Damaged Goods (Sidelined Book 2) Read online

  Damaged Goods

  Sidelined Book 2

  Ainslie Paton

  This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events are the product of the author’s vivid imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, organizations or people, living or dead is purely co-incidental and beyond the intent of the author and publisher. Copyright © 2016.

  Damaged Goods

  The Hard Part is Getting Back Up

  This is the story of a man who can’t get it up and a woman who’s never gotten it on

  Sidelined by a broken back, CEO, Owen Lange is confronted by two things: his sex life will never be the same and he’s dependent on his pain meds. He never expected to have his dependence called out as addiction by a junior help desk employee.

  Cara Douglas knows all about pain and loss. She’d had her sights set on the US Olympic Gymnastics Team before an accident landed her at a help desk screen. The last thing she expected to be helping with was an intervention for her boss.

  Owen doesn’t thank Cara for her trouble. He calls her a snitch. But even through his paranoia he knows she’s right. After all, addiction runs in his family. He also knows he has to make it up to her, but the only thing Cara wants is the one thing Owen can’t give her.

  Question: What do an injured athlete finally ready for no-strings sex and a nice guy who can’t get it up have in common?

  Answer: Sexual awakening.

  Chapters

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  Sold Short

  About Plus

  About Ainslie Paton

  ONE

  Owen rolled to his back as fingers of awareness prickled his brain. Seconds later, with the involuntary tightening of the muscles of his torso, he was fully awake. He groaned, stomach hollowing out as a spasm squeezed across his chest.

  He brought his knees up, heels pressing into the mattress. There was no avoiding the aching pressure, and there was nothing he could do to stop the throbbing wave of feeling coming.

  His fists balled at his sides, curled in the sheet. He needed to calm down. If he could calm down, it wouldn’t be this way. He tipped his head back into the pillow, chin up, mouth open, his breath coming in snatches. God, it was too soon. He had to hold out. But the swoop of nausea arrived along with the sharp hug of sensation wrapping around his ass, hip to hip, making him want to buck against it. A hiss of heat ignited along his spine, tendrils of fire licking deep and hateful, and a stream of profanity smoked from his lips.

  This was going to eat him from the inside out.

  He rolled, bringing his knees up and over so he was on his side, trying to make himself smaller, to get away, to find comfort, but the fire was out of control now, electric in its intensity, unrelenting in its intention to break him.

  Hands to his face, he stifled a sob.

  He used to be a man who ruled his body with his brain, who made sense from chaos, thrived on ambiguity and loved taking risk by the scruff of its neck and shaking it until it was shouting Uncle. Now his body set the agenda and he cowered at the uncertainty he couldn’t master. Not without help.

  This was his life now.

  After the accident.

  This merciless invasion of pain, turning his waking moments into a dance of caution and his sleeping ones into anticipation of another hijack.

  Like precision clockwork, every four hours the pain was back, drying out his mouth, making his hands shake. Each assault hitting him harder than the last, weakening his resolve.

  He wouldn’t sleep again, unless he took a pill. If he didn’t sleep, he’d be a zombie during the day. And it was a day where he needed to prove he was ready.

  Could he breathe through this, find the slices of ease in the knife slides of agony until it was time to get up? He was better off wishing it was worse. If it was worse, he’d pass out and never need to know the struggle.

  How did his life become a place where worse was better?

  But it wasn’t worse, it wasn’t better, this invasion of pain in his body wasn’t a foe he could get familiar with. He squinted at the clock, three minutes since he last looked. If this was before, he’d be awake in fifty-five minutes. At five-fifteen, he’d be dressed and leading his Cannondale bicycle out from under the garage door. He’d have an hour to ride in Golden Gate Park and still make the office in Palo Alto before eight.

  He’d thought about giving the bike to someone who could use it. Just the idea of sitting astride it, leaning forward to take the handlebars, made him tense. Before the accident he’d been able to put his body in that arched forward position made to chase speed, and lose it there while his head did other things: solved problems, planned, dreamed. That hour was the prayer portion of his day before the business of living started. Now the business of living was as much a strain on his body as it was on his mental strength.

  He’d thought he knew how to handle pain. Having his heart ripped out should’ve taught him everything he needed to know to master this.

  And it wasn’t supposed to be this way. He was supposed to be healed. Recovered. Good as new. Taking it easy and to expect fatigue, but mended, ready to pick up where he’d left off when the truck crashed into Kuch’s Tesla and put them both on the critical list.

  That was four months ago. A whole season had passed. A summer he’d filled with surgery and therapy, resting and impatience. And a lifetime of arguments with his family. He was not going back to Chicago, and no way was he going to Vegas. He wasn’t joining the family business, now or ever. He’d crossed the country to put distance between himself, the easy money and the hard addictions of being a Lange. And it was going to stay that way.

  He might have broken his back but he wasn’t breaking that rule. He’d make his own way or not at all, and that hadn’t changed since Stanford, meeting Reid and starting Plus.

  And nothing Brooke had said or done while she kicked around to care for him would change that. She’d smoothed his way and given him a dozen distractions, as only a wayward baby sister who had no reason to earn her own living and no ambition to change that could.

  Without Brooke sleeping down the hall, there was no reason to stifle his moans. No one in the house to wake if he stumbled around in the kitchen or ran scalding shower water long enough to create a citywide shortage. No one to take that information and make it another reason for his family to pressure him to come home.

  Knowing he was alone made this more freeing and more desperate. But he’d wanted this, to be back to normal, even as he knew his body wasn’t ready for it. For fuck’s sake, parts of him still weren’t functioning and maybe never would again.

  As if living through that first fatal crash in his life wasn’t enough to make him wonder if he’d always be alone.

  The pill bottle on the nightstand was empty. It’d had a merry rattle to it this time last week. The pain doc said he shouldn’t need them anymore. But one more wouldn’t matter because if he had the shakes when he fronted the off
ice he wouldn’t get past Sarina’s eagle eyes or Dev’s probing. Reid, he could bluff, unless Zarley had continued to work her voodoo on him, taking his wooden Pinocchio and making him into a real boy.

  The sane part of him hoped she had.

  There wasn’t much left of the sane part of him. Another axe swipe of evil rippled around his hip and under his thigh. He used it to push his legs over the edge of the bed and reef himself upright. He was sweating, his hands shaking. Standing made his head spin. He shuffled to the bathroom holding on to walls and doorways and the edge of the sink. He made the shower water almost too hot to stand, trying to sear the pain out. But five minutes under the spray and his legs were trembling and the decision made.

  He got out, toweled his face off, avoided the mirror; he wouldn’t like what he saw. He took a fresh prescription of relief from the bathroom cabinet and popped a pill from the blister pack. These prescription meds were highly addictive, he’d been warned. A gateway drug to other opiates. But he wasn’t addicted. He was the only one of the Langes who hadn’t made booze, drugs, or dice his religion.

  He just needed a little help on this last stage of his recovery. He took the pill, guzzling water with it. He’d sleep now, a few more hours, and be refreshed when he woke. When he was ready, he’d find another way to deal with the pain. Move to the slow release drug and learn to pace himself, waiting the hours required till it was safe to take another dose. He could do it. He wasn’t an addict.

  He drank a second glass of water and caught sight of his eyes in the mirror, red-veined, sunken and heavy-lidded. Barely recognizable. Damaged goods.

  He wasn’t addicted, but he was destroyed all the same.

  TWO

  Reid swooped in from behind, so Cara didn’t get a chance to steel herself. She was focused on her screen and ending the customer chat session in progress. By the time she realized Reid, company founder, onetime infamous CEO and current head of innovation didn’t come alone, it was too late, the eyes of her team were beady beacons of what’s up with that.

  “Owen, this is Cara.”

  She winced at the sound of Reid’s loud voice, pressed down on her desk and stood to face him.

  “You probably don’t remember her from the hospital. She’s worked here since, I don’t know, how long have you worked here, Cara? Anyway, we lived together.”

  Prairie-dogging went professional with Reid’s stunning admission.

  “She’s the one with,” Reid tapped his own butt, oblivious to the stir he’d caused, “came to the hospital to tell you about it.” He grinned, the change of expression transforming him from mad scientist to her best girl Zarley’s insanely hot, often ridiculous, boyfriend, and Cara’s onetime, out of necessity, roommate.

  “We didn’t live together as in live together.” She glared at Reid. Did her teammates witness that butt tap? Holy corset strings. And this was Owen. Owen who started Plus with Reid, who’d had to sack Reid for being a dick to work with, then recall him when a head-on collision with a truck put Owen in hospital.

  She looked over the top of her PC screen at her colleagues. “My apartment burned down,” she flung a hand out toward Reid. “He has a girlfriend.”

  Reid’s laughter was loudest. “Seem to remember you’re grumpy in the morning before coffee.”

  Damn him, he was uncomfortably inappropriate as usual. The portion of the company that wasn’t secretly terrified of Reid was irritated by him, the rest would’ve licked the ground he walked on. Cara had been in all three camps about the man, swapping to grudgingly worshipful when he’d shown himself as such a good guy for Zarley.

  There was a chorus of greetings for Owen, and he responded, thanking people for their concern and well wishes, but Cara still heard a, “Whoa, Cara,” and then Enzo’s, “Lived together, huh.” She’d have some explaining to do.

  There was also a, “Reid, have you got a minute. Can I show you what I did with this customer complaint?” It came from some suck-up four cubicle blocks over, who everyone, including Reid, ignored.

  Owen held his hand out. It was good to see him on his feet. Last time she’d seen him he’d been immobilized, in spinal shock, and it was unclear if he’d walk again. There’d been lots of company updates on his progress since then, but spinal injuries could be so unpredictable.

  “Hi,” he said. “I’m sorry we didn’t meet before the accident, and I’m sorry I don’t remember much about what happened right after it.”

  She shook Owen’s hand, aware that work had come to a complete stop and everyone was staring at them. “Is Reid sacked again?”

  Chorus of gasps, groans and nervous laughter. Reid’s again the loudest.

  “Too soon?” she said. Because she could be inappropriate too, and Reid being fired then gate-crashing a company anniversary function, only to have to apologize publicly before being reinstated when Owen was sidelined, was the stuff of company legend.

  Owen smiled, but it never reached his eyes. He stood stiffly, like he had a broom handle taped to his spine. In one of the conference rooms there were blown-up pictures Owen had taken while skydiving. He no longer looked like a man who’d enjoy doing that.

  “Are you back, Owen?” Enzo asked.

  Owen’s eyes shifted to Reid’s. “I’m back, but unless he really screws up again, we’re keeping him.”

  Reid grunted, folded his arms across his considerably broad chest and tried not to look like having Owen back was as captivating as one of Zarley’s pole-dance routines.

  “Good to hear,” Enzo said to a murmur of approval.

  “How’s Kuch?” Glen called, asking after the company chairman who’d been hurt in the same accident. Reid left Owen’s side, circling the cubicle block to answer, which left her with Owen, who shifted his weight foot to foot, a flicker of tension creasing his brow.

  “Thank you for coming to the hospital,” he said.

  He’d been caged in that hospital bed, unable to move, covered in wires and tubes and heavily drugged. He’d called her Starburst in front of Reid and Zarley, but it didn’t seem like he remembered and that was probably best. “No problem.”

  Owen rubbed a hand over his eyes, almost absently, as if that’s where the source of his discomfort was, and Cara’s chest got tight. She didn’t know him, had only been at Plus a few weeks before he was hospitalized, but there was only one court of opinion about him.

  He was a good guy.

  People had been genuinely upset and concerned about him, and Reid was devoted to Owen, but none of that mattered more than the fact the man standing in front of her was in pain—and Cara knew a lot about pain.

  “I hope you’re taking good care.” She blushed. Stupid thing to say. Owen was a rich guy, from what he’d made at Plus and according to Google, he had family money. She knew he had the best of healthcare, no expense spared. She’d seen it at his hospital bedside. He’d have every possible assistance to recover completely.

  That thought put a bitter taste in her mouth. Not everyone had the advantage that money bought.

  “I, ah. Yeah, I’m doing well.” Owen spoke with a low voice and muffled what he said with his hand.

  And then Reid swooped again and whisked Owen away before the conversation could go anywhere near the dangerous territory of talking about their respective injuries.

  Cara watched the two men, best friends since college, go. They couldn’t be more different. Reid tall and dark, as like to stumble over his own quick feet as he was to absentmindedly walk into a wall while he was determinedly plotting something diabolical; Owen the same imposing height, but with dirty blond hair and a heavy hesitancy to his step. Reid walked ahead of Owen but facing him, moving backward, hands and mouth moving. Owen had the weary shuffle of a man three times his thirty. He hadn’t moved like that before. He’d stood on a chair to make announcements. He’d been smiling, confident, quietly inspiring. He didn’t have Reid’s in-your-face presence, but he’d been athletic and graceful and seemed too nice to be ruthless enough to be CEO.
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  Now Owen was shrunken in on himself.

  “You lived with Reid,” said Enzo, yanking her attention back to her team.

  “What of it? His girlfriend, Zarley, is my best friend and was my roomie before our apartment burned down. Reid was kind enough to let me live with them, the two of them, Reid and Zarley, for a short time, short. Okay.”

  “You don’t live with him anymore?”

  “I got the apartment back.” Brighter, better and almost affordable with the salary she made here, but she was on the lookout for a roommate to share with now that Zarley and Reid were rock solid together and the rent break she’d gotten in lieu of any insurance payout was about over.

  “So, um, spill,” said Shaheeda.

  “About what?”

  Shaheeda licked her lips. “Reid. Give us all his nasty habits.”

  “You sly dog,” said Paco over the low wall of the cubicles.

  “We want all the dirt.” That was Tony.

  Goddamn Reid and his big goof mouth. “There’s no dirt. I saw more of him in the office than I did at home.” Reid’s absence from the apartment had been a running joke, with Cara suggesting Zarley had done away with him, leaving a random t-shirt or a spoon in the sink as a way of maintaining the fantasy he was still alive.

  “What kind of place does he have?” Theo again.

  Cara sat so she could avoid further eye contact. “I’m not telling you that.”

  “Were you there when he had his big asshole moment?” Enzo, his comment followed by a round of sniggering.

  She wasn’t, though she’d made the dress Zarley wore the night Reid had gate-crashed a company function, and she’d moved in to house-sit while Reid and Zarley laid low in Paris, after Reid’s failed campaign to get Plus back and the apology note where he outed himself as an asshole went viral.

  “I’ve got work to do,” she said.

  “Not that you’re getting sacked anytime soon,” said Shaheeda.