“Right,” Rosie says with a grin. “You told me about that part already.”
I can’t help but smile. My smile fades as I tell her the next part. “When we were leaving I saw a stack of plates on the ground. I know I put them on the table. I remember putting them on the table! But then when we left they were on the floor. But you know, the place was a mess so I could be wrong. It was a disaster with food and cutlery and decorations everywhere. We were fooling around near the table and they could have fallen off, but I swear I remember them being on the table! I’m probably wrong, but I don’t know, Rosie, I just have this feeling.”
“Like someone knocked them over and that’s what you heard?”
“Yes!” I exclaim. I inhale deeply and Rosie puts her hand on my forearm.
“Maybe. But let’s not panic,” Rosie says gently. “It’s possible someone was here, and it is possible it was Greg.” I shiver, and Rosie continues. “BUT, it’s also possible that you were all hopped up on wine and endorphins and your sex-addled mind was hearing things and thinking things. I mean, at the end of the day you slept with Zach Lockwood AT THE OFFICE! Who knows what kind of tricks your mind would play on you in that situation!!”
I chuckle. “I definitely wasn’t thinking straight.”
“So let’s not panic, ok? Let’s just write everything down and if things get weird with Greg we’ll have some backup. We can operate on the assumption that no one knows about Friday night except you and me.” She pauses and cocks her head to the side. “And Zach, obviously.”
I grin. “Oh right, him.”
“Did I mention how generous it was of you to spend all that overtime locked up in this office with him over the next few weeks? What a sacrifice you’re making for the team.”
“Shut up, Rosie,” I laugh. “You’d do the same.”
“I’d do worse,” she replies with a laugh. I giggle and then sigh. Rosie gives my shoulders a squeeze and I sigh again. I feel better.
“Thank you,” I say softly.
“You know I’d do anything for you, right?”
I smile. “I wouldn’t have made it through the past year without you.”
With one more squeeze of my shoulders she winks at me and we head back to our desks.
Chapter 16 - Zach
I’m looking at the HR report on Greg Chalmers and I can feel my blood boiling. Why wasn’t I told about this?! The woman’s name is censored from the report and I wish I knew who it was. I’m told she still works here, and I can’t imagine how uncomfortable it must be for her.
I read through the details of the file. I can’t believe this guy still works for us. He followed and harassed a coworker for months. I read through the transcript of a meeting with her and I shiver.
I’m always looking over my shoulder, I don’t feel safe. He was outside my house!
The HR representative asked her if she wanted to press charges and she said no. Why would she say no? She had grounds to get this guy fired and she never pursued it. Why??
At the moment we don’t have enough evidence to fire him. A ‘feeling’ isn’t evidence, you understand that, right Ms Ellis?
I can almost hear the contempt in this person’s voice, even just reading the transcript. How are they not outraged?! This must have been incredibly difficult for whoever was sitting on the other side of the table.
I push my chair back and stand up. This has gone too far. If she wouldn’t press charges then I will. I need to confront this guy directly. I feel like a fool! How did I not know this was going on?! I should know everything that happens in my company.
My hands fly up to my temples for the thousandth time this morning. I can’t ignore the shame and disappointment that’s making my stomach burn right now. The last year I’ve been neglecting my work. I’ve been too busy going out and meeting women, partying, or ‘networking’ as I call it. It’s a necessary part of the advertising industry, but now I realise I’ve been neglecting my company, my employees! This was going on right under my nose as I was off having nice lunches and dinners and going out with a new woman on my arm every night. It’s not right.
I stomp out of my office and turn the corner towards the accounting department. I can feel the anger flaring up deep inside me, giving every step a new purpose. No one is allowed to make my employees feel uncomfortable! No one! He followed her to her house!!
As soon as I’m done with him I’ll find out who she is and apologise to her personally. I should have known. I should have been here.
I get to the maze of cubicles in the accounting department and turn to the first one.
“Where does Greg Chesney sit?” I ask gruffly. The middle-aged man looks up and shock paints itself on his face.
“Mr. Lockwood! Hi! Um, Greg? Greg sits over there.” He points to a cubicle a couple work stations down.
“Thanks,” I grunt. I march over to the cubicle and get ready to chew his ear out. He’ll feel the wrath of Zachary Lockwood. I take a deep breath and get ready to spit my words out.
One more step and I’m there.
And… No one. He’s gone.
His desk looks perfectly clean and tidy, like he hardly has any work in progress. There aren’t any personal effects. No photos, no plants, nothing hanging on the cubicle walls. Just a neat row of pencils and a stack of files with ordered tabs separating them.
I turn to the woman who sits next to him. Was she his victim? I don’t even know her name. I’ve been a terrible boss.
“Where’s Greg Chesney?”
She’s wearing the same surprised expression as the last man. I guess I haven’t been over here in a long while. Maybe ever.
“He’s gone,” she says quickly. “He was just here maybe an hour ago and he grabbed his bag and walked out. I asked him where he was going but he didn’t even look at me.”
The frustration inside me builds. This shouldn’t be this hard!! I’m the CEO of this company! I built it from the ground up and I should be able to find one accountant when I need to speak to him!
I stalk back to my office with a dark cloud over my head.
“Becca!” I bark. She jumps and looks at me like a deer in the headlights. “Get Greg Chesney on the phone. I need to see him right away.”
She nods and picks up the phone, finding his number and punching it in. I walk into my office and wait for her to page me through.
I’m taking deep breaths and composing my speech for him when she walks into my office.
“I couldn’t get a hold of him, Mr. Lockwood,” she says, wringing her hands with worry. “The number he gave us for his personal phone was disconnected. I tried his building but they said no one by that name lives there.”
My heart starts thumping. “What?”
“I don’t know,” she says. Her mouth opens and closes again and she looks at me, terrified.
“Get HR on it. Do we not know anything about this guy?! Get him in here ASAP.”
She nods and almost runs out the door.
“Becca,” I call after her. She turns around. “Thanks for your help with this,” I say. Her face softens and she nods before leaving my office. I lean back in my chair and rub my temples, closing my eyes and taking deep breaths. Rage won’t help me, frustration won’t help me. There could be a simple explanation for all this. I need to figure out what I’m going to ask this guy, who he is, how he got a job with us when we know virtually nothing about him.
I can’t believe I’ve let this happen.
Chapter 17 - Harper
The days are flying by this week. It’s already Wednesday and I feel like I haven’t looked up from my desk. Most of the office will be on vacation from tomorrow onwards but I’ll be staying in. I look at the team list of people scheduled to work overtime with me. It’s pathetically short. We can’t force people to work over Christmas, and it looks like most people have lives of families. Lucky them.
“Harper,” Rosie says quickly as she slips into my office. Her
eyes are wide and I can tell she’s about to tell me some juicy office gossip. She looks at me and her expression changes to bemused amusement. “Harper are you eating pickles at 8:30am?”
“What’s wrong with that?!” I say before crunching into my fourth pickle of the day.
“That’s disgusting,” she says with a laugh.
“These are the best fucking pickles I’ve ever tasted in my life,” I reply as I bite down. I don’t know why I’m eating pickles at 8:30 but I had this almost insatiable craving for them and I had to stop at a grocery store on the way in to work. And you know what? I’m an adult. I’ll eat pickles whenever I want to eat pickles. If that means 8:30am on a Wednesday morning in December, so be it.
Rosie shakes her head. “Whatever. Did you hear about Greg Chesney?”
Even his name makes me feel uncomfortable. I’m thoroughly sick of talking about him.
“No, what about him?”
“Apparently on Monday morning he took his stuff and left and he hasn’t been back in the office since. HR had a fake phone and address so no one knows where he is! He’s just fallen off the face of the earth.”
I can feel the blood draining from my face. For once I’m not blushing. My heart starts beating hard and it feels like my chest is hollow. My eyes struggle to focus as I process what Rosie’s just told me.
“What do you mean, fake address and phone number?”
“I mean, we have no idea where this guy is. The information we have on him is all bogus. They’ve been looking for him and he’s just… gone!”
“Since Monday?”
“Since Monday!”
“What time on Monday?” I ask. I think about my conversation with him, and how angry he was afterwards. What if he left after speaking to me and being turned down from the holiday team? My blood runs cold as I think of Greg Chesney being angry at me. I have no idea what he’s capable of.
“I don’t know what time he left. In the morning.” Rosie pauses. “Harper, I think that you should come stay at my place.” I glance up at her and see the deep concern in her eyes. “If you want,” she adds. “I… I don’t know. I don’t have a good feeling about this.”
I look down at my desk and take a deep breath. If Rosie doesn’t have a good feeling about it then I know I should be worried.
I almost say yes to Rosie right away, but then something happens inside me. I take a deep breath and think about the past year of my life. I feel a deep anger well up inside. It’s not anger, not exactly. It’s outrage. I look up at Rosie and I know that I have fire in my eyes.
“You know what? Fuck him. I’m DONE letting him control my life. Good fucking riddance. If he wants to walk out on this job then be my guest. I’m not going to rearrange my entire life because he’s a fucking creep and no one would listen to me about it. I’m DONE being scared. I’m DONE being paranoid and looking over my shoulder!”
I’m shaking. I take a few ragged breaths and Rosie stares at me. Her eyes soften and I feel a tear fall onto my cheek. I’m crying. God I hate when I cry! Anytime I get angry or offended I start crying!! I wipe at the tears angrily and look at Rosie again. She’s wringing her hands and her face is full of worry.
“Thank you, Rosie. Honestly. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had. But I have to be able to stand on my own two feet. I can’t let this guy control my life anymore!”
She nods and sits down across from me, reaching her hands across my desk. She grabs my hand in both of hers and looks me right in the eye.
“I get that and I admire you for it. I just want you to be safe.”
I nod. “I’ll be fine. I have pepper spray,” I grin. She’s the one who bought it for me last year.
Rosie laughs. “Good. Remember to spray downwind.”
She stands up and walks out of my office. I take a deep breath and wipe my eyes. I won’t cry over this, not again. If Greg Chesney walked out and never came back, it should be a good thing. I won’t let fear control my life, not anymore.
I look at the short list of names in front of me and take a deep breath. If that’s all the people that are working, then so be it. I’ll work longer hours starting today. Nothing will stand in the way of me delivering this project, not deadlines or holidays or understaffed teams. And definitely, definitely not Greg Fucking Chesney.
Chapter 18 - Zach
I flick off the lights to my office and close the door as I walk out. Everyone is gone and the office is deathly quiet. I let all the air out of my lungs. It’s going to be a long couple of weeks. As I cross the big room towards the elevators I see one light still on.
Harper’s office. Her door is open.
I change my direction and knock on her door frame. She looks up and I remember what it’s like to stare into her green eyes. It sends a thrill straight between my legs.
“You’re here late,” I say.
“So are you,” she shoots back with a grin.
“Slave to the job,” I reply as I walk in and take a seat across from her. “Surely you have better things to do than to stay here?”
“Just finishing up a couple things. I want to be able to hit the ground running tomorrow with the team. I’ve put together a program and I actually think the January deadline is achievable. It’ll be tight, but it’s doable.”
I make a sound in response but truthfully, I’m not listening to a word she’s saying. I’m watching the way her dark hair frames her face and makes her skin looks like porcelain, and the way her eyebrows knot together slightly as she looks at her computer screen. She turns it towards me.
“Here, look,” she says, pointing to the screen. I clear my throat and sit up, looking at the schedule she’s put together. My eyes shoot up as I look at the work she’s put into this. She’s incredibly smart.
“That’s clever,” I say, pointing to her logic on the screen. “Good work.”
“Thanks,” she says simply. She doesn’t seem flattered or flustered by my praise, it’s almost like she didn’t hear it at all. I watch as her chest rises and falls when she takes a deep breath and then she glances at me with those emerald eyes again.
“I think it’s time for me to go home,” she says with a smile. “Come back fresh again tomorrow.”
“Thanks for volunteering to work, Harper. You’re a huge part of the team.”
She smiles sadly. “I appreciate that, Zach. There were definitely times when I felt like my voice wasn’t being heard. It’s better now. It’s good to hear that from you.”
I frown. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, nothing,” she says, waving her hand and getting up. She grabs her bag and starts packing her things into it.
“Did you know Greg Chesney?” I ask suddenly. I stare at her, looking for any sign that she was his victim. I’m studying her and I can feel my body go rigid even from a few feet away. If he threatened her I swear I could wring his neck right now.
I watch as she freezes, her hand perched in mid-air above her purse. After a second she keeps moving but she never looks at me.
“I used to work with him when I was still in accounts, why?”
“He’s disappeared.”
“I heard,” she says, finally looking at me. “Listen, I don’t mean to be rude, but I really don’t feel like talking about Greg Chesney right now. He gets way too much airtime already.”
I laugh. I can’t help it. She speaks her mind and she doesn’t let anyone push her around. The thought makes me relax. I can’t imagine Harper being the victim of a stalker, she’s too strong. Surely it wasn’t her. I stand up.
“Let me walk you to your car,” I say.
“Oh, I take the subway to work,” she replies, smiling. “The environment and all that.”
“Well then let me drive you home.”
“You don’t need to go out of your way. It’s fine, really.”
“Please,” I tell her. “It’s no problem at all.”
“I… alright. Thanks, Zach.” She
smiles at me and I try to ignore the throbbing in my cock. I don’t know if her smile is friendly or professional. I don’t know if she’s accepting because it’s convenient or because she wants to spend more time with me.
Honestly, I don’t care either way. Harper is a mystery to me. I never know what she’s going to say or do, if she’s going to come up with a brilliant business plan or pull down the sixteen-foot office Christmas tree on top of her.
“You’re a very interesting person, you know that Harper?”
She glances at me sideways. “Interesting how?” she asks with a grin. “That doesn’t sound quite like a compliment.” Her grin widens. “You’re pretty interesting yourself.”
“That didn’t sound quite like a compliment either,” I laugh. I resist the urge to put my hand on the small of her back when she walks out of her office inside me. Every part of me is screaming to touch her, to get closer to her, but I keep a healthy, professional distance. She was clear that she thought sleeping with me was a mistake and it was definitely a one time thing. She’s right, anyways. We work together.
But that doesn’t mean I can just steal one glimpse of her ass in that pencil skirt, does it?
Chapter 19 - Harper
“This is me,” I say as he pulls over in front of my apartment. “Thanks for the lift.”
“No worries,” he says as he puts the car in park. I turn to look at him and the breath is almost knocked out of my body when I see his dark brown eyes. Maybe it’s the dim light of the car, or maybe it’s my own imagination but I see the same look that I saw on Friday night.
Desire.
We’re silent for a second. I can’t look away. All I can hear is the roar of my heartbeat in my ears. My mouth goes dry and my eyes flick to his lips as they part slightly. He’s not moving, one hand on the stick shift and one hand on the steering wheel but he’s looking right at me, right through me.
Knocked Up by the CEO Page 6