Chapter 28
Chester
I tucked the covers around myself and shut my eyes tight, willing myself to go back to sleep after a near sleepless night of a loop of dreams about Juliet.
Her pale blue eyes. Her blonde hair slipping through my fingers.
Her voice close to my ear, whispering, yet I couldn’t remember the words.
My eyes snapped open. Sleep was impossible now.
I was either still on Vegas time, or the thought of seeing Juliet today made it impossible to fall back asleep.
I pulled the covers off me and strode for the window, pulling at the string against the wall, raising the shades to reveal the gray city below.
I stretched my arms overhead and looked down at the small yellow blurs of cabs weaving through traffic below.
The city was stirring, reminding me that life was moving forward, and I couldn’t hide from it any longer.
Not in Vegas. Not in my apartment. I let out a tired sigh and turned my back to the city.
I quickly changed into gym shorts and a cut-off shirt.
At this early hour, I had time to get in a workout before going into the office.
In fact, I welcomed the exercise as a way to relieve the stress that had been building up inside me over the past week.
It trumped any stress I had felt during business deals or media days.
This type caused a permanent headache and heartache. I hated it.
I found the gym mostly empty, but still popped my headphones on for even more solitude, the sound of classic rock pumping in my ears. I headed for the weight rack and began going through my sets, with no real rhyme or reason, other than just wanting to sweat. To lift something heavy and release.
As I pressed the cold metal dumbbells over my head, I thought of the text and the picture that accompanied it. I hadn’t heard from the blackmailer again, but our meeting was just two hours away. I swallowed that reminder down as I thrust the weights back up over my head.
I tried to piece together who it could be.
It had to be someone who had been keeping an eye on me, enough to know that there was something between Juliet and me.
Or maybe it was a happenstance to come across that footage.
The owner of the building across from mine was a competitor, but posed no real threat to me in the business world.
Maybe discovering the footages was a stroke of luck that would finally get his skin in the game.
People stopped at nothing these days to become something.
They would do anything for money. I loved money myself, but not enough to try and ruin someone’s life.
At least, I told myself that. Thinking back, I probably had ruined someone’s life by firing them.
Something so nonchalant to me was life-altering to someone else, though HR always scrambled to remedy my sometimes hasty decisions with severance and an NDA.
This could be someone I had wronged in the past. The list of people I had fired or pissed off was probably a mile long.
There was no shortage of people I had fired or rejected in business dealings.
They didn’t call me the “hatchet man” for nothing.
A reputation I had been proud of up until this point when it was coming back to bite me in the ass.
Knowing that it could be anyone was unsettling.
As I set the weights down on the rack with a loud clink, I sat down on the black bench behind me.
Taking a sip of water, I thought about it more.
This whole thing seemed too personal though.
This went beyond business. To have such intimate information about me, and to involve Juliet like this…
it seemed like something an ex-lover would do, scorned and heartbroken.
But I had nothing close to an ex-lover. The last time I had anything serious was probably in college, and that was too long ago for anyone to hold a grudge after all this time.
Since then, it had been a string of one-night stands.
They were the only thing I had time or energy for.
Sex was the only thing that interested me outside of business.
Anything beyond that was too much work. As if I could remember all the one-night stands I had, none of them stuck out to me.
A couple of models. Actresses. Cocktail waitresses.
None of them would be able to pull something like this off.
And why would they? Because we had sex and they never heard from me again? It didn’t warrant this kind of revenge.
No, this person had to be close. Someone who worked for me at Brandfield Enterprises currently, and had been witness to my behavior over the last several weeks.
I furrowed my brow as I thought back to how reckless I had been.
I hadn’t necessarily been discreet in the way I looked at Juliet. I practically ogled her.
And I hadn’t been shy about the way I showed her off, letting people know she was my plaything.
I thought back to the stint I pulled off when I asked her to play waitress, though it was her who took it to a whole other level with the no panties and no bra thing.
The shade of red that Mr. Craddock’s face had turned was close to crimson, as I saw his eyes wander over Juliet’s body.
It hadn’t been the first time I had shown her off, but it had almost always been with the executives of the company.
Older men who understood. Men who regularly cheated on their wives.
They had no bone to pick with me, when I knew all about their mistresses and work girlfriends.
It would be a fool’s errand to try and blackmail me when I had so much dirt on them.
It had never gone further than a little bit of fun, until the night after the golf outing when I could no longer hold back my urge to touch her.
To taste her. Again. It had been completely careless, especially going at it again when the cleaners had arrived.
I quickly thought maybe it was them who was behind this, but I pushed it away.
They never saw Juliet. For all they knew, I was alone and working late with my door closed and shades drawn.
I wiped the beads of sweat from my forehead with the back of my arm as I looked at myself in the mirror.
I felt anger toward the man looking back at me.
I had been such a fool for getting wrapped up with someone who worked for me.
I had spent most of my life building my empire, determined to make something of myself.
Wanting to prove that I could be more than the kid from Long Island, wearing hand-me-downs while my mother and father busted their asses to keep up with the mortgage.
As much as I loved my parents, as much as I was proud of them, I never wanted to be them. They gave me all they had and I loved my childhood, but when I got older, I knew I wanted so much more.
And I had done it. I had busted my ass to pay my way through school, where I met Will, and we started concocting our plans in freshman year.
We were so far from those two nineteen-year-old kids…
and now, I might have ruined it all, taking him down with me.
It made me sick to think about. It wasn’t just about me. He was roped in this too.
I had always been so careful, knowing that eyes were always on me, but I couldn’t help myself with Juliet.
Then I had a thought…
Eyes.
Press.
Maybe this was the press. They finally had real dirt on me.
The kind that had photographic evidence and would need a statement from my publicist. The kind that would sell out their lousy papers from the newsstand.
They had been waiting for this, especially after this latest merger when I came out looking like the good guy.
Whatever their reason, their MO was to paint me in a harsh light.
It made for entertainment. People loved cancel culture.
But if it was the press, they would have put out an article by now, and I hadn’t been caught in that shitstorm. Plus, with something like this, they didn’t need to blackmail me. They’d get their money and then some from this type of story. It didn’t make any sense.
Someone entered the gym just then and settled into the bench next to me, breaking me from my thoughts. I hated the feeling of paranoia I’d had since receiving the threatening email. I gave the guy a nod and gathered my things, not wanting any company, even if he was harmless.
I headed back up to my apartment. Inside, I took a hot shower and shaved after letting my stubble go too many days.
I dressed in a freshly pressed suit, one of Juliet’s favorites.
I remember her making a remark about it one day and it stuck with me.
I smoothed the lapels of my black jacket, giving myself one last glance in the mirror, hoping the guy in the reflection could win Juliet back.
Today was the day. The day I would tell her how I really felt.
It was also the day I would face my blackmailer.
The nerves were already in my throat and I hadn’t even left for the office.
I wasn’t sure what I was more nervous about, Juliet or this mystery person making my life hell.
I figured I would try to sort out what the blackmailer wanted, making sure that they couldn’t harm me or Juliet.
I would give them anything they wanted to keep Juliet out of this.
To save my company. To save Will from being collateral damage.
If I could miraculously get that sorted within the hour, then I could explain everything to Juliet. I could tell her what I had been thinking.
Feeling.
As I quickly brewed a cup of coffee, I realized this would be the first time I had shared these types of feelings for anyone. Real feelings. Hell, it was the first time I felt them, let alone talked about them.
I nervously drummed my fingers on the granite countertop as the smell of coffee beans filled my kitchen.
As much as I had tried writing the words out on the plane ride home from Vegas, and rehearsing them in my head all night, the words I had planned to say to Juliet didn’t seem like they were enough.
They seemed so small. And maybe they would be.
Maybe they would fall on ears that didn’t want to hear them. Could I blame her?
There was a very good chance Juliet would reject me. Hell, she might have quit already, and I would never see her again. She had every right to after how I treated her. I had been cold and distant, flipping a switch right after we slept together again.
It had been more than just sleeping together though.
I wondered if she had felt it too as we lay tangled in the carpet, our bodies moving as one, as if they were doing the talking.
Saying words we never did. It was almost unfathomable how quickly I had fallen for her, and I was sure she had fallen too.
And then I had gone and ruined it all, giving her whiplash, I was sure.
I deserved for her to push me away. If she did, I would have to accept it.
I poured my coffee in a travel mug, the steam rising and circling my hand as I snapped the lid on. I pushed away from the counter with a feeling of determination. I strode for the elevator doors, not wanting to waste any more time.
If by some miracle Juliet showed up this morning and listened to me, maybe she could find forgiveness in her heart.
Maybe we could figure out the steps of how to be together.
If she would even give me that chance, I had decided it was best to keep business and our personal lives separate.
And if she rejected me, we would still have to go our separate ways.
Either way, she couldn’t work there anymore.
Things were too complicated. Too dangerous.
It pained me to think about. She didn’t deserve this.
I hated the thought that her whole life had upturned because of me.
It was the first time I felt any remorse about firing someone.
I vowed to make the process seamless, with plans of setting her up with a generous severance package and giving my outstanding recommendation to wherever she applied to work next.
To think she wouldn’t sit across from me anymore made me miss her already, but I just hoped she would stay in my life. Not as my assistant, but as something more.