You'll never have me

Chapter 29

Chapter 29

“Are you okay?”
I couldn’t answer him. I was still sobbing, my breath skipping sometimes. The way it does when you have cried heavily for a while.
I wiped away some strayed tears from my face, preventing myself from another crying session.
“Mira?”
Max words were softly spoken, trying to sooth me I guess. One would expect him to be raged, kicking in the gas pedal and driving madly. He was the exact opposite.
Again he said my name, but now he was looking at me sideways, encouraging me to talk.
“I have to get to work.”
That was all I managed to say.
Ear deafening silence filled the car, as we were both too emotional to talk.
My thoughts were all over the place and eventually all I wanted was to be at work and forget about all of this.
I didn’t even realize Max had stopped the car. It was weird, because I thought we would have been in the city already. When I looked out of my window I saw we weren’t in the city,but we were actually at his house.
“Come, I’ll make you some tea”, he said as he urged me to get out.
He got out of the car and walked around it to open my door.
“Max, take me to my work. Mr. Hensly is gonna be pissed if I don’t show up”, I said, not moving a muscle.
“Mira, how on earth are you supposed to do your job right now?”, he asked.
“I have to go Max. I need this job”, I said stoic.
“I’ll call him, besides you were called in because yesterday I had an emergency meeting with him about our collaboration. That’s why he wanted you in today”, he explained.
As in slowmotion my head craned his way and I looked up to him.
“Please, just take me to my work.”
“Don’t be so stubborn girl.”
With one hand he leaned on the car door, frustrating he ran his other hand through his hair heaving a big sigh.
“If you’re not taking me, I will call a cab”, I said searching through my purse to get my phone.
He closed the car door and walked around the car to get back into his seat.
While he started the car again he kept looking at me, but I turned my head towards the window.
The ride from his house to my work was a silent one. We were both in our feelings and neither of us had the energy to say anything, but through his body language I could see he was less than amused with me.
“Thank you.” My tone of voice was annoyed. I wanted to make sure he knew I was not happy at all with him first driving to his place.
He kept the engine running when we stopped in front of the building.
“You must be the most stubborn girl on this earth.”
The words came out of his mouth slowly, emphasizing every word firmly.
“Max, I need to do my job and I want to be alone for now.”
His hands were wrapped around his steering wheel, he gazed outside and heaved a sigh.
“You don’t have to do this alone. I’m here for you. Don’t you know that by now?”, his words now sounded more desperate than mad or annoyed.
I stayed silent, ready to leave the car. My right hand was already on the door handle.
“Let me help you, baby girl.”
His words floated through the air.
I looked at him with teary eyes.
“Oh baby”, he said his eyes pointed at my cheek. “Look at what he’s done to you.”
He reached for my face, his fingertips stopped just a few millimeters before they could touch my cheek. I turned away my face, leaving him to do nothing else but lower his arm and placing his hand back onto his steering wheel.
His facial expression said ‘you can’t go inside there looking like that’  but he didn’t actually speak the words out loud.
“I will call a cab when I’m done. You don’t need to pick me up.”
Then I left his car and slammed the door shut.
I took a deep breath before I entered the building. Lucky for me Eve wasn’t there, so I could sneak to the elevators without anyone seeing me. I needed to get my shit together before I would see Mr. Hensley. I didn’t feel like sharing what happened with him and so I hoped he would only be focussed on work like he mostly is.
Trying to hide my still shaky voice I greeted him; “Hello Mr. Hensley. I am here. Sorry it took a bit longer than I anticipated.”
Without even looking up he said; “Hi Mira, I’m glad you’re here. There are some problems with these contracts and some of the licenses to renovate.”
He then signed for me to come over to his desk and he showed me the documents.
Yes, he is in full work mode!
“I think I see the problem with this contract”, I said, taking it from him, “let me see the others too and I will go over them.”
“Don’t forget these too”, he handed me the documents of the licenses, “we need them to be in order before Tuesday or we will have some serious problems. That’s why I called you in. Have you spoken to Mr. Woods yet? He has some questions too.”
Briefly he looked up, frowned while looking at me and then awaited my answer.
“No, I haven’t yet.”
He then stood up and walked over to me and put his hand on my shoulder.
“Mira, are you okay?”, he then asked, looking me in my eyes.
“I am fine sir. Don’t worry. Do you want me to contact Mr. Woods right away?”
I tried to pretend everything was fine, but of course I could see that he knew I was lying. As long as he didn’t ask any more questions I’d be fine. I wanted to get on those contracts right away, so I could get my mind off of what was going on.
“No, that won’t be necessary. You know what, just send him an email that you will contact him tomorrow.”
I nodded in understanding and then I excited his office.
Although I didn’t want to, as soon as my computer was fired up I opened my email to contact Max.
It was a very formal email and I didn’t know how he would react to it. He wasn’t happy at all when I left the car, but he didn’t seem to be really upset either. I wondered what he was doing right now.
Then I shook my head, I didn’t have time to think about all of that. I needed to focus on these contracts and licenses.
So I got started just to not lose any time.
Like in a movie the day turned into night, hours felt like minutes and by the time it was seven p.m I was exhausted.
I decided to take the documents that I need to go through with me so I could do some work at home. I was getting pretty hungry too, my stomach was growling harder than a lion attacking its prey.
I asked Mr. Hensley permission to leave and then I left to go home. There was only one problem; I forgot that Max had dropped me off and my car was at home.