Page 82 of Scandalous Contract

Of course, feeling obligated to do as he was told, he’d put it off for so long that he just never got around to it. He said he regretted not using up his vacation hours for small things like just staying home with my mom.

He regretted not being able to spend more time with me when I was younger because he was too busy working. He’d given his all to the job and what was left after his shift ended to his family. And though I thought he’d done a great job, he felt he could’ve done more.

After giving years to a company that claimed they needed him, the moment he got cancer and couldn’t work the way he used to, suddenly, he was replaceable. Suddenly, he wasn’t needed.

And after years of being with one company, what did they do for him when he could no longer make money for them? They sent him a fruit basket and a get-well card, and that was the extent of it.

He’d worked most of his life for a company that hadn’t given a damn about him. That was what he regretted. He’d told me not to make the same mistake. He’d told me to live my life and not just exist to make another person rich.

When I visited his grave again, I’d tell him that I now understood what he meant. I now understood the difference between living and existing. From now on, I wanted to live life with no regrets.

I would take my mom on that dream vacation for him. And I would spend more time with India. I would live my life to the fullest and not allow myself to be trapped, working myself to death to make someone else richer, someone who didn’t give two fucks about me.

The guilt I had for leaving, the uncertainty, the nervousness, that shit was long gone. And all my colleagues had to do was look at me to see that I no longer had any fucks left to give. That’s probably why most of them were avoiding me.

I didn’t give a fuck. I was exhausted and ready to go. We’d just wrapped up filming a segment about last year’s hurricane season and the predictions for the upcoming season. My throat was dry, and I was ready to go home, peel off these heels, and eat something fried and something sugary.

I was in my office, grabbing my things, thinking about what leftovers I had in the fridge when the door opened. Hudson stepped in and shut it behind him. The lock clicked. Why me? Why did I have to deal with shit like this?

“Can I help you with something?” I asked, not bothering to hide the irritation in my voice.

He didn’t answer right away.

“Hudson?”

“Mark says he talked to you and you still haven’t changed your mind about leaving.”

I paused, blinked, then looked back down at my desk and slid my laptop into my bag.

“What does my conversation with the boss have to do with you?” I asked.

He sighed, his jaw tightening like he was trying to rein in his anger. I didn’t like that look. I didn’t like that he’d closed the door either. My hand slid into my purse, my thumb finding the small bottle of pepper spray clipped to my keychain. I turned the nozzle to open.

“Can you please move?” I said. “I need to get home.”

“Why? Do you have plans?”

I looked up at him, blinked once, and then bit the inside of my cheek to stop myself from going off. Getting arrested at work wasn’t part of my evening plans.

“Hudson, don’t you think you’ve been a bit much lately?”

“A bit much?” he echoed. “You thinkI’mbeing a bit much?”

I didn’t answer.

“What I think is a bit much is that you seem to forget it was me who supported you back when your husband died. When people here were whispering behind your back about how quickly you went on maternity leave after his death. Some even said...”

“Stop.” My voice was low, and I hated the pain I heard in that one word.

But he didn’t stop.

“What you don’t know,” he kept going. “Is that those people who talked about you got fired soon after they made those comments. I made that happen,” he yelled, pointing at his chest. “For you. I made that happen for you so that when you returned, you wouldn’t have to deal with their bullshit. I made sure they understood that if they kept talking about you, they’d never work in this industry again. I did that for you.”

“No,” I said, my voice shaking with restrained rage. “You did that foryou.”

He frowned, confused. “What makes you say that?”

“Hudson, I appreciated your help back then. I was a young mom who’d just lost her husband. I was barely surviving. And yeah, I know you helped silence those rumors. But let’s not pretend you did it out of the goodness of your heart. You did it because you wanted me. And you couldn’t be with the woman everyone was whispering about because that would make you look bad and your father wouldn’t be happy with that.”