by Lisa Levine
This guy was definitely not operating on all four cylinders.
“Because I don’t need your money or your company; I’ve got my own. The court can make you pay, and then can make your company pay, but they can’t make you date my sister. That’s the deal I’m looking for.”
“But why?” That was completely crazy.
He shrugged and looked a bit like a boulder with ears. “My sister likes you, and I want her to be happy. Take it or leave it.”
“You realize this is insane, right?” I say. “Of course, I’m not going to make that agreement with you. I already have a girlfriend, and Layla and I were never dating.”
“Then I guess I’ll see you in court Easton, good luck trying to pull your ass out of this one.”
He turned and walked out, and Janet walked through the door just as soon as he had left and the coast was clear.
“I heard everything,” she said. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly as I handed her my cell phone. “Call my attorneys; they’re listed on my contacts list. Call all three of them and schedule a meeting for them to come here as soon as possible.”
Janet took my phone and scurried out the door to make the calls and set up the meeting. Why did it always seem as though there was something that needed to be handled or dealt with? All I wanted was to meet Ivy tonight and ask her to move in with me so that we could be together every night. Now I had to deal with this.
“Hey, Janet,” I called out my door.
She showed up in a matter of seconds. “Yes, Mr. Wilder?”
“You have my phone, please text Ivy, and tell her that something came up at work and that I’m going to be late tonight.”
Janet nodded and left me alone in my office to try to work out a solution to this problem. She buzzed me about ten minutes later and told me that all three attorneys were on their way for an emergency meeting with me here at the office and that Ivy had said, “Okay.”
As much as I only wanted to think about being with Ivy tonight, I had to become somewhat preoccupied with work as I tried to sort out the legal situation. If Roger lived up to his public persona, then it wouldn’t take him long at all to start the legal proceedings; I was guessing a day or two max. I also needed to keep Ivy entirely out of the middle of this. Everything with us was perfect, and I didn’t want her to get stressed out by this or having it remind her of that night at the nightclub. I would handle it, and hopefully, by the time she asked me about it, I’d have a solution.
My attorneys didn’t seem the least bit helpful. All of them agreed that Roger had a solid case. The soundless video showed him and Layla and their friends, pleasantly smiling as they came to talk to us, and then me launching off my seat and beating the crap out of Roger. It was just a lesser aggravated assault, but Roger would push for whatever the max punishment was. That meant that I could likely expect a stiff fine, a few nights in jail, and a mandatory court order to provide him with company shares. It would also hit the media outlets if it went to court, and the bad publicity from me going off and clocking someone in the face, was not a good look for the company.
“There has to be something else we can do,” I said as I paced the conference room.
“Unless you take the deal that he offered you, then I think we’re pretty stuck. We can try to negotiate for lesser consequences, but the judge will likely side with Roger as the victim, and depending on how much he plays it up, you could be looking at all the maximum penalties,” one of the attorneys said.
My lawyers were useless.
“Well, I’m not taking his deal. That’s an insane proposition even to suggest.”
“Then, we need to look at what the potential damage could be and maybe ask to meet with him and a mediator to see if we can agree on a lesser punishment.”
That gave me an idea.
“Okay,” I said as I waved for the three of them to leave my office. “Do whatever you need to do.”
When the attorney mentioned a meeting with Roger, I got the idea to text Layla.
If her brother wouldn’t listen to reason, maybe she would. I realized that the chance of Layla being reasonable was slim to none, but it was worth a shot. I reached for my phone, but Janet still had it.
“Janet,” I called out to her. “Text Layla and ask if she’ll come to the office to meet with me.”
A few minutes later, Janet called back an answer that Layla had agreed to come. Layla probably thought I was calling her here to apologize and be her boyfriend like Roger had mentioned earlier. But I didn’t want to agree; I wanted to negotiate.
I let myself think about Ivy for a minute as I waited for Layla to arrive. It didn’t take long before she was standing at my door.
“Layla,” I said as I got up to greet her at the door. “Thank you for coming.”
“I always come when you call me,” she said.
That was true, she did. However, any time that I had called her in the past was usually for sex, not conversations like this. I hoped she would at least hear me out.
Just as I was getting ready to talk to Layla, Janet appeared in my doorway again. “What is it now?” I asked. I wasn’t trying to take it out on her, but I was just stressed out.”
“I believe you’re being served with papers,” Janet said as the process server stepped in through the door behind her.
“Oops,” Layla said. “I don’t think I’m allowed to be here for this part. I’ll just come back tomorrow,” she said as she slipped out the door faster than I could stop her.
“Layla, wait!” Dammit; she had already gone. She might be my one chance of getting out of this.
“Mr. Wilder?” the process server said as he asked to see my identification.
My head was spinning, and this day was a complete train-wreck.
After the paperwork—which I hadn’t even read yet—had been served and Janet had rescheduled a time for Layla to come in tomorrow, I reached into my pocket and came up empty-handed.
“Janet,” I called. This poor girl was going to hate her name after hearing me call it so many times. I needed my cell phone back.”
She came walking right in with it. “Sorry, I forgot to give it back to you. It’s been on silent, so I didn’t hear if anything came through.
I took it from her hand. “Thank you.”
When I looked down at my phone, I saw a dozen missed texts from Ivy. I quickly texted her right back to let her know that I had been in a meeting without my phone and that everything was fine and not to worry. But she didn’t seem entirely convinced. I let her know that I would still meet her at the bookstore tonight, but that I just might be a little bit late. She had no problem with that and said she would hang out and talk with Ben and Bridget until I got there.
The time seemed to drag on as I sat in my office and tried to think of anything that I could do—short of dating his sister—to get this guy to back off. But I couldn’t come up with anything. The only chance I had was to try to get Layla to change her mind. Maybe I could pay her off instead, and she could get Roger to call the whole thing off. She couldn’t possibly want to be with me that much. Layla and I’d had sex a few times, but it wasn’t anything spectacular, and one or two lunch and dinner dates. We both knew that there wasn’t anything special between us, and there were no tears lost over the decision not to see each other anymore. It seemed weird that this was the compensation that she and her brother would want.
I also had to think about the worst-case scenarios. If there was nothing else for me to do but go to court against Roger, and if I lost, which I probably would, I would lose money and company stock, but those were just material things that could be replaced. Still, it wasn’t something I wanted hanging over my head, especially not tonight. I also really didn’t want the bad publicity. I cared about the company’s image, and even more than that, I cared about Ivy’s impression of me.
I looked down at the time on my phone, not having realized that the ringer was still o
ff, and there were several more missed messages from Ivy.
Shit.
I quickly opened the messages and could tell that she was getting worried.
“Sorry,” I texted. “I forgot to turn my ringer back on after the meeting. Everything is fine, I promise. I’ll be there soon. Can’t wait.”
I was really hoping that my messages didn’t sound short with her. I was just stressed and trying to figure out what else I needed to do for the day before I could leave. Things would be fine once I got out of here and back with Ivy. Life always seemed better when we were together.
I grabbed my keys and started to head out the door. When I got into the corridor of the office building, I could see that word had already gotten around about the lawsuit. The entire place seemed abuzz with nervousness about the legal ramifications that I was facing and the effects that it would have on the company. I looked over at Janet, and she looked just as stressed as the rest of us. That was what I got for punching that asshole in the face, but to be honest, I’d do it all over again if the situation repeated itself.
“Are you heading out for the day, Mr. Wilder?” Janet asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “I told Ivy that I would meet her at the bookstore, and I’m already running late. I’ll have to deal with the rest of this when I get to work tomorrow. I’ve got something important to do tonight.”
“Good luck with whatever that is,” Janet said as she smiled. “But, sir—”
“Janet, I told you not to call me sir, remember?”
“Yes, Mr. Wilder, sorry. I just wanted to remind you that what is going on here at work is also very important to all of these people. If something happens to the company, many of these people could be at risk of losing their jobs. I’m not trying to overstep; I just thought I would mention it.”
I smiled at Janet; I was lucky to have her found and hired her. She was a good employee that cared about people.
“You’re not overstepping, Janet. Thank you,”
She nodded, and when I turned to leave, I was surprised to see Ivy standing at the entrance to my office.
26
Chapter Seventeen (Ivy)
I could just tell that something was wrong. I hadn’t heard from Easton very much today at all. That seemed unusual, considering how close we had been staying in touch throughout the past few days and how much we were both dying to see each other later tonight. I wasn’t sure what was wrong, but something was off, and I had learned from past mistakes that it was better just to address it head-on than it was to ignore my intuition and let stuff fester. Easton reassured me all day long that things were fine, but “fine” wasn’t that reassuring of a word to begin with. Plus, he had disappeared for hours at a time today, which was also worrisome. It was probably nothing, but I would rather be wrong than have waited around for something bad to happen. So, I got into my car and drove to his office.
I had only been to his office a small handful of times throughout the years, mostly because I always felt out of place there. It was stiff and boring and felt like the kind of place that was the opposite of a bookstore. It wasn’t really an atmosphere you would hang out and talk with a friend, which was why Easton had always come to meet me at the bookstore instead of the other way around. I didn’t know why we hadn’t hung out at each other’s apartments more. I mean, we sometimes did, but not nearly as often as the bookstore. I guessed maybe there might have been a sexual tension there all along, even before we knew it existed, which kept us from spending too much time home alone together.
I felt a bit out of place as I walked into his office building. I could tell that I looked out of place, too. Everyone was wearing suits and ties and skirts while I was just in jeans and a nubby gray sweater that I had pulled over the top of my T-shirt since it was cold outside. Every time I saw Easton come to meet me after work, he was usually in jeans, too, so I figured that the rest of his office followed that same dress code. Guess not. I guessed that was another one of those perks of being the billionaire CEO of your own company; you didn’t need to follow a dress code.
“Ivy?” Easton said as he walked right over to me as soon as he saw me come inside. “What are you doing here? Is everything okay?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Everything is fine. But I got the feeling that things weren’t okay with you, so I came to see for myself.”
I was worried that he was going to be angry that I had just shown up at his fancy office unannounced. But instead, he smiled and hugged me and kissed me on the lips in front of all of the people sitting around at their desks watching.
“You are so astute, and I adore you for it,” he said.
“So, there is something wrong?” I asked.
“Kind of,” he answered. “But it has nothing to do with us, so don’t worry, okay?”
“Okay,” I said as I followed him back to his office.
He had his keys in his hand, and he looked like he had just been getting ready to leave—probably to come to meet me at the bookstore—when I arrived. I looked around at everyone as we walked past, and I noticed that everyone seemed to be really high-strung and stressed out. Once we got inside his office and he closed the door, he turned around and kissed me again. This time it was the kind of kiss that would have led to other things if we had been in the privacy of his apartment. When he let me go, we went to go sit down at his desk together. He pulled the chairs around so that we could sit holding hands and touching our legs to each other.
“So, what’s going on around here?” I asked. “Everyone in the whole place seems totally frazzled. Bad day at work?”
“Yeah, you could say that,” he said. “Before I explain it, though, I want you to promise me that you won’t freak out.”
“Uh, that’s not a very good disclaimer,” I said as I got more worried.
He reached and gently touched the side of my neck with the back of his hand, then brushed a strand of hair away from my face. “The disclaimer is that none of this affects you and me, and that is all that matters to me now, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Remember that guy I punched in the face at the nightclub?” he asked.
“How could I forget? He was so charming,” I said sarcastically.
Easton chuckled. It was good to see that whatever problem this was, he was still able to laugh at it at least. “Well, turns out that he is Roger Stills, a high-powered attorney, and to add icing on the cake, he is also Layla’s older brother.”
None of that sounded good.
“He came in here this afternoon and threatened to charge me with assault and to go after my company. That’s why I’ve been preoccupied today. After Roger left, I had to call an emergency meeting with my attorneys, then I got served a lawsuit, and now it seems that all of my employees are freaking out.”
I looked at Easton’s face and saw that he appeared stressed and weary. His eyes were bloodshot, and his jaw was tight. I felt bad that I had no idea that was all going on with him today while I was trying to text him.
“Janet had my phone for part of the day. I needed to give it to her so that she could use my contacts list and make some calls to try to deal with this mess. She had the ringer on silent, and that’s why I missed so many of your messages. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to be sorry at all,” I said as I went to sit on his lap in his chair with him. I rubbed his shoulders and kissed his cheek. “I’m really sorry that this is happening and that you had to deal with all of that today. What’s going to happen now?”
“Well, if Roger gets his way, which he probably will according to my team of useless attorneys, then I’ll lose a lot of money, my company’s image will suffer, and I’ll likely have to lay off some good employees. There’s also the chance that I could spend a few nights in jail.”
“What? No!” I panicked at the thought of Easton behind bars even for a night. “There has to be something else we can do. That jerk provoked you. You were just trying to protect me. The bartender was a witness, maybe he can come a
nd testify to that,” I said as I tried to think of anything that could help the situation.
“Maybe,” he said. “But Roger has a video that very clearly shows I attacked him without any visible provocation. That’s why he’s cocky enough to come in here swinging a crazy proposition as he did.”
“What proposition?” I asked.
“Okay, this is the part that I don’t want you to freak out about. I’m always going to be honest with you, Ivy, even when it’s not comfortable. Roger said he’d call off the charges and the lawsuit if I agreed to get back together with Layla.”
“What?” I asked in shock. “What does that even have to do with anything?” I really was trying not to freak out.
“Absolutely nothing,” he answered. “They’re both just crazy. I immediately told him no.”
I got quiet and contemplative for a few minutes while I considered the ramifications of all of this. “Do you want me to back out of things again, to maybe put our relationship on the back burner for a while so that can take him up on that offer at least temporarily?” I asked.
Now it was his turn to be shocked. “Are you kidding me?” he asked. “Why would you even suggest that?”
“Because you just told me that you could end up in jail, your company could suffer, and good people would lose their jobs. I can’t be responsible for that, and I absolutely can’t see you in prison.” I buried my face against his shoulder. Why couldn’t things just be easy for a change?
“Ivy, none of this is your fault or your responsibility. I would never agree to that bargain, even if you and I weren’t together. I would never give in to some jackass who was trying to bully me. What kind of example would that set for my employees? And I would never agree to be in a relationship with someone that I don’t care about. All of that aside, the most important thing in the world to me—is you. I love you, and you mean more to me than anything else. Even if I had to suffer the worst of all of those punishments, it would still be better than not being with you.”