by Jamie Knight
"I have a deal for you, Mr. Thorne.”
Tim Buck has a deal I might be interested in?
That’s highly unlikely.
But of course I have to take the bait and find out what he’s talking about.
"I am all ears.”
That makes his smile even wider.
“I get to peacefully resign from work and I also get a glowing recommendation from you yourself, and I go without causing any trouble.”
Usually, I would play it cool and pretend I don't know what I am talking about. But I don't have any patience left in me when I have a certain runaway brunette to find.
"Why would I do that, Mr. Buck?”
He gives me a smarmy smile before talking.
"Because I have a video of your beloved Anna and you getting all sexy on screen. If you don't believe me, check your email.”
Now that has me scrambling to open the email and sure enough, there is an attachment. The video has a split screen like there was a third person connected to the call watching the two of us, but there is no mistaking it. It is a video of the day Anna stripped for me.
"How did you get this?"
He shrugs, so casually looking so cocky at himself, that I hit record.
"She is my employee. It isn't that hard to think about getting into her computer when you have been making googly eyes at each other for years."
If this video does get out, he knows what will happen. There isn't a no fraternizing policy in the office so that wouldn’t be the problem, but this might get me in trouble with the investors. We wouldn’t want it to hit the press and be in the news.
That is not really a problem to me when my investors happen to be family and I own fifty two percent of the company. And I’d be willing to take the bad hit in publicity. Who cares?
The problem will be with Anna because she will be discredited and looked down upon. She might even be discriminated against in the office or bullied to the point of quitting. I know how these things work, from having seen too many affairs blow up in the office.
"You hacked her to get to me. Do you realize you have just about destroyed Anna's life?”
Tim doesn't deny it. Instead, he shrugs again so nonchalantly that I fist my fingers, wanting to punch him badly.
“It’s nothing personal. She just happened to hold your interest and was also the most likely to replace me." He is so confident he has me in a tight spot that he leans forward and asks, "Do we have a deal?”
I nod, knowing I mean no part of it.
"We have a deal, Tim Buck.”
I have each and every intention of going back on my word. My hands are shaking with anger as I call Michael and relay some of the details of my deal with Mr. Buck, leaving out the exact explicit content of the video or the specific employee involved. I love Anna— no way would I see her disgraced in that way.
I love her?
I love her.
Of course I am in love with Anna Mallon.
Why else would I be this panicked at losing her?
Why else would the thought of her hiding from me hurt me so badly?
Why else would I want us to be exclusively together?
"How does Anna Mallon fit into the equation, though?” Michael is still talking, trying to solve the mystery and tie up the loose ends. For once I wish he wasn’t so damn thorough and good at his job. “She is just an employee.”
I decide I’d better just tell him. I can trust him.
"She fits in because she is mine. She is the employee on the video."
There is a long stretch of silence on the other side, but I don't regret saying that for one moment.
"Send me the recording, then. It should be enough to get Anna vindicated. We might be able to retrieve the video since we have administrative permissions on his computer.”
“Thanks, Tim,” I say, now back to being glad he’s so good at his job.
When I get off the phone, I immediately call security to instruct them to retrieve Tim's computer and hand him to the authorities. The computer is company property, after all. There is the possibility of him having the video on another device, but that is a PR nightmare I am willing to deal with.
When I do get to Anna's place later, my heart sinks even further. The landlord lets me in with a spare key when I say it’s her boss and I have an important business matter, and I take in everything.
The place is deserted and there is no sign of her anywhere. She has, however, left a simple note beside a phone that has been switched off on the coffee table. On the note is the password to her computer, and words that rob me of my every strength.
I love you, Liam, but we both know it had to end sometime. Sorry to run, but I didn't do this.
I can only focus on three words of that note.
She loves me.
Anna Mallon loves me.
And now I won't stop until I have her where she belongs.
Back in my arms.
Chapter Nine – Anna
A week can seem like an entire year when you are nursing a broken heart. It can seem like eternity when you add hurt into the equation.
My cousin and her husband were gracious enough to take me in but they have been tiptoeing around me like they are afraid I will break. My mood is always low, and my appetite is even lower.
My days in the past week have been comprised of cleaning nearly every surface on my cousin Terry's house, scribbling away in my notebook, and remembering every single moment with Liam.
Terry and her husband Robb seem to be barely tolerating my behaviours and barely putting up with the cleaning. I am miserable, but thanks to the pandemic, I can't exactly drive home to Maryland, no matter how much I want to. Basically, I am going through the motions, feeling miserable but unable to have my mother's arms to comfort me.
I could never tell anyone what I’d done. There is a knock on the door to my assigned room before Terry's head pops in.
"You need to get on the phone, Anna. There is someone persistent about talking to you.”
The only person who knows where I am is my mother. She knows I am broken hearted, from what Terry has been telling her, although she doesn’t know why, and I thought she was giving me time to come to terms with my emotional state. There is only one reason I can think of to explain why she is being persistent.
"Is this an intervention?"
She gives me a sweet smile and says, "Just get downstairs.”
Terry is the sweetest person I know, but she can also be quite stubborn. If I remain in this bed, Terry is not above dragging me there herself and we both know it. Pushing myself off the window seat, I stomp down the stairs to the phone, making my displeasure known.
"It isn't a good time, Mom. I will call you later and..."
"Please don't hang up, Anna. Hear me out."
I am slamming down the receiver before he can say another word.
"That wasn't my mother on the phone. That was Liam Thorne," I say, turning my seething eyes towards Terry.
She looks nonplussed, to her credit, and the sweet smile is still on her face.
"I didn't say it was her on the phone." She sends me an arched eyebrow, then continues, "He has been looking for you, Anna."
I knew he would look, but I didn't know he would find me this fast.
“He is my boss and he thinks I am a saboteur and that is why he is here looking for me. I don't want to go to jail for something I didn't do."
Her head is already shaking before I am done talking.
"Look, he explained it all to me already,” she tells me. “I know you wanted your privacy so I didn’t ask nosy questions but he told me the whole story so that I would get you to talk to him. He knows you had nothing to do with it. Some guy named Tim hacked your computer to get into it for his own benefit and also to make it look like you were selling company secrets. Liam just wants to talk to you."
Did she just call him Liam like they are best friends from high school?
Wait, Tim set me up?
&nb
sp; "Have you been talking to him?"
The traitor has the nerve to smile.
“I have. At first, I wanted to know what was going on, but when he explained that it was just a misunderstanding, we started getting along." When I keep looking at her like she has sprouted a second head she adds, "He is a nice guy and you are a snoop.”
WHAT?!!!
"Liam said I was a snoop?”
"No, but you picked up his phone without his permission. How are you not a snoop?"
The phone starts ringing again and we both stand there looking at it. Terry's eyes are asking me if I am going to pick the phone up, but I don't know if I can find the strength to talk to him now that I am not going to jail. I feel like an idiot. A relieved idiot, but an idiot nonetheless.
Voicemail picks it up almost immediately.
"You feel hurt and I get that. But considering I fucked you on every surface in my house without any kind of protection, do you really think it is wise to just toss our relationship away as if it never existed?”
Oh no.
Terry is looking at me like I am a very interesting scientific experiment now and my brain is zeroing on the fact that he is right. We didn't have any talk about pills or diseases when we started sleeping together.
It just kind of happened and now I might be pregnant by my boss. My cheeks flame red before Terry's laughter pierces the air.
"Damn, Anna. You have been busy, haven't you?”
Luckily, Terry and Robb have been trying to conceive so she lends me one of her kits so that I can check. Six o’clock finds me calling Liam on Skype and checking my emails on Terry's phone as I wait for him to answer.
There are more than fifty emails from Liam alone, along with a few others from Ava and from my mother. He answers just as I am about to give up and my lady parts clench hard.
It doesn't matter how pissed I am. Liam shirtless is always enough to make my thoughts scatter.
As he sits down, though, I can't help noticing the changes in him. There are sleep circles around his eyes, making him look tired, and what appears to be the beginning of a beard on his jaw and chin.
He had shaved diligently when I was at his house, but I guess not since then. His hair is missed up so badly that it is standing in all directions on his head.
My heart clenches for him and I feel the venom in me drain away.
"I am not pregnant."
I hold up the pregnancy kit in a Ziplock bag to the screen to show him the single line. The smile he gives me is small though and it doesn't reach his eyes. He rubs the palm of his hand over his face, looking so impossibly tired.
"I can see that, Anna."
There is a stretch of silence before he talks again. His voice is flat and so unlike the Liam I am used to. This Liam looks unsure and lost and my heart is bleeding for him.
"Why did you run?"
Isn't it obvious?
“I didn't want to go to jail."
"Why didn't you come to me? You chose to run away from me instead."
"Would you have believed me if I told you I hadn't done anything wrong?”
There is no hesitation when he answers, "Yes. I would have believed you.”
When I don't say anything to that, he goes on, "We were a team, Anna, and I thought we maybe had built a bit of trust between us. The shock was on me when you ran instead of trying to tell me what happened so that we could solve this.”
Liam looks so hurt and heartbreakingly lost that I just want to hold him and take away his pain. In that moment, I realize he never hid things from me. All of the phone calls he took were in front of me, he never hid any documents, and he left me in the office alone sometimes with his computer turned on.
He must just have never gotten around to mentioning the security breach. Or maybe he wasn’t allowed to due to agreements with the board of directors.
How could I have been so stupid?
A man like Liam doesn’t trust quickly because of how quickly it can be turned against him. But while he didn’t tell me about the investigation, he never once showed me mistrust, while I seem to have shown him all the mistrust in the world.
“I am sorry, Liam,” I tell him, my head hanging low. “I got paranoid and thought you were investigating me without telling me. I know how stupid that is to have thought, now.”
His head is shaking before I even finish.
“It isn’t your apology I want right now, Anna. What I want is you here so that we can figure things out.”
He comes closer to the screen and I can see clearly how torturous this is for him.
“Please come home to me.”
A tear I had no idea I was holding falls down my cheek.
“I will be there tomorrow.”
Before I can end the call and analyze what I am feeling, though, he mutters in a lonely voice, “I love you, Anna Mallon.”
He loves me?
He loves me.
“I love you, too, Liam Thorne.”
And I mean every word of it.
I go to sleep feeling giddy inside and I dream of all the future possibilities with a brown eyed man I absolutely love.
Chapter Ten – Liam
She looks like a fucking angel as she drifts into the focus of the front door video camera. I press the button opening the front gates and rush to the front door to wait for her. When I do see her walking up the house, I release a breath I had no idea I was holding.
Last night when we talked, I had every attention of slowly wooing her back with soft words and persuading language. However, I couldn’t stop the hurt from pouring out because how could I hold it in?
She left me feeling like a fish out of water and I never want to feel that way again. Now that she is here, I have every intention of persuading her to stay.
When she walks up to me, I offer to take her bag, trying to be a gentleman, but she doesn’t let me. Instead, she lets it drop to the ground, slides her fingers into my hair, and presses her lips to mine. I really want to be gentle with her when I break the kiss, but instead, she tells me words I never thought to hear from her.
“Take me upstairs and make love to me.”
I hold her to my chest, crashing my lips against hers hard enough to bruise. She moans into my mouth like it is the best feeling in the world. When I carry her upstairs, she entwines her arms around me and lets me.
The way she fits me is like she is meant for me. She is my match wit to wit, personality to personality and appetite to appetite. We explore each other for what feels like hours, stripping each other as we go. We kiss each other in a frenzy of lips, tongues and teeth.
I love it.
When I finally sink into her, we both sigh with relief. When we start moving against each other, it is at a leisurely pace, as if we had agreed mutually to savour the moment. A moment that is as raw as it is magical. A moment that feels to me like coming home.
She finally shudders and I feel her cum taking me with her as we both stumble off a very pleasurable cliff.
Afterwards, we talk about silly nothings for what feels like forever. I berate her for leaving, and she berates me for being good-looking enough to make her insecure. As if that makes any sense at all, considering that’s she absolutely gorgeous.
When we finally find the strength, we soak in the large jacuzzi tub in my bathroom, taking every opportunity to touch each other. There are a lot of things I found redundant and unnecessary when I moved into my house and this tub was one of them. Sitting with her between my legs in the giant bathtub though, I could almost kiss the decorator for it now.
Four o’clock finds us sitting in the dining room with a nice steak, mashed potatoes, and peas with lots of gravy on them, courtesy of the woman seated beside me. She expresses her concern about our new relationship and how we should go about it.
“Perhaps we should keep things private. We don’t need anyone in the office getting the wrong idea,” she says.
The very thought makes me angry.
“We are not hidin
g the fact that we are in a relationship, Anna. Whoever finds out, let them!”
She looks perplexed by that as she asks, “Won’t that reflect poorly on you and get your investors on your neck?”
Aww, she is so cute.
“First of all, I formed my company and got it to where it is. Nobody would be in a hurry to get rid of me. Secondly, my investors are mostly family, and third, I own fifty per cent of the company.” I sound arrogant, but what the hell? “And if someone bullies you for it, I am not above firing some people.”
She is laughing up until the moment she realizes I am serious.
I am not above playing dirty to protect her. That is why I mean every word of what I say to her. She is mine forever, and I’m going to tell the world.
Epilogue – Anna
I am nervous as I walk into our new favorite restaurant.
How do I even start to break the news to him when it could make us or break us?
The pregnancy test in a plastic bag inside my handbag feels like lead because of how nervous I am.
Liam kisses my cheek when I get to the table, looking quite like the refined gentleman.
Nearly a year has gone by since I walked into his house and it has been eleven months since our relationship has begun and I still can’t get over how good-looking Liam is. The quarantine ended and the virus slowed dramatically thanks to a new vaccine. Hence why we have been allowed to eat at restaurants.
He pulls back the chair for me and rounds the table to take his own seat.
As we order, our conversation veers into work as we discuss how the marketing strategy my team and I have come up with will be implemented. I lead the team now, and with Ava there to support me, we have a solid strategy in place.
Talks like these usually excite me, especially since we never stick to one thing for long. This time though, I more nervous than I should be because of the news I need to break to Liam.