Chapter 15 #3
If I’d thought myself addicted, I’d been wrong. It was something more than that, and didn’t that just complicate everything?
I pictured living in his house.
I considered how I’d relate to his baby.
I even wondered how I could both work and fit into a family.
Each of those points terrified me, and I couldn’t say why my brain had made the leap forward—he hadn’t asked me to be his girlfriend, and he’d made the point that he was single. We had great sex and unbeatable attraction, that was all.
To top it all off, I desperately missed him.
Finally, it was Friday, and I was heading into the last meeting of the day. Five days of distance hadn’t made my next steps with Ally any clearer, and I couldn’t sleep for nerves or fear, anticipating the family gathering that would welcome the baby to the castle.
Yet I hadn’t booked my plane ticket.
At the door, Devon tapped my shoulder. “Can I borrow your laptop? I’m taking the meeting minutes, and this one doesn’t seem to be working. It’s the battery or something.”
“Sure. Knock yourself out.” I handed mine over, my thoughts far away over soaring mountains and playing house in a sweet loch-side cottage.
A picture message landed on my phone midway through the meeting.
Surreptitiously, I peeked at it, under the cover of the conference table.
It was of Ally with his daughter. In a sunflower yellow onesie, she snuggled into his neck, her tiny fists under her face.
He beamed with pride. The message, no doubt created by speech-to-text, read: We can’t wait to meet you tomorrow.
My stomach twisted double-time.
“Scarlet, Toby, stay behind with me and Philip, will you?” Dad said. “We need to discuss the Hong Kong deal.”
I glanced up to find the meeting finished and people filing out.
“Sure.” I pocketed my phone.
Philip, Dad’s colleague, must’ve just joined us in the conference suite—he hadn’t been in the last two hours of finance planning. The man took a seat at the head of the table and removed his glasses.
I glanced at Devon, busily working at my laptop, though the meeting had finished and presumably his minutes were written. “Devon, can I have that back?” I asked.
Devon raised his gaze, peering around, acting like he hadn’t heard my father setting up a new session. Nosy man.
“Er, one second.” He tapped a couple of keys then handed it across the table. “I emailed myself the minutes from your account. I hope you don’t mind.”
I waved him off, and Devon shuffled out.
Now we were all alone, Dad nodded to Philip.
“We’ve had a change of plan regarding the Hong Kong trip.
An opportunity has arisen for us to meet with Zhou Lua and Jeremiah Jones of NPL Corps.
If we impress them, we could get in on the ground floor of their expansion plans.
This is highly propitious. They have a huge investment budget and are top of our list of partnering organisations.
The timing couldn’t be better for us opening an office.
If you’re not familiar with the company, Toby has emailed you a profile. ”
Jeremiah Jones… Well, wasn’t that name familiar.
Fuck! I’d heard his name from Ally’s lips. That was the man who’d assaulted him.
In my inbox, I found Toby’s message and opened it, scanning the details as my dad and Philip got into strategy discussions.
Jeremiah was a financier, and a wealthy one.
We’d never worked with him. I clicked through the man’s social media profiles and found pictures of him in Milan, attending Fashion Week.
One shot had Ally in the background. Oh hell no.
Anger infused me.
“Get yourselves prepared; we need to get to the airport by eight.” Dad clapped, and everyone stood.
“Airport?” I asked.
“Scarlet! Weren’t you listening? The trip has been brought forward.”
“To when?” I hopped up, my brain running a mile a minute.
Dad put his hand to his chest, and panic ran down my spine. Mom kept worrying about his health. I kept worrying, too. In between thinking about Ally and my career and the crazy amount of work I had on.
But my father only shook his head, his smile benevolent. “I know where your mind has gone—off thinking up tactics. I know my daughter! But there’s plenty of time for discussion on the plane. We leave tonight!”
In my first-class seat, I swallowed down my stab of confusion and tried to focus on one thing at a time.
I’d sent Ally a message apologising for not making it this weekend.
Really, I should’ve called him, but I’d barely had a second alone since the office and I had no idea how to tell him the change of plan.
I was leaving for six days, on my way to confront a handsy asshole. Without naming names, of course. I also needed to tell Dad that I couldn’t work with the man he was, right at this second, plotting to win over.
Most of all, I had to decide whether managing this shiny new office was still my dream, or if it had changed to…something else. And I couldn’t do that from a distance.
We took off, and everything in my life—not just the plane that sped me away from London—was up in the air.