Now she simply endured.
Unable to face the office, she’d called the next day and spoken with Abigail, whose gentle voice had almost been her undoing. But then Vivian had come on the line.
“Though I’m disappointed, I completely understand how you could find yourself in this situation, Ziara,” her mentor had said, her attitude far more subdued than in previous conversations. “Take a couple of days, but then we need you back in the office. The show is only seven days away and we can’t afford for you to be absent longer than that. After the show, we’ll talk.”
Which probably meant: I need you to get me through this event, but then you are fired. Good or bad, she’d meet her obligations for the same reason she’d started working with Sloan—because she cared enough about Eternity Designs to see it succeed.
What she’d do after that, she didn’t know.
Eighteen
Sloan stared at the blueprints for his newest reconstruction of an historic office building, but his thoughts turned again and again to the sketch of an imperial-style nightgown he knew was hiding underneath.
He should have moved on by now, but he couldn’t. The show was tomorrow and he should be there, making sure everything ran smoothly, damn it.
His mind kept replaying Ziara’s stiff back and shattered expression before she’d walked out of his office. Had he made a huge mistake? Had he let his pride mislead him from the truth?
She’d felt something for him. If he’d doubted it before that moment, he hadn’t since. He didn’t blame her for not saying it, for holding back. Not after seeing what she’d endured as a child.
He couldn’t stop himself—he’d dug into Ziara’s past the minute he’d returned to his old office. She’d come from a less than reputable family. Her mother had gotten pregnant with her very young—at seventeen. The same age at which Ziara had left home.
The father seemed to have been in the picture enough to sign the birth certificate, but records indicated he’d left Macon not long after Ziara was born. His name hinted that he was the source of Ziara’s exotic beauty—an Indian who had moved back to India five years ago after failing to make much of himself here in the U.S.
Vera’s police record for prostitution started when Ziara was eight, with only a few arrests, but a quick conversation with an officer in Macon indicated she was well-known for her trade and generally left alone until some wife made a fuss. That same officer had told him Ziara left town as soon as she’d earned her GED, after years of being tormented by schoolmates who were well aware of her mother’s profession.
But the information had only reinforced his decision to walk away. He didn’t know where Vera Divan had gotten her information, or why she had confronted him that day—at least, not for sure. Suspicions lurked at the back of his mind, but honestly, the problem with Ziara meant more to him now than the business. He would not make Ziara pay any more than she already had for her upbringing. His physical relationship with her had given Vera the ammunition she’d needed to interfere in her daughter’s life. What would stop her from doing it again? What if his suspicions were wrong?
Sloan sighed, running rough hands through his hair. It sucked when you realized you were in love with someone as you walked away from them.
Looking back, he could see that Ziara was ashamed, not just of her past, but of the things her mother did for money. So she’d run as far in the other direction as she could.
The buzz of the doorbell pulled Sloan’s thoughts away from the scenarios swirling through his brain. Striding the length of the house, he jerked the door open. “Yes?”
“Don’t have to be so short about it, Sloan.”
Frowning at Patrick, whose incessant phone calls had about driven him crazy, he turned away without a word.
“Love you, too, jackass,” his friend called out behind him. He didn’t let Sloan’s reticence stop him from coming in and making himself at home.
“What are you doing here?”
“Well, since you stopped answering my calls, what choice did I have?”
“You could have just stopped calling me. Or gone home. After all, you don’t have a job here anymore.”
“And let you throw away something you’ve worked damn hard for? Not a chance.” Patrick just kept on coming. “And I do have a job, thanks to a certain someone whose name you forbid me to say.”
“What happened?”
“If you wanted to know, you should have answered my phone calls.”
Sloan glared, torn between curiosity and the pain of hearing her name. Patrick simply stood there with a smirk on his face, humming a few bars of “That’s What Friends Are For.” Infuriated, Sloan stomped through the house to the kitchen, jerking open the fridge to snag a Mountain Dew.