tear down the photograph, rip it into confetti, and toss it out the window.
“Don’t condemn me,” she told the photo. “You, of all people, should understand.”
But the moon-faced girl with bad skin and a jumble of crooked teeth had a different expression each time. One minute she looked shocked, the other, disappointed. Pitying, condemning. Her old self, the teenage self she’d tried so desperately to leave behind, was in no mood to forgive.
Kendra couldn’t blame her. What had she done? The escalating circumstances that had led to her scandalous downfall had begun with the best of intentions. First, tired of being overweight, fed up with feeling as if she always had to apologize for her size, she’d used every ounce of willpower to curb her eating sprees. Gradually, the weight had gone down.
Then there were her skin, teeth, hair—so many other things she still hated about herself. Getting that all fixed ate up a huge chunk of her savings. A dermatologist took up what was left. Then there were manicures, pedicures, skin treatments, pampering she’d never had in her life. And over the months, she’d started seeing someone in the mirror who didn’t look half bad.
Then, none of her clothes fit. Although she’d always had a passion for fashion and a huge sense of style, she’d never liked herself enough to wear designer outfits before; but now, with a pretty face, pretty hair and pretty smile, she bought expensive clothes to show it all off. When she’d maxed out her credit cards, she applied for new ones. For a while she was as happy as a pig in mud. For the first time in her life, she’d stopped craving food. And the more she bought, the better she looked, the better she felt about herself.
Then the bills had started rolling in.
Kendra leaned against the wall and squeezed her eyes shut at the memory. Fighting panic, going against all logic, she took cash on one credit card to pay off another…and kept on shopping. She’d replaced her old addiction with a new one.
The collapse came so fast, she’d barely had time to think. She missed a rent payment, an installment on her TV. She had a credit card cut up right in front of her—and then she missed another rent payment. It was awful. Crazy. And then, she’d been doing the finances for a project, her mind buzzing with the kind of low-grade panic that came with impending eviction, when she’d had an awful, desperate idea.
She filled out a voucher to cash.
She’d meant to pay the money back, had every intention of doing it. Then her car got repossessed. Her furniture was in the firing line. The credit card companies were calling, the bank was calling. So she filled out another voucher, and then another one….
“I’d be ashamed of me, too,” she said softly to the accusing photograph of the old her. With nausea bubbling insider her, Kendra dumped her last pint of ice cream into the sink and threw the last two brownies into the trash. “I am. I just wish…” Wished she could do something. Take it all back. Make amends for what she’d done.
Fix it.
Her mind spun around to the office…and Trey Hammond. His disgusted