Page 1 of Salvation (Clover-Hills #1)

Blake

C lick-clack. Click-clack. Click-clack.

I attempt to focus on the sound of my rose-colored heels clacking against the marble flooring instead of the roaring panic bubbling in my chest, which accelerates with each step toward the ornate elevator doors.

Today is the day. Today is the day I finally crawl my way out of Managing Editor and into the position of Chief Editor.

Chief Editor has been a dream since I set foot in New York City, and the dream became all too real just last week when Sarah Abrams left Ingrid’s office with a ginormous box of tissues and red-rimmed eyes.

I should feel remorse for Sarah. I should even feel a little terrified about her sudden departure, but all I can focus on is the sheer excitement coursing through my veins, knowing that all the endless coffee runs, the late nights, the boring as-shit meetings, and the back-bending hard work was finally paying off.

I need it to pay off. Otherwise, it will all have been for nothing.

Entering the elevator, I turn to the floor-to-ceiling mirrors and make quick work of checking my teeth, reapplying some gloss, and straightening my blazer that perfectly matches the new pumps Marshall gifted to me.

I check my phone once more, hoping to have finally heard back from him since I let him know about the potentially life-changing news, but still no answer.

He’s probably just sleeping in, he warned me he had a late night in the office tonight.

The doors chime, signaling my arrival to the top floor, and I tuck my phone back into my mini purse.

Plastering on my most charming smile, I exit the doors and immediately spot Ingrid’s glossy black hair draped over the back of her white office chair.

I chirp a “Good Morning!” as I cross the room to place her iced coffee on the desk, only for a startled gasp to escape my lips.

All three of our lips.

I watch in horror as the coffee cup slips from my fingers and crashes to the floor, staining my heels with thick droplets of dark brown liquid. “Oh my god!” A hand flies up to cover my mouth as my brain works to catch up to what I’m seeing. A man is between Ingrid’s legs.

Not just any man…Marshall. My Marshall.

Between…her legs. Ingrid’s legs. Between my boss’s legs.

Oh. My. God.

The glee I had at the possibilities of where this morning would take me was immediately replaced with nausea. I’m frozen to the spot, my feet like cement blocks as I watch the two before me scramble to get dressed.

“Blake?” They both ask, their voices laced with disbelief.

“This isn’t what it looks like!” Marshall quickly adds, his words rushing out.

Ingrid ducks under her desk in an attempt to cover her naked form, but the image of her flushed cheeks and bare skin is forever engraved in my mind.

Her manicured hand shoots out to steal one of their shirts, and I take that moment to close my eyes.

The noise in my head rises to a crescendo as my brain finally catches up, and the utter horror that I just felt is gone in an instant, replaced by icy, cold anger that I so rarely let make an appearance.

I abruptly jerk away from the desk, knocking over the hideous spider plant she made me buy last month to ‘freshen up’ her workspace.

“How long?” I grit out between my clenched teeth, forcing myself to look Marshall in the eyes.

I’d be damned if this man made me look like an even bigger fool than I already do.

“S-since you introduced us.” He stutters, wincing when Ingrid shoots him an angry look of disbelief.

I suck in a breath as Ingrid hops up from where she was hiding beneath her overly large desk, talking as she hurriedly buttons her shirt. I see and register her mouth moving but can’t seem to hear a single word that leaves her lips.

Over a year. Over a year of sharing the same bed with this man only for him to be fucking my boss. 4 years. 4 years of hard work and dedication went down the drain in less than a minute. I blink, and without thinking, I blurt out, “I quit.”

I don’t acknowledge Marshall, who’s currently hopping after me with one shoe off.

No, I’m already spinning on my heels and racing for the same doors I was so excited to enter just mere seconds ago.

“You – you can’t quit!” Ingrid’s nasally, high-pitched voice echoes after me.

I ignore her continued spiel, ignore Marshall’s pleading, ignore that discarded plant now littering the perfectly polished floor, and ignore that familiar burn creeping up my nose, begging to be cut loose.

“Should have thought about that before choosing to whore yourself out to the first man to pay you any attention.” I spit the venomous words from my mouth but feel little to no shame as they hit their mark.

They both flinch and just to be petty in the only way I know how I whip back around and bend down to pick up the half-emptied coffee cup.

“And pick up your own damn coffee!" I yell, launching the cup at the two of them, savoring the shock rippling their features.

***

Unknown:

Baby, please pick up

I’m sorry

I don’t understand why you’re so upset

It meant nothing

If you would have just put out, I wouldn’t have looked elsewhere

I outwardly cringe at the influx of texts pouring onto my small and cracked phone screen.

I had been meaning to get it replaced for months now but haven’t had the motivation or time.

I scroll through the various other texts I’ve gotten from him over the past few hours, choosing to ignore them again and block the unknown number .

Love bombing and gaslighting seem to be his new favorite trick.

This is the third phone number he’s texted me from, and I’m at the point where I’ll need to change my number if I can even begin to hope for a moment of peace.

Probably, moving out of the country is more like it.

I throw the phone behind me, sighing as it hits the plush pillow at the top of my bed.

I rub my hands over my face, not surprised to find no tears littering my warm cheeks.

We had been together for quite some time, so I suppose I should feel a little more distraught.

But I can’t bring myself to feel anything other than pure annoyance.

I liked Marshall, but I didn’t love him.

He came from a good home and family. He made me laugh, he was smart, and the sex was fine.

He bought me overly lavish gifts and took me out to dinner twice a week.

He’s the type of man any woman would be happy to have.

It indeed was a shock to find out he’d been sleeping with my boss for the entirety of our relationship.

I introduced them at a Christmas party, blissfully unaware of the way they had studied each other and how they took a rather large interest in what the other did.

I was na?ve enough to think it was great.

That it would get me a foot in the door when it came to growing my relationship with Ingrid, but clearly, that was not the case. It did the opposite.

Now I’m here. Jobless, single, and a failure. All accomplished in the past 24 hours.

It hurts, of course. Because trusting someone and having them break that trust will gut anyone’s soul.

But it doesn’t hurt in the way I had thought it would.

I’m not heartbroken, just disappointed. Disappointed that I settled for a man so boring.

And for what? In hopes of proving something to myself? That I could move on? Heal?

I wish I could go back and shake some sense into myself.

Save myself a year, nearly two, of my life.

Over the time I’ve been living in New York, I’ve gone on multiple dates with gorgeous men, and even brought many of them home, but something had always been missing.

It rarely felt right, and I know deep in my bones that I had only ever been settling for Marshall.

I had always thought his nose was a little too straight, his smile a little too perfect, and his hands a little too soft.

I think I loved the idea of him more than anything.

What he could give me, and what he was offering me. A distraction, a home, a purpose.

I was not a woman without her flaws, but I sure as hell spent my time picking out everyone else’s.

I rub the bridge of my nose in hopes of encouraging at least one single tear to fall free, but it never comes. Just like that promotion. Just like that hope of creating and holding onto something that was so selfishly for myself.

I choose to glare at the box filled with office supplies resting on my dining room table instead, and then at the empty duffle bag I pulled out the minute I set foot in my apartment.

“I’m so, so sorry, babe. They never deserved you,” Vivienne says as she hugs me for what must be the tenth time.

I had immediately texted her as I left the office, and she’d shown up in less than twenty minutes with an armful of goodies she deemed essential for this kind of heartbreak.It’s one of the many reasons I love Vivienne. She’s sickeningly sweet, but she’ll always go to bat for the ones she loves.

“I know. It’s just-" I drop my head into my hands, pushing them through my hair. “I’ve been working towards this for years. Years. What the hell am I supposed to do now?”

Vivienne and I met when we were both eighteen, courtesy of her older sister, Whitney.

We became fast friends when she welcomed me with open arms into her tiny studio apartment.

I had nowhere else to go when I landed in New York, and despite the fact that I was a stranger, she was more than happy to take me under her wing and treat me as her own.

I finally stopped freeloading when I saved up enough to attend college and live on campus.

I tried more than once to pay her back in full for all the money she had spent keeping both of us afloat, but she never accepted it.

Funnily enough, a few months after I moved out, she ended up transferring to the same school as me, where we became roommates once again.

In our last year of college, though, we unfortunately weren’t able to stay in the same part of campus due to our different career paths.

We got stuck with roommates we admittedly complained about more often than we should have, and Vivienne soon became that type of friend that you didn’t need to see every day or even every few weeks.

When we came back together, it always felt as if no time had passed.

Despite that, our busy lives still took a toll on our friendship.

So, after graduation, we decided to remedy that in the best way possible.

By buying an apartment together.

It wasn’t a hard decision to make, considering we already knew what it was like to be housemates.

We were more like sisters than anything else.

She was one of the very few people who knew everything about me.

And I knew that regardless of anything that happened, she’d always be the one consistent thing in my life, and I’d always be hers.

“This is going to sound terribly cliché of me but shit like this happens for a reason, right? Maybe this job wasn’t what you needed right now.

That man was definitely not what you needed right now.

It sucks, but maybe you can use this as an opportunity to explore you a little bit more?

You’ve always wanted to write a book, so why not take a couple of months and give that a try?

” She pauses when I look back up at her.

“You’ve been working non-stop since you got to the city.

You have enough saved up to take a break.

So, maybe it’s time for a change in pace?

Maybe even scenery?” She gives me a knowing look as I mull over her words, letting the air fill with silence.

“I have to get back to work,” Vivienne says as she reaches forward to give my hand a tight squeeze.

“But I promise we’ll watch all the chick flicks, eat all the snacks, and drink all the wine the minute I get home.

” She’s one of the best Veterinary Technicians in the city.

She loves her job more than probably deemed healthy, but I could not help beaming with pride every time she talks about it.

It makes me so happy to know just how hardworking she is and that she scored the job she’s been dreaming of since she was a little girl. She no doubt deserves it and more.

“Sounds good,” I sigh. She leans over, kisses my cheek, and gives me a small smile. Sauntering away, she calls out over her shoulder, “Don’t you dare open that merlot without me!” And then she’s gone as quickly as she came, and I’m utterly alone with all my unwanted thoughts.

New York is home. It’s been home for the past six years.

I made it home when I needed it the most. But maybe Vivienne is right.

Have I been a fool for thinking I could so easily run away from my past and start anew?

Maybe it’s time to head back to my roots and face everything that’s led me to this.

I dwell on that line of thinking while I pop open that forbidden bottle of merlot, and once it’s finished later that night, Vivienne walks back in the door with another one as if she already knew what to expect when she got back home.