Beautiful Bastard

her imprint, and it didn’t matter that she’d never been to my place. The mere fact that we talked about it—and that I’d planned for her to come here our first night back—made her ghost as good as permanent.
    I called her; she didn’t answer. Granted, it was at three in the morning, but I knew she wasn’t sleeping either. Her silence was worsened by the fact that I knew she felt what I felt. I knew she was in just as deep as I was. But she thought she shouldn’t be.
    Tomorrow couldn’t come soon enough.

    I got in at six, before I knew she’d be there. I got us both coffee, updated my calendar to save her some time she could use to catch up after being gone. I faxed the contract to Gugliotti, telling him the version he saw in San Diego was final, and whatever Chloe presented would stand. I gave him two days to return the signature pages.
    And then, I waited.
    At eight, my father came into my office, Henry close behind. Dad scowled often, but rarely at me. Henry never looked pissed.
    But both of them looked like they wanted to murder me.
    “What did you do?” Dad dropped a piece of paper on my desk.
    Ice dripped into my veins. “What is that?”
    “It’s Chloe’s resignation letter. She dropped it off with Sara this morning.”
    It was a full minute before I could speak. In that time, the only sound was my brother saying, “Ben, dude. What happened?”
    “I fucked up,” I said, finally, pressing the heels of my hands to my eyes.
    Dad sat down, face composed. He was sitting in the chair that, not a month ago, Chloe had sat in, spread her legs, and touched herself while I tried to keep it together on the phone.
    Christ, how did I let it get to this?
    “Tell me what happened.” My father’s voice got very quiet: a lull between quakes.
    I pulled my tie looser around my neck, suffocating under the weight on my chest.
    Chloe left me.
    “We’re together. Or, we were.”
    Henry shouted, “I knew it!” just as Dad yelled, “You what ?”
    “Not until San Diego,” I reassured them quickly. “Before San Diego we were just—”
    “Fucking?” Henry offered helpfully, and received a sharp look from Dad.
    “Yes. We were just . . .” A spike of pain gouged into my chest. Her expression when I leaned in to kiss her. Her full bottom lip caught between my teeth. Her laugh against my mouth. “And as you both know, I was a jerk. She gave back just as good, though,” I assured them. “And in San Diego, it became more. Fuck .” I reached for the letter before pulling my hand back. “She really resigned?”
    My father nodded, his face completely unreadable. It was his superpower, all my life: in the moments when he felt the most, he showed the least.
    “This is why we have the office fraternization policy, Ben,” he said, softening his tone with my nickname. “I thought you knew better than this.”
    “I know.” I scrubbed my hands over my face and then motioned for Henry to sit down, and told them every detail of what happened with my food poisoning, the meeting with Gugliotti, and how Chloe had covered, capably. I made it clear that we had essentially just decided to be together when I ran into Ed at the hotel.
    “You are such a stupid son of a bitch,” my brother offered once I’d finished, and what could I do but agree?
    After a stern lecture and an assurance that there would be more discussion on all of the ways I fucked up, Dad went to his office to call Chloe to request that she come work for him for the remainder of her internship.
    His concern wasn’t just for Ryan Media, though if she chose to stay on after she finished her MBA, she could easily become one of the most important members of our strategic marketing team. It was also that she had less than three months left to find a new internship, learn the ropes, and take on a new project to present to the scholarship board. Given their influence on the business school, their feedback would determine whether Chloe would graduate with honors and receive a personal letter of recommendation from the CEO of JT Miller.
    It could make or break the beginning of her career.
    Henry and I sat in stony silence for the next hour; he glared at me and I stared out the window. I could almost feel how much he wanted to kick my ass. Dad came back into my office and picked up her resignation letter, folding it into neat thirds. I still hadn’t been able to look at it. She’d typed it, and for the first time since I met her, I wanted nothing more