Chapter 32
Chandler
“Order for Chandler,” I told the young girl behind the counter.
She gave me a smile, her teeth full of braces, before looking through the brown paper bags on the counter next to her.
I usually sent someone out to grab my lunch, or had it delivered, but today I needed the walk to clear my brain.
Of course, it didn’t help. My brain was flooded with problems.
Gabriella. The baby. The missing money. Millions of it.
Still, it was good to get out of the office.
I almost expected Gabriella to be back in her office after taking a week to work from home.
I thought she would grow tired of it. The office had been her second home for years and years.
I knew how much she enjoyed working there, but I had taken that joy away from her. The guilt ate at me more than I let on.
When I arrived at the office this morning, her office door was still closed with no sign of life beyond it.
It irritated me that I cared so much, which was probably why I texted her a mundane task.
Whether it was to piss her off or to just hear from her, my brain and my heart weren’t so sure.
Her snarky response just made me wish I hadn’t messed things up so badly, but there was no turning back now.
Even if I wanted to fix things, I had to think what was best for the baby and it was far from me being its father.
“Here you go,” said the teenager, plucking my bag from the lineup and handing it to me.
I slid her a fifty-dollar bill and grabbed a Styrofoam cup from the stack next to her on the counter. “Keep the change,” I said with a wink, assuming this was her summer job before she went back to high school.
“Thank you,” she said excitedly.
I could be nice sometimes.
As I stepped outside, I felt the slight shift in the air that came from fall approaching. I breathed it in, anticipating my favorite season when it wasn’t hot as balls and the leaves started to change. It felt like a new beginning, and hell, I needed one right now.
I walked back to the office, the smell of my Italian sub wafting up toward me and making my stomach grumble. I took a sip of my soda, a luxury I rarely let myself have, and its sweetness kissed my tongue. I let out an audible “mmm” as I stepped into the building, nodding at security as I passed.
When the elevator doors opened to my floor, it felt like the room stopped as everyone’s eyes shifted toward me momentarily before looking away.
There was a feeling in the room that I couldn’t quite grasp, but it made me uneasy.
I straightened my shoulders and continued walking toward my office, aware of the eyes on my back.
I was used to quiet stares, but this was different.
I only realized why when I opened my office door to find Mr. Harold pacing the floor of my office. My stomach sunk. This was an unexpected visit, and judging from the tension in the office and the look on his face when he saw me walk in told me it was bad. Really bad.
Had he found out about the missing money? Did he think I had something to do with it? I swallowed hard, gathering my thoughts and ready to defend myself. I had nothing to do with it, and had planned on telling him when I had more information.
“Mr. Harold,” I said casually as I stepped around his pacing to set my lunch and drink on my desk. “This is a surprise.” I gave him a small smile.
“You’re fired,” he said, stopping in his tracks as his eyes narrowed in at me.
I did a double-take as his words absorbed into me, looking at his face for any clue of where this had suddenly come from.
I opened my mouth to tell him all about the accounting firm I had hired to look into the company, and reveal my unpleasant findings, to try and save my name from being a part of it.
But what he said next was far worse than all of that.
“I am shocked by your behavior. Your bachelor lifestyle was one I was wary of before hiring you on, but I never thought you would let it seep into your position here.”
Fuck. This had nothing to do with the missing money…and everything to do with…
“Gabriella is my daughter. My only daughter. She had a prominent life and pristine reputation with so much potential. You took that from her.”
“Sir, I…”
He held up his hand and I snapped my mouth shut. It was unlike me to let anyone put me in my place, but this was Mr. Harold and I had royally fucked up by fucking his daughter. I pressed my lips tightly together and braced myself for whatever anger he was about to unleash on me.
Anger that Gabriella had been worried about ever since we started our unlikely relationship at the gala.
I just never believed it would happen. It was stupid to think we could get away with it, no matter how discreet we had been.
We were reckless, thinking we were invincible.
I realized now that we were not. I wondered how he had found out. How much he knew.
“You betrayed me. You betrayed my legacy that I entrusted to you. That had practically ruined my relationship with my daughter by handing it to you.”
That was on you, I thought. He couldn’t blame me for his choices when it came to business. But I kept my mouth shut, letting him bore into me, hoping his anger would subside and he could be reasonable.
“And what do I get from it? You sleeping with my daughter like the scum you are, and her getting pregnant from it.”
Fuck. He knew everything.
At first, I had hoped someone from the office had told them their assumptions of us.
Maybe our “closed door” meetings had raised some suspicions, or maybe he had suspected something when he almost caught us a few weeks ago.
But no, he knew about the baby. Either Gabriella had told him, which I doubted, or someone had somehow overheard our conversation at the country club.
“Do you know how much of a damn fool I felt like when I was called up and congratulated by a board member about becoming a grandfather?” he spat.
It hadn’t been Gabriella who had told him.
I racked my brain, trying to remember how anyone could have overheard us in that small room.
I thought we had been alone, but then again the moment she said the words, everything had gone hazy like I was in a drunken stupor of surprise.
The fact that it was a board member made this even worse.
“I assure you, it wasn’t intentional what happened between me and your daughter,” I said.
“How long has this been going on?” he asked, his voice a gruff whisper.
“I don’t know…”
“How long?” His hazel eyes narrowed. Gabriella’s eyes.
“Months. Since the gala.”
He blew out a hasty laugh from his closed lips and shook his head.
“It just happened,” I said, “I didn’t mean for—”
“That’s what Gabriella said, too,” he said, looking toward the ceiling in frustration.
He had already talked to her. I wondered if he had come here right after.
“Y-you talked to her?” I asked, hating how my voice betrayed me with its stammer.
“Of course, I did. She’s my daughter, and she’s made a damn mess of her life.” He sighed before looking back to me. “I want you off the property within the hour.”
“Mr. Harold, please—” I said.
“I never want to see your face again, do you understand?”
“Please, let me just…”
I wanted to fix this. Not only this, but tell him about the missing money.
It was the least I could do to try and remedy at least one thing.
But Mr. Harold wasn’t about to listen to another word.
That much was apparent by the furrow of his graying brows and the redness in his neck that crept up to his cheeks.
“You’ve done enough.”
He was too angry to be reasoned with. My heart lurched slightly about how this same conversation must have gone with Gabriella.
It must have taken her by surprise like it had me.
It must have jolted her entire world. I could only imagine what he said to her in his anger, and how much that had seeped into her, his only daughter, who had spent her life seeking his approval. I felt awful.
I suddenly had the urge to call her. Hell, I wanted to put the mess between us aside, and to go to her just to hold her and listen.
I didn’t care about myself in that moment.
I only cared about her, and that was when I realized that we were more than I had been willing to admit.
I think I had known it for a while, ever since our late night here in this very office.
It hadn’t just been sex. It went deeper than that.
My keeping my distance from her wasn’t just to keep things easy, it was because I was trying to protect her.
These feelings were foreign to me. I didn’t know what to do with them.
Because of that, I would probably only ruin things between us.
It was my same reasoning when it came to the baby.
I didn’t know the first thing about what a good father was, so how was I supposed to be one?
I figured everyone would be better off without me in their lives.
Now, I wasn’t sure how to stay away, even with the threat of her father right here in front of me.
“I’ll go,” I said with a firm nod. “Without a fight.”
I turned and strode for the door, eager to get the hell out of there.
“Your things…” he said.
“I’ll have movers here within the hour to collect my belongings.”
“Good. I want every trace of you gone from this building. I want it to be as if you never existed.”
I swallowed hard at the venom in his voice, but I understood. He was a father protecting his daughter. I would do the same if ever caught in that position. Hell, I wanted to protect her too. Desperately.
I walked out the door, leaving everything behind with Mr. Harold who had resumed his pacing in the office I once called mine.
It felt like everything had just been ripped away from me, as I walked numbly through the office.
I wondered if anyone here knew what had just happened.
I wondered how long it would be until the scandal got out.
I knew this would ruin me. Ruin Gabriella.
I pressed the button for the elevator and stepped through the slow opening doors, turning to get one good look at the office that was mine for only a short while before it all came crashing down.
I wondered if everything I had worked for in life had led to this moment where I fucked it all up.
It was a depressing feeling that I couldn’t quite grapple with.
As I stepped out the large glass doors of the lobby, I kept my back toward the building, not able to stomach looking at it.
I pulled my phone from my jacket pocket and immediately scrolled to Gabriella’s name.
I was about to hit the call button, but couldn’t bring myself to do it.
I was probably the last person she wanted to hear from right now.
Instead, I called Wyatt and asked him to meet up.
I needed to talk to someone through my state of shock.