Chapter 21
Chapter
Twenty-One
ADRIANNA
“Ms. Baker, can you come in here?” Elijah says through the speaker on my phone.
Leaning back, I smile and wait.
“Please,” he says a beat later.
Chuckling, I get up and head to his office. “You rang?” I ask as I step inside.
“Can you shut the door, please?”
I do as he asks and raise a brow. “You have a call in ten minutes. We don’t have time for a quickie.”
Elijah tips his head back and laughs.
“I like where your head is at, but that’s not why I called you in here. I wanted to tell you I ordered us lunch.”
“You did?” I ask, shocked. “From where?”
“Don’t get too excited, but from the bistro across the street. I saw you eyeing their sign for the summer salad.” He cringes. “Why you would want a salad is beyond me, but…”
I roll my eyes. “It has meat on it.”
“I had them add extra. I figured we’ve been burning enough calories.” He winks, making me blush.
“Is that all?”
“Well, I was planning on eating with you, but since you added this meeting to my schedule…” He raises a brow.
I shrug. “I couldn’t exactly tell Mason Williamson that you didn’t have time to talk to him.”
“You could have.”
“Let’s be real, the man is your best friend, if he wanted to just talk to you, he would have called your cell. He set up a call through me, which means it’s foundation related. So again, I couldn’t say no.”
He sighs and leans back in his seat. “You’re right.”
“I’m sorry, can you repeat that?”
“Stop being a menace.”
“But you just said two of my favorite words.”
“I should spank you.”
“Promises, promises. Now when do I need to go pick up the order?”
“Twenty minutes.”
“Do you want me to bring it right in even if you are on the phone or wait?”
“You can bring it in.”
“Will do,” I say as my phone starts ringing. “See you soon,” I say as I slip out of his office.
I walk over to my desk and answer the phone. “Mr. Samson’s office, how can I help you?”
“Hi, this is Claudia from News Mix. We were wondering if Mr. Samson would be interested in doing an interview to talk about taking over as CEO of The Williamson Foundation.”
“Hello, Claudia. Unfortunately, at this time Mr. Samson is not taking interviews.”
“Are you sure? If I could just talk to him…” she presses with a slight whine in her voice.
For some reason, I have the feeling she’s desperate to meet with him not because of his position but because he’s him.
“I’m positive. Thank you for calling,” I say before hanging up.
As I set the phone down, I see Elijah’s do not disturb light turn on. Mason must have called early. Before I can even sit down, my phone goes off again.
“Seriously, you’ve hardly rang all morning,” I mutter to myself before picking it up. For a second, concern flashes through me when I see it’s the security downstairs.
“This is Adrianna.”
“Hey, Adrianna, it’s Huck. We have a situation.”
“What’s up?”
“Someone hit your car,” he says with a cringe in his voice.
My stomach drops to the floor. “I’m sorry, can you repeat that? I thought you just said that someone hit my car.”
“You heard me correctly.”
“I knew parking up front would eventually come back to bite me in the ass,” I mutter under my breath. “Okay, I’ll be right down.”
For a moment, I contemplate knocking on his door and telling him what happened, but I stop myself. I can handle this on my own, and besides, he’s on a call.
I get up and head downstairs. When I get to my car, there are several people hanging around along with a police officer. Thankfully the ordeal doesn’t take long, and the person who backed into me barely left any damage. In fact, their newer car looks a little worse than mine.
After insurance information is exchanged and with the police report in hand, I head across the street to pick up our food.
I’m only fifteen minutes past when he told me to grab it, but that’s not too bad, all things considered.
I rush across the street and back up to the office.
When I step off the elevator and head to my desk, I jerk to a halt.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I blurt out.
Mr. Lind’s head jerks up, and he takes a step back from my computer.
He clears his throat. “You weren’t at your desk.”
“No, I was grabbing Mr. Samson his lunch. Now tell me what you were doing and why you were touching my computer.”
He scoffs. “I don’t have to answer you. In case you forgot, I’m above you.”
I feel the corner of my eye twitch. I hate this man. He’s been the biggest pile of shit since I started. The only woman he’s ever treated with a hint of respect here was Gloria, and I’m almost a hundred percent sure that had more to do with her name than with her position.
“That might be, but we both know you can’t touch another employee’s computer unless you are IT, which you are not. Now tell me what the hell you are doing at my desk,” I demand a little louder.
Shit, I think as I try to rein in my temper. I need to keep calm.
“I was trying to get to Mr. Samson’s schedule, I need to speak to him.”
I don’t know how I know, but I know he’s lying.
“Then call or email me, and I’ll put it on his schedule, but he’s not available right now.”
“Is he ever available?”
I shake my head and frown. “What does that mean? You just met with him not that long ago.”
Before he can sum up a response, Elijah’s office door is ripped open. “What the hell is going on?” he demands.
“He was messing with my computer while I was out,” I tell Elijah.
“Well, if she would have been doing her job, I wouldn’t have had to do it for her,” Mr. Lind sneers.
“Both of you, in here now,” Elijah demands before turning around and leaving the door open behind him.
Huffing, I brush past Mr. Lind and head into the office.
If there was ever a chance of Elijah really firing me, it’s probably now considering I yelled at someone higher up the food chain than me.
I’m only hoping that he will see my side of things.
Mr. Lind is up to something sketchy. I just need Elijah to see it too.
I make eye contact with Elijah and see fury all over his face.
Shit, this is bad.
So, so bad.
ELIJAH
“Bring Adrianna over soon for dinner with the family,” Mason says. “Ari has been asking about her name twin.”
“You know what, I think I will.”
“Check with her and let me know what date works for you guys, and I’ll let everyone else know.”
“Sounds good.” I frown when I hear yelling coming from the hallway. “Hey Mason, I need to let you go.”
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah, I think so. Later.”
I hang up before he can say goodbye. Standing, I head to the door and swing it open, right as the voices escalate. Adrianna is standing near her desk, eyes wide with our food in her hand, while Bill Lind is standing behind her desk, her monitor awake but not logged in.
The two of them go back and forth for a minute as my stomach sinks. What the fuck is he up to now?
“Both of you, in here now,” I demand before walking back toward my desk, not waiting for them to join me.
Instead of shutting the door behind her, Adrianna leaves it open.
“Here’s your lunch,” she says as she sets it on the corner of my desk.
“Thank you. Now both of you sit.” I drop into my chair and wait for them to do the same. “Now tell me, Bill, what the hell do you think you were doing touching someone else’s computer when you know that goes against company guidelines?”
Bill looks stressed as sweat dots his forehead and his fists clench. “I found something, and I wanted to meet with you immediately. She wasn’t at her desk, so I thought I would try and see if there was an opening on your schedule before I knocked.”
With my elbows resting on the armrests of my chair, I steeple my hands in front of my face. “Did you now? And what was so urgent you couldn’t wait for her to get back?”
Bill stutters as he messes with his collar.
“You didn’t find anything, did you, Bill? You were wanting into her computer to see what she had on it.”
Adrianna’s eyes narrow as her head whips toward him. “What the hell. Seriously? What I have on my computer is no one’s business but Mr. Samson’s.”
Bill scoffs. “Please, we all know you two are fucking. You are playing him just like you played Gloria, little girl.”
Adrianna’s face blanches, but neither of us attempts to convince him that he’s wrong. I don’t care if people know that we are involved, soon enough the world will know.
“I wasn’t the one playing Gloria, and we both know it. If anything, I kept her crazy from ruining everything that we’ve built,” Adrianna snaps back.
“Lies,” Bill hisses, his complexion becoming paler by the minute.
“You know what I think, Bill?”
“That it’s finally time to take out the trash?” he says as he glares at my woman.
“I think you are trying to turn the attention away from the person who has really been stealing from the foundation. I think you are trying so hard you don’t even realize that we know it’s you.
” He goes to say something, but I hold up my hand, stopping him.
“I know it’s you who helped Gloria, Bill.
The money started going missing well before Adrianna started working here. ”
“I…I…I…” He gasps before clutching his chest.
He groans and starts to lean over in the chair.
I scoff. “Enough of the theatrics, Bill.”
“Uh, Elijah, I don’t think he’s faking it. I think he’s having a heart attack.”
I look at him, really look at him. “Shit, I think you’re right. Call nine-one-one.”
I jump up, round my desk, and pull the gasping man to the floor.
“Hello, I think one of my coworkers is having a heart attack,” Adrianna says.
While she rattles off our information, I check his pulse. It’s thready at best, and his heart feels like it’s racing. Shit. The last thing we fucking need is him having a heart attack at work. If the press found out he had it while in a meeting with me…
Adrianna rushes out of the room and comes back moments later with a first aid kit.
“I don’t think anything in there is going to help us right now, love.”
She rolls her eyes as she opens a bottle of pills. “Open his mouth.”
Reluctantly, I do as she asks and watch as she works a pill under his tongue.
“What’s that?”
“It’s a Bayer aspirin. If he’s having a heart attack, it might buy him some time.” Her nose crinkles. “I need to go wash my hands. I can’t believe I just touched his tongue.”
Despite it being the wrong time, I can’t help but laugh. Of course Adrianna would try and save the man who was trying to ruin her career. She pushes off the floor and goes into my bathroom to clean up while I wait, my hand still on his pulse, waiting to see if it stops.
As Adrianna steps out of my restroom, EMTs flood the office and take over. We watch as they assess him before loading him up. Once they are on the way to the hospital, I turn toward her.
“That wasn’t how I expected to spend my afternoon.”
“You’re telling me.” She snorts.
“Lunch is cold.”
She raises a brow and shakes her head. “Are you really more concerned about food right now than possibly driving a man into cardiac arrest?”
I shrug my shoulders. “I’m a growing boy.”
“What the hell am I going to do with you?”
Date me, marry me, make me the father of your children before spending the rest of our lives together.
The words sit on my tongue as if I’m a puppy desperate for attention. I don’t speak them, though.
Shaking my head, I manage to keep the words inside. “I’m sure you’ll figure that out eventually. Now come on, let’s get out of here. I think we’ve earned an early work release today.”
She tilts her head to the side as she thinks about it for a moment. “You know what? Fuck it. Let’s do it, but only if we tell everyone else they can leave early too.”
“Done.”
Adrianna goes back to her desk and sends out a memo that everyone can cut out early and come back first thing in the morning.
“Ready?” I ask when she shuts off her monitor.
“Ready.”