I Am Not Your Pawn Anymore

Monday morning at Meyers Media was a catastrophe.

"Anaya!" Barrett yelled, staring at the empty desk outside his office.

Silence answered him.

A terrified temp assistant hurried in, spilling coffee on the saucer. "Sir? I... I don't know where the files are."

Barrett swept the cup off his desk. It shattered against the wall.

"Get out!"

The temp fled.

Barrett ran a hand through his hair. He was unraveling. The office was in chaos. The Townsend merger was stalling because the due diligence team had found "irregularities" in the logistics subsidiary-exactly what Anaya had warned him about.

How did she know?

The door opened. His PR director, Marcus, walked in, looking pale.

"Boss, we have a problem. The video from the Hamptons. It's on TMZ."

Barrett stared at the tablet Marcus handed him. There it was. Anaya, looking like a vengeful goddess in a summer dress, shoving Adele into the pool. The paper airplane landing.

The comments were brutal. But not for Anaya.

"Finally someone pushed that plastic doll."

"Who is the girl in the dress? She's iconic."

"Townsend's lawyers want a statement," Marcus said. "They drafted this. It condemns Anaya as a disgruntled, violent ex-employee."

Barrett looked at the draft. It called Anaya "unstable" and "jealous."

He picked up his pen. He should sign it. It was the smart business move.

But he remembered the look in Anaya's eyes at the pool. It wasn't jealousy. It was indifference.

He threw the pen down. "Bury it. No statement."

"But sir-"

"I said bury it!"

That night, Barrett drove his Aston Martin too fast on the LIE. The rain was coming down in sheets, mirroring the storm inside his head.

He reached for his phone to call Anaya again. He needed to hear her voice. He needed to yell at her, or maybe beg her. He didn't know which.

The car hydroplaned.

The world spun. Metal screeched against concrete. The airbag deployed with a punch to his face that knocked him into darkness.

In a cozy kitchen in New Jersey, Anaya was kneading dough. Nana Rose sat in her rocking chair, knitting.

"You okay, child?" Nana asked.

"I'm fine, Nana."

Anaya's phone rang. A strange number.

She answered. "Hello?"

"Ms. Rowe? This is the OnStar emergency service. We have a crash alert for a vehicle registered to Barrett Meyers. You are listed as the primary emergency contact."

Anaya's hands paused in the flour. She remembered the day she'd set that up. Barrett had tossed her the keys and said, "Handle this," too important to fill out his own paperwork. He never would have thought to change it. He never thought she would leave.

In her past life, she would have been in the car. Or she would have been rushing to the hospital, sobbing, holding his hand while he yelled at her for his own reckless driving.

She looked at the flour on her fingers.

"Is he alive?" she asked.

"The paramedics are on scene. He is conscious but disoriented."

"Good," Anaya said. "You have the wrong number."

"Ma'am? The system says-"

"His fiancée is Adele Townsend. Call her. And remove my number from your database."

She hung up.

She tapped the screen and blocked the number. Then she went back to the dough. She pressed her palms into it, folding it over, burying the past.

Barrett woke up in the ER. His head throbbed.

"Anaya?" he croaked.

His assistant, Marcus, was standing by the bed. He looked uncomfortable.

"Sir... Ms. Rowe... we called her."

"Where is she?" Barrett tried to sit up.

"She said to call Ms. Townsend. She hung up on the operator."

Barrett froze. The pain in his head was nothing compared to the hollow ache in his chest. She didn't come. She didn't care.

The door flew open. Adele rushed in, followed by a photographer.

"Oh, my poor darling!" Adele cried, posing perfectly by the bedside. "Did you get the shot?" she hissed at the photographer.

Barrett looked at Adele. He looked at the camera lens.

Suddenly, a vision flashed in his mind. A cold, gray cell. Anaya, curling on a cot, alone. Dying alone.

It was so vivid, so real, it made him nauseous.

He pulled his hand away from Adele.

"Get out," he whispered.