Keep The Assistant And My Car Chapter 2

Vicky grabbed my hand and pulled me upstairs toward our master bathroom, her eyes slightly red, playing the part of the devoted, distressed girlfriend perfectly.

"The housekeeper is off today. Why don’t you take a shower, and I’ll go downstairs and sear you a steak?" she offered softly.

I nodded, watching her walk away. I turned to my dresser to grab some fresh clothes and pulled open my underwear drawer.

I froze.

"Oh, by the way!" Vicky called out from the hallway. "The housekeeper said your boxers were getting a little worn out, so she threw the old ones away. Just grab a fresh pair from the bottom row."

I bent down and slid the bottom drawer open.

I am incredibly particular about my things. My housekeeper knows I have a strict organizational system; everything must be perfectly aligned. She checks it meticulously every day.

But right in the middle of the drawer, a brand-new box of my imported silk boxers was missing.

A memory hit me like a physical blow.

Two days ago, Spencer had posted one of those curated, "aesthetic lifestyle" photo dumps on Instagram. In the third slide, sitting casually on his coffee table next to an espresso, was a brand-new box of that exact, hyper-specific brand of luxury underwear.

A suffocating, white-hot rage hijacked my nervous system.

Vicky took my underwear from our home and gave it to her assistant?

I didn't want to admit it, but in that moment, I was consumed by a visceral, humiliating jealousy. In nine years, I had never felt this kind of blinding fury over another man.

I wanted to storm down the stairs, corner her in the kitchen, and scream at her. Did she have any idea what it meant for a woman to buy a man underwear?

I gripped the edge of the marble counter, fighting to regulate my breathing. Just as I managed to unclench my jaw, the bathroom door swung open. Vicky walked in, her heels clicking against the tile.

"Clark, Spencer just brought the car back to the dealership. But the title transfer requires me to be there in person," she said briskly, already checking her reflection in the mirror. "You’ll have to figure out dinner yourself."

The embers of my anger instantly flared back into a roaring fire.

"It can’t wait until tomorrow?" I demanded. "You have to leave the house now, in the middle of the night?"

Vicky paused, her brow furrowing as if I were the one being unreasonable.

"You’re the one who loves this car so much. I’m rushing to get the paperwork done for you."

The heat in my chest instantly vanished, replaced by an expansive, hollow ice.

"You took my car without my permission," I said, my voice eerily calm. "I merely reclaimed what was already mine."

"It’s late. It’s dark. You can go tomorrow."

She let out a long, heavy sigh, looking at me with undisguised disappointment.

"You publicly humiliated Spencer by forcing him to return my gift. Now you’ve got him waiting around at the dealership wasting his night."

"Clark, you can’t just think about yourself all the time."

"When you act like this, it’s like I don’t even know you."

I stared at her. The absurdity of her words echoed in the tiled room.

I’m thinking about myself?

I’m the stranger?

"Do you hear yourself right now, Vicky?" I asked quietly.

A flash of impatience crossed her face, but she forced her tone into a patronizing patience.

"Maybe I phrased that harshly. But you need to understand—Spencer is the only man at the company right now who can actually carry the weight of this workload with me. You stripped him of his dignity tonight. I can’t just abandon him there."

When I didn't respond, she sighed again, a deeply tired sound.

"Clark, you come from old money. Your family has everything. You don't get what it’s like for normal people like me."

"If I want a future with you, I have to be ruthless. I have to build an empire. Sure, you can throw a childish tantrum tonight and demand I stay home. But if I alienate the one partner who is in the trenches fighting beside me... that’s a cost I’m not willing to pay."

A ringing sound filled my ears.

The one partner in the trenches with her.

So that was it. Deep down, Vicky had always felt our backgrounds made us incompatible. And now, she saw Spencer as her true equal. Her comrade in arms.

I see.

The last thread holding my heart together snapped.

"Go," I said, my voice completely devoid of emotion.

Without a single second of hesitation, she turned on her heel and walked out.

The heavy oak door clicked shut, leaving nothing behind but the fading scent of her gardenia perfume.

There was a time when I admired Vicky’s cold, calculating rationality above all else. And she used to say she loved my innate pride, the unyielding backbone I was born with.

But everything had rotted.

I looked up at the ceiling and let out a long, shuddering breath. When a woman’s heart leaves the room, there is no point in blocking the door.

I pulled my phone from my pocket and dialed a New York area code.

"Dad," I said when the line clicked. "Tell the heiress I’ll take the meeting."

Five years ago, after graduation, my father demanded I return to Manhattan to take over the family’s investment firm. I refused to leave Vicky behind, so I stayed in Seattle.

For five years, I stripped away the "trust fund kid" label and built something from the ground up. Whatever Vicky wanted to do, I backed her financially and emotionally. We stumbled, we bled, and eventually, we built the largest apparel conglomerate in the Pacific Northwest.

We were pulling in over a billion dollars in annual revenue. And my reward was her telling me we weren't "in the trenches" together.

Leaving all this behind to go back to New York... it stung. But I was done.

My screen lit up. A text from Vicky.

The title is transferred. Car is at the dealership. Spencer and I are heading back to the office to pull an all-nighter. Won’t be home.

I lay down on our king-sized bed in the dark, my eyes wide open until the sun came up.