Her face was pink, tears cutting thick, broken lines down her cheeks. Alarm bells rang in my head, and panic churned frothy in my gut. Once again, I’d gone too far. Took a hammer to a situation that required velvet gloves. Catherine wasn’t one of the hardened men I dealt with on a daily basis, but I’d spoken to her like she was.
“Catherine—”
Her hair crashed around her shoulders from the violent shake of her head. “I get that I’m a bad mother. A failure of a mother. Don’t you think I know? I wasn’t ready for this, but I was selfish and had her anyway because I wanted her. Now look at me, making a fucking fool of myself in front of my boss and—”
I was on my feet, dragging her into my arms before I could think. This was exactly what I’d avoided for months—getting close to her, touching her—but I needed her to calm down, to be okay, more than I needed to preserve my boundaries.
Locked up memories of my own mother breaking down, falling apart, sobbing for days on end, clawed free. I was hugging Catherine but squeezing Elaine. The past and present blended, and I clamped my eyes shut, willing myself to remember who was in front of me.
Not my broken mother.
This was Catherine, having a bad moment, a bad few days, a tough fucking month or two. That was all it was. This wasn’t the end of everything.
“You’re okay,” I murmured. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“I’m so stupid,” she rasped, letting her face fall heavy on my chest.
“You’re not. You made mistakes, but you’re not even close to stupid. I’m sorry.”
I cupped the back of her head and stroked her long, thick hair. Her cries were weak, barely even whimpers, but her shoulders shook like earthquakes.
“I let him lie to me. Lie for me. Why did I do that?”
“You said it, Catherine. You wanted a family. There’s nothing shameful about that.”
“That isn’t true. My shame is so deep I don’t know where it ends. And now I’m stuck, so stuck, and I never wanted to be in this position.” Her fingers curled into my T-shirt, clutching me like the only thing tethering her from falling under all this heaviness. “I shouldn’t be holding you,” she whispered.
“I’m holding you. There’s nothing wrong with accepting comfort when it’s offered.” I dragged my hand down the length of her spine. “Tell me to let you go and I will. But I can keep holding you for as long as you need to feel okay.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Have you ever known me to do anything I don’t want to?”
“Never.” She knocked her forehead against me. “I need to tell you something else since I’m spilling my guts.”
My muscles tensed, bracing for impact. An instinctive response from long ago when I had to be prepared for my mother’s extreme highs and rock-bottom lows.
That wasn’t what this was, though. Catherine wasn’t Elaine Levy.
I continued my path up her hair, soothing her as much as calming me. “Go ahead.”
She blurted out her confession in a rush. “After my interview with you, Liam told me he’d added a fake company to my résumé so I would look like I had more experience. I chose not to do anything about it, but I truly didn’t believe I’d get the job. Then I did, and I was paranoid that someone was going to uncover my lie. I’m still a contractor because I was too nervous to draw HR’s attention, especially after I overheard them talking about someone else being fired for falsifying references.”
“You weren’t shifted to full time months ago?” She shook her head. “Jesus, Catherine. I put in the request to HR two months after you started working for me. You should be at full salary, full benefits. The contract salary is—”
Someone’s head was going to roll over this. I wasn’t happy with my request being disregarded. Lack of attention to detail was a fireable offense as far as I was concerned, and not following through with the CEO’s directive was a massive oversight.
“Pretty dismal.” She let out a shuddering laugh. “But didn’t you hear the part about the lies on my résumé?”
“I heard, and I was aware. If you think I’d have a background check done on you and not look into your references, you’re mistaken.”
She pulled back, looking up at me with wide eyes. “You knew the reference wasn’t real? Liam said he made a fake email address—”
I scoffed. “He’s an idiot. One search and it was obvious the company never existed. My interest was piqued though, so I reached out to the email address listed. The response—from Liam, I now know—was riddled with typos, and he claimed the business wasn’t searchable outside of Australia.”