The Auction House Deal: Bought by A Billionaire

Chapter 163: Therapy: Hannah

I sat there with Lori for a long while as I tried to wrap my head around everything. Eventually, the tears had stopped, and we sat in silence.

It felt really weird to me that I was in a position to need therapy. Then again, it wasn’t exactly like any of my life had been what most would consider happy and stable. I glanced over to Lori, "Maybe all of us should be in therapy."

Lori let out a short burst of laughter. "You’re right about that. Life has been an uphill battle, hasn’t it?"

I studied her. It felt awful, but I had never thought about Lori struggling with it all. She was always so bubbly, helpful, and positive. She seemed passionate and just a never-ending beam of purity and happiness.

However, we had gone through most things together growing up. Our father’s brutality, our brothers’ cruelty, and our brother Martin’s horrible death. Never once had we been given the option to seek professional help.

We were brought up to feel invalid, so it made sense I discounted everything I felt as just being dramatic and silly. I sighed and gave Lori another hug. "Thank you for being here for me. I really appreciate it. I don’t know where I would be without you."

She squeezed me back. "I don’t know where I would be without you, either. We always have each other."

We shared a smile and, just to try and brighten the mood, we went on a walk through the building so that she could again, size up the place, and help find more furniture.

We headed up to the apartments and we did a walk through, despite the construction, so that she could get a sense of the space. She gushed over the progress being made and made her suggestions for paint colors and potential flooring. I thought maybe we should get a counselor’s perspective too, wanting to optimize the space to be a place for recovery. Lori loved the idea. She took little notes and we headed back down to my office.

We shopped for couches and beds that would be practical, affordable, but comfortable. And also stylish. I didn’t want the space to feel like a shelter. While the women wouldn’t have an option in furniture, it could at least be a lovely place to rest their heads and get on their feet.

We sat around for awhile, chatting and shopping, until a call came through for Lori. She peered at the phone and frowned. "I think I have to get going. We have a meeting in a bit."

"That’s okay, thank you for coming at all."

She squeezed me and kissed the top of my head. Before she pulled away, she rested her hands on my shoulders. "Promise me you’ll call and make an appointment with a therapist?"

"Scout’s honor," I joked.

"Hannah, you were never a scout. Promise me."

"Okay, okay," I sighed. "I promise."

She gave me another hug before leaving.

Just like that, I was alone again. Alone with my thoughts.

Lori was right—I needed to just go ahead and make an appointment. Pulling back out the files, I knew that I wanted to talk to Tara about things, but was that not an option if I employed her? I tried to look up the laws about it, and it only served to overwhelm me. She would know, so maybe there wouldn’t be any harm in asking her. She did offer, after all.

I typed her number into my phone, but didn’t hit send. For some reason, I felt the need for fresh air. I needed out of the room that I had just been sobbing in for over an hour. Maybe I needed to buy some sage to burn to cleanse the room. I pushed those thoughts aside and headed out of the building.

I paced around the sidewalk as I stared down at her number.

Why did I feel so silly about asking for help? She was so nice, and had even offered.

My thoughts were going in circles. I sucked in many deep breaths and finally hit call. Raising the phone to my ear, I tried my best to clear my head.

After many rings, a crystal clear voice came across. "This is Tara Mathers."

"Hi, Tara, it’s Hannah Thaddeus," I greeted and nibbled on my lip. "I had a question for you."

"Ask away," she replied pleasantly enough.

I cleared my throat and took a moment to muster my courage. "If I were to offer you the job, which I will be, are you able to be my counselor? Or would I need to find someone else?"

"Well, it’s pretty common for counselors to offer services to the staff. The only one in danger is me if I breech your confidentiality. Which I never would, took an oath and all that," she chuckled.

"I see," I breathed. "Okay. Well then, would you like to be my lead counselor, and my private counselor?"

"I would love to," she beamed. "Thank you so much for the opportunity."

"I can send you the job offer letter tomorrow, maybe, to review to make sure the salary is sufficient," I muttered.

"When would you like to set up your first appointment?" she asked.

"How soon are you available?" I replied, my voice unable to lift above a murmur.

"How about tomorrow morning?"

"That sounds good, thank you," I breathed. "Thank you so much."

"Happy to help. It’s my job," Tara replied sweetly.

We hung up and I finally felt like I was really able to breathe. I wished she was available right then, but I knew that wasn’t how the world worked. I needed to be respectful of her time and space. After all, she was my employee.

That realization felt weird, even in my own mind.

I looked up to the building and took a moment to try and ground myself.

While I was an anxious disaster, I knew that there was so much to look forward to. And even though I felt goofy and weird to ask for counseling, I knew that I had to be the best version of myself if I was going to be the best I could be for the women that I was going to help.

In my pacing about, I had managed to end up on the other side of the building. I decided to take the long way around, knowing there was no need to rush back in. My appointments were cancelled for the rest of the day, so all there was to do was wait for Roman to get there.

That was okay. Taking some time to collect myself and decompress before we headed to the festival sounded like just what I needed. I was already daydreaming of the beers I would have just in a couple of hours.

What a day it had been.

I hoped that the day hadn’t been bad enough to put Roman in a bad mood, and part of me worried the incident with me had been enough to push it over to that side. I just wanted us to have a good time at the festival. I thought that it was something we both desperately needed, with how intense things had been lately.

As I headed around the corner of the building, I heard a rustle from behind me. I slowly turned and looked around. There was nothing. I was just anxious. Shaking off the feeling, I started walking again.

When the rustling noise came again, I didn’t even bother turning in that direction. I had already checked, there wasn’t any reason to make myself paranoid. This was just a trauma response, something that Lori had said to me during our talks together. I needed to stop feeding it. I needed to just ignore it and go about my life.

As I walked, I realized that Nick had never followed after me. In fact, I hadn’t seen him in a while. What was going on with him? Was I just being hard on him because of my own paranoia? Or was it because he really wasn’t up to par?

I considered that maybe I should talk to Roman about it, but I didn’t want to bring it up yet. It could wait for tomorrow. We deserved a good night.

When the rustling sound happened again, I finally gave in, thinking that it was Nick finally catching up to me. However, as I turned, there was a blur of movement. My head whipped around, trying to see what it was.

Before I could make anything out, an arm locked around my waist and a hand clamped over my mouth.

My eyes widened, and I screamed against the gloved hand.

I hadn’t been paranoid. I had been right to be worried. Where was Nick? Was I going to die?

I screamed and screamed, but the hand only tightened.

Who was this? Who would do this?

Panic took over my mind and flight-or-fight was kicking in. What was I going to do?