Chapter 30
Chester
Chester
The door to my office was open and a woman was sitting with her back turned toward me in the leather wingback chair.
I slipped my phone from my jacket pocket and navigated to the voice note app, tapping the red record button.
I knew I would need evidence to bring this blackmailer down.
Without a word, I brushed past the woman with the raven black hair cut close to her ears, taking a seat behind my desk.
I casually set my phone face-down on the desk, as to not raise suspicion.
With a cool expression on my face, I narrowed my gaze on the woman sitting across from me with a tight-lipped smile on her angular face.
Her smug expression pissed me off, but I swallowed down my irritation and kept my expression neutral.
I took a moment to study her familiar face, trying to place her.
I knew I had seen her before, but I didn’t know where.
Her pixie cut and striking features would be hard to forget.
And those eyes. Dark, yet on fire, in a dance that told me she was enjoying this.
She seemed like the type of person who would enjoy toying with others.
Enjoy making others’ lives as miserable as she probably was.
She was the type of person you didn’t want to get on their bad side.
I ran through a directory of names and faces in my head, trying to figure out who this woman was, not enjoying the fact that she had the upper hand with her anonymous identity. It gave her a leg up on me. A position I hated being in. I wouldn’t let her see that though.
I cleared my throat and leaned back in my chair casually, steepling my fingers against my chest. This seemed to piss her off because the embers in her eyes burned a little brighter.
I clearly wasn’t giving her the reaction she had expected when she waltzed in here this morning, holding a huge part of my life in her hands.
She shifted in her chair slightly, adjusting the linen gray lapels of her suit.
“You don’t know who I am, do you?” she asked pointedly.
“Can’t say I do.” I shrugged.
“Of course you don’t,” she muttered under her breath, shaking her head slightly.
“Should I?”
“I suppose not when your big head is shoved so far up your own ass. The only thing you can think about is yourself.” She rolled her eyes.
Clearly, not recognizing her was a sore spot for her.
“Well, would you care to introduce yourself?” I asked, leading her in the direction I wanted. Leading her to tell my phone what it was waiting to hear. Her name. Proof.
“Mia.”
“Mia…” I rolled the name across my tongue, as if it would help jog my memory.
“Mia Turner,” she said impatiently, her eyes growing slightly wider, waiting for me to put it together. But I couldn’t, though I was desperately trying to behind my cool demeanor.
She sighed and leaned back in her chair. She studied her burgundy painted nails disinterestedly, like she was a cat about to go in for a surprise kill.
“I’m the one who acquired the photo,” she said, picking at a cuticle.
Clearly.
“And how did you manage that?” I asked, raising a brow, gathering any evidence I needed on my phone.
“It’s funny what you can find when you go looking, and what people are willing to give you with a little cash incentive. Security across the way was more than happy to let me look through their footage for the right amount.” She nodded toward the window behind me.
“And you somehow knew where to go looking…” I mused.
“It’s not hard when you’re foolishly putting your business out there,” she said sharply. “Flirty glances. A girl trying too hard with barely-there outfits. A late night in the office. Anyone with eyes and a brain could figure out where it was all headed.”
“Some might call that stalking…” I said.
“Some might call it smart.” She leaned forward and placed her hands on the desk, not taking kindly to my accusation. “Which is funny because for a big-time billionaire, you clearly aren’t. Smart, I mean. Who has sex against a window for the world to see?”
I stayed silent, ignoring her insult.
“I thought I would catch a kiss or something, but you gave me the whole show.” She laughed, clearly enjoying this.
“I have copies, you know. Plenty of them. They’re all ready to send out.
I thought I would start with the board…they would vote you out, CEO or not, what you did with your ‘assistant’ is insubordination. ” She put her fingers in air quotes.
“While the pot was stirring here, and you slowly started to lose everything…I thought I would send the photos off to the press. They would have a field day with this. New York’s most successful bachelor caught in an office affair.
You’d be ruined. Your reputation tarnished forever.
Good luck starting over.” She laughed coldly, her dark red lips curled into a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
“And then there’s that little blonde bitch…”
I sucked in a breath. The thought of Juliet being harmed was the worst threat of any of them.
“This paired with her little livestream…no company would want to hire that.”
“Why are you doing this?” I asked, sick of hearing her plot out her plans in front of me, and that Juliet was a part of them.
She scoffed. “You really don’t remember me.”
I pressed my lips into a thin line, tired of this damn guessing game. I didn’t have the patience for this anymore, but I had to keep playing along. I had to figure out what Mia wanted, and I had to get her on tape when she told me.
“I can’t believe you.” She shook her head. “I used to work for you. Well, for a company you bought. Years ago. The huge tech deal that was in all the papers. Or do you not remember that either?”
Things were starting to click into place in my brain, like a puzzle of a horrible scene being locked into place.
That deal had been a big one. Probably the biggest up until that point.
I was overwhelmed with all the moving parts and paperwork and there had been so many employees.
The first thing I had to do was downsize just to keep my head on straight.
Mia must have been one of the ones I had fired when I took over.
“I fired you?” I asked.
Ignoring my question and need to get answers, she began telling a story, her eyes glazing over slightly as if recalling the memory.
“We met on your first day. I had only been at that company for a few months before I became head of accounting, and then you came along. You made such a big deal about my quick rise to the top when you found out. You made me feel special.”
I swallowed hard, not liking where this was going. This seemed more than a simple firing.
“When our eyes met, there were sparks. I know you felt them too. From that moment, I knew we were going to end up together. I could feel it. You and I. We were going to take on the world together,” she said, continuing her reminiscing.
I couldn’t remember meeting her or this so-called “love at first sight” moment. I almost felt bad for her.
Almost.
“Later that day, I saw you in the lobby. Your laugh echoing as you impressed some higher-ups. The power you had was palpable. I just wanted to be around it. That’s why I slipped my number in your jacket pocket that afternoon.
It was bold, I knew that. You were CEO, but I didn’t want to let go of what we had. ”
“But you never called. I waited and waited.” Her voice turned cold, just like her eyes now dark and narrowed in on me.
I was dumbfounded. I had no idea what she was talking about or why she thought we would ever be together.
Clearly, Mia had some infatuation with me that was unknown to me, let alone unrequited.
I barely remembered that first day of taking over the company.
It was so long ago, and there were so many things going on, I would hardly remember meeting someone from accounting.
But clearly, Mia remembered. Whatever had happened had been stewing in her all these years. She wasn’t right in the head, playing out some made-up romance in her head, scorned by an unrequited infatuation.
“White skirt, matching jacket. Long blonde hair. I looked different back then,” she said, her eyes boring into me. “Actually, not far off from your little plaything now. You clearly have a type.”
It started coming back to me now. A memory forming, my brain slowly adjusting to it like a new pair of glasses.
I remember the brief meeting with her in the accounting office at my old building.
She was completely different from the person who was sitting in front of me now.
I remembered she had been nervous, her brown eyes wide and curious.
It wouldn’t be far off for me to not be a little flirty, but that was all it was.
It never turned into anything past that brief introduction.
I had honestly forgotten about her, until I fired her a week later due to budget cuts.
“Ahhh. There we go. It’s coming back to you now,” she said, a smile playing on her lips. She looked so different now with the black hair and harsh haircut. Her dark makeup overpowering her features. It was no wonder I didn’t recognize her.
“Firing you was a business choice,” I said. “It wasn’t personal.”
“Oh, but it was. To me, it was,” she said, her voice nearly a whisper.
“You didn’t see what I saw. Didn’t feel what I felt.
You could have had it all. We could have had it all.
Taking on the business world together. You saw my potential.
You saw how special I was. And you threw it all away.
” Her voice began to shake, growing louder. “You played me!”
Keeping my voice steady, now aware that I was dealing with a woman on a psychotic break, I calmly spoke. “I’m not sure what impression I gave you in that initial meeting, but I’m sorry you saw it as something more than it was.”
She let out a single, cold laugh.
“Please, tell me what you want, Mia,” I said.
“Money. Obviously.” She threw her hands up before leaning in toward me. “And to see that little tramp of yours humiliated.”
“Juliet is not a tramp.” I said firmly.
“Are you sure? The internet seems to think so.” She sneered.
I narrowed my eyes at her.
“If I had known you were into attention-seeking whores like that, I would have changed my tactic, but I thought you were smart. I thought you wanted someone who matched your potential. Not someone who put their goodies on the internet.”
“That’s enough,” I said, shaking my head.
“The way she just gave it up like that. It’s embarrassing. I almost feel bad for her. To feel that worthless, that being a slut is her only option…” She shook her head and clicked her tongue behind her teeth.
“I said that’s enough!” I said loudly, hearing enough. I slammed my hands against the surface of my desk.
Mia stopped talking, snapping her mouth shut before it spread into a grin.
“I’m not afraid of you, Chester Brandfield,” she said.
“You should be.”
“If you raise your voice at me or threaten me again. I will release the photos,” she said, looking up at me from beneath her dark lashes.
“Don’t do this,” I said, softening my tone. I hated the power this woman had over me, and the fact that she was doing this because she felt jilted in whatever fantasy land she was living in. “Juliet doesn’t deserve this.”
“Don’t say her name again!” she said, her voice shrill.
I put my hands up warily and sat back down behind my desk. “Okay. I’m the one who deserves this. Take it out on me,” I said, chewing the inside of my cheek as I stared back at Mia.
“Oh, I plan to,” she said.
“I’ll pay you whatever you want, but I want all the copies destroyed.”
“No can do,” she said, smiling smugly.
“What?” I asked exasperatedly.
“You’re going to pay me. And you’re going to keep paying me. I need those photos to keep you in my pocket.”
I sighed and ran a hand through my hair frustratedly. “How much?” I asked.
Her eyes roved my desk until they landed on a pad of paper. She slid it toward her and plucked a pen from my desk. She scribbled something down and slid the pad of paper toward me, clicking the pen closed.
My eyes widened at the amount of money she had written out.
“This is ludicrous!” I exclaimed. “This is blackmail.”
“It’s an investment,” she corrected me. “In your new assistant.”