Single Dad Took His Drunk Boss Home — Her Question the Next Morning Changed Everything”
The alley was dark, illuminated only by the sickly orange glow of a sodium streetlamp.
The rain deafened the city noise.
Valerie was sitting on an overturned milk crate next to a humming industrial dumpster.
Her knees were pulled up to her chest.
Her phone was on the wet asphalt, the screen shattered.
Tom kept his distance, treating the situation like he had stumbled upon a wounded predator.
“Ms.
Croft?”
he called out, raising his voice over the rain.
She jerked her head up.
Her mascara was running, cutting black rivers through the expensive foundation on her cheeks.
She squinted at him.
“Who the hell are you?”
Her words were thick, stumbling into each other.
“Tom Harris.
Financial analysis.
Floor fourteen.”
He took a slow step forward, taking off his suit jacket.
“You’re freezing.
Let’s get you back inside.
I can find your driver.”
“No driver,” she slurred, wrapping her arms tightly around herself.
She shivered violently.
“Fired him.
Fired everyone today.
Board meeting…
bastards tried to vote me out of my own father’s company.
I showed them.”
She let out a laugh that sounded like dry leaves scraping across concrete.
“I showed them.”
Tom stopped.
So that was it.
A corporate coup.
She had survived it, but the adrenaline had crashed, leaving her here, self-medicating in the dark.
“Okay,” Tom said evenly.
He held out his jacket.
“Put this on.
Let’s get you a cab.”
Valerie stared at the jacket like it was a trap.
Then, another violent shiver wracked her thin frame.
She snatched it from his hands, burying herself in the oversized gray wool.
“I’ll call HR,” she muttered, trying to stand and immediately failing, her ankle rolling in her stiletto.
She fell back onto the crate.
“I’ll have you fired for…
for looking at me.”
“Noted,” Tom said, utterly devoid of emotion.
He pulled his own phone from his pocket.
He didn’t care about her threats.
He cared about the fact that her lips were turning blue.
“I’m calling a taxi.”
The inside of the yellow cab smelled intensely of pine air freshener and old cigarette smoke.
It was a sensory nightmare, but it was warm.
Valerie was slumped against the passenger door, Tom’s jacket swallowed her up.
Her eyes were closed, her breathing heavy and erratic.
Tom sat as far away from her as the cramped backseat allowed.
His internal monologue was a chaotic loop of worst-case scenarios.
If she woke up confused, she could accuse him of kidnapping.
If someone snapped a photo of them leaving together, the office rumor mill would end his career by 9:00 AM tomorrow.
“Where to, buddy?”
the driver asked, eyeing them through the rearview mirror.
Tom looked at Valerie.
“Ms.
Croft.
I need your address.”
She groaned, her head rolling against the smudged window.
“Mercer Island.
The Point.”
She mumbled a gate code before drifting off again.
Tom relayed the information to the driver.
The cab lurched forward into the slick, rain-swept streets.
The drive took thirty minutes.
The entire time, Tom stared out the window, watching the neon signs bleed into the wet pavement.
He thought about Kio.
He texted Mrs.
Higgins, promising her an extra fifty bucks for keeping him late.
He checked his bank account app on his phone.
The balance was $142.50.
The taxi fare was going to eat half of that.
He felt a familiar, grinding knot in his stomach.
“We’re here,” the driver announced, slamming on the brakes.
Tom looked out.
They were parked in front of a massive wrought-iron gate.
Beyond it, a sprawling, modern mansion sat on a cliff overlooking the dark waters of Lake Washington.
It looked less like a home and more like a fortress.
“Ms.
Croft,” Tom said, gently tapping her shoulder.
“We’re here.
You need to open the gate.”
Nothing.
She was completely unresponsive.
Tom sighed.
He unbuckled his seatbelt and leaned over, rummaging through the small clutch purse she had brought.
A tube of lipstick.
A platinum credit card.
No keys.
No keycard.
“She doesn’t have her keys,” Tom told the driver.
“Not my problem, man.
Meter’s at eighty-five bucks.
You want me to leave you on the curb?”
Tom looked at the freezing rain lashing against the windshield.
He looked at the unconscious woman beside him.
He could prop her up against the gate, pay the man, and leave.
It was the smart thing to do.
She was a billionaire.
She would figure it out.
She was the woman who had laid off his friend Dave last month just to make a quarterly earnings report look three percent better.
Tom squeezed his eyes shut.
Don’t be a hero.
Go home.
He looked at her again.
Beneath the smeared makeup and the ruthless reputation, she was just a person.
A severely intoxicated, freezing, vulnerable person.
If he left her out here in the storm, she could get hypothermia.
She could die.
“Turn around,” Tom said, his voice heavy with resignation.
“What?”
“Turn around.
Take us to Capitol Hill.
14th and Pike.”
The driver shrugged.
“Your funeral, buddy.”