His heart skipped a beat, but not in a good way. The police had told him not to interact with her, and his inner voice screamed for him to run, but he held his ground. Her voice sounded commanding, and he didn't like her tone. “We have nothing to say to each other.”
An evil smirk crossed her face as though she had the upper hand. “Then I'll talk with Didi, or should I say, Ms. Baxter.”
Hearing Brandelynn say Deborah's name caused him to pause. Deborah hadn’t been answering her phone, and he didn’t know where she was right now. Could Brandelynn have somehow hurt her?
He walked her to the corner of the security desk as far away from the reporters as he could, but not before catching the eye of the guard at the desk. Brandelynn may be wearing a hat and sunglasses, but this had been the same employee that had let her into the building over the last few months—and he had been warned to keep an eye out for her. He got the hint; Daniel noticed a nod from the man and then him quickly reaching for the phone.
“Just say what you want to say and then leave,” he said, his voice low as he hid any hint of concern over Deborah’s safety—not wanting to give Brandelynn the upper hand.
She glared at him with crazed eyes, and his body stiffened. That stare, where someone viewed you as only a meal ticket seared into him all the way down to his bones. It was the look from his past, the one from his nightmares as a child.
He took a deep breath and stood straighter. He wasn’t a small kid anymore, separated from his mother. He was in control. Crazyeyes would not deter him today, nor would he allow her to hurt Deborah.
Her hands gestured in the air as though she were taking in a giant billboard. “Billionaire uses personal assistant to get off the Top 10 Bachelor list.” She took a deep breath and shook her head. “I'm still working on the title.”
“Find an editor,” he said in a snide tone. The anxiety bubbled within his gut, and he needed her to come out and say what she had come here to say.
“Whatever I come up with, the title needs to be something to get you and Ms. Battle-Axe back,” she paused, “I mean, you and Ms. Baxter back for what you’ve done.”
“What we’ve done?” He knew Brandelynn’s con was against him, but he didn’t realize there’d be a vendetta against Deborah for her foiling Brandelynn’s plans. He never should have brought Deborah into his lie.
“What you’ve done?” She rolled her eyes. “I followed you the last few days. Camped out, and froze my butt off at the Langtham Hotel just for a glimpse of your betrothed. I was quite surprised to see Ms. Baxter as your Australian heiress.” She glanced around the room. “She’s late getting here this morning.”
Daniel was able to breath once again. Brandelynn didn’t know where Deborah was, and obviously her brother didn’t either. He needed her to stay here until the police arrived.
“My lie couldn’t have been that bad if you’ve been following the two of us around for days.” He didn’t wait for her to comment. “I understand your brother works for a magazine. I know he’s your partner.”
Her eyes gave away the secret, even if she didn’t comment on the remark.
“Your bother followed me that day I went shopping and recorded me. He’s the one who uploaded that baby store video to the Internet.”
“That’s a wonderful little story, but I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m an only child,” her voice was condescending, and full of lies.
She glared at him as if trying to brainwash him with laser vision. “A security zealet like you won't want this headline spread all over the news. All I'm asking for is a few thousand dollars to keep my mouth shut.”
Her words sounded shaky. He suspected her brother usually did the arm twisting with her… well, with her fucking her way to fortune.
From the corner of his eye, Daniel could see two detectives in regular clothing talking with the guard. They would hopefully follow her and arrest both her and her brother.
Daniel leaned in—ignoring her insane expression—and closed the distance between them so he’d be menacing right in her face. “How about this? I give you and your brother exactly one hour to run before I report your whereabouts to the police in Nebraska.” Each word was said as though they were backed with a sledgehammer. “I'm sure they’ll want to talk to you. Hell, there may even be a reward for tipping them off.”
Her face reddened, and he knew he had bested her.
He gestured to catch the attention of the security guard. “I don't ever want to see you or your brother again.”
“Yes, sir?” the guard said.
“This woman needs to be escorted from the building. See to it that she doesn’t return.”
He left Brandelynn where she stood and walked to the elevator, the guard’s ‘yes sir’ trailing off into the background. The guard would escort her out and Brandelynn would believe he was done with her. Then, the detectives would follow her. She was now their problem.
Even if she didn’t lead them to her brother, Daniel suspected that she’d talk and rat out him out, or that she’d do the jail time again and let him get off scott free. Either way, they were out of his life for good.
A sense of accomplishment engulfed him, and he felt proud to have defeated the con artists, but the feeling was fleeting. He still didn’t know where Deborah was.
Continuing on to his office, he noticed two women standing next to the elevator and pointing at an announcement on the bulletin board. As he walked past, he glanced at the paper. Seeing his picture had him stopping mid–step and backing up.
The women whispered and made room for him when he got closer. His breath hitched when he saw his name in bold print and highlighted. He was the number one bachelor in all of Chicago. He scanned the article and noticed a coppery taste as he clenched his jaw and bit his lower lip.
His life was all about providing security to companies, and he felt the heat of his cheeks as he saw that not only his full name, age, and occupation were listed in the article, so was his home address and salary.
You've got to be kidding me.
“Cute and rich,” one of the women whispered.
“Hush. You're already married,” whispered the other one.
Daniel ripped the sheet off the board and crumpled it, balling it into his fist. He had always felt safe in his own company, but now there was a target on his back, an opening for every crazed woman out there to attack him. The elevator doors opened, so he got in and hit the top floor's button.
He understood that his personal information was within the public domain of the Internet. People just had to look it up. But to have it plastered like wallpaper in his office building? It was too much.
He told himself that the publicity was only a nuisance to start his day, one that he didn't have time for. All he wanted to do was spend the day with Deborah, and now he was caught up in all of this shit.
He exited on his floor and tossed the crumpled piece of paper into the closest trash can.
Entering his office, he discovered the lights off. They were never off. It meant that he was the first to arrive.
Goddamit.
He took a deep breath and slowly cursed at how dreadful this day had already become.
He turned on the lights and scanned the room, taking note of how lonely the room felt. No coffee had been made, no warm greeting waited, no mail was stacked on his desk… The room felt cold and uninviting. His assistant, Ms. Ortiz, must be running late. Either that or she was goofing off.
Judging by the paperwork piled up on her desk, he figured the reason was probably both.
He leafed through the paperwork thrown haphazardly on his desk, placing it into two neat piles—one to look through later and one marked “Urgent.”
God, some of this stuff he should have taken care of before he’d left for the conference.
He walked around the desk and gathered more of the mail, his foot brushing up against papers that had fallen to the floor.
In the mix lay next year's scholarship paperwork for Josh.
&
nbsp; Another heavy weight fell upon his shoulders and he felt his muscles tighten. Daniel hadn't signed the renewal yet, and it needed to go out right away.
Staring at the envelope, he thought of the young man. His dark hair, green eyes, and height should have been a dead giveaway that the boy was an Ellington. Not just any Ellington either, the boy was his half-brother.
Shit.
He tasted bitterness in his throat. His father had touched Deborah. He had… been with her. Felt the softness of her skin, the deliciousness of her lips, and the dampness of her folds.
Worse yet, the damn married man had thrown Deborah aside with a baby, all while stabbing his mother in the back.
Daniel would never have wanted his mother to be hurt by such an affair. How could his father have been so cruel to both of them?
Josh hadn’t grown up privileged. He’d lived paycheck–to–paycheck and had a mother who sacrificed everything for him. He was a good kid and deserved better. How could his father deny the boy all these years?
The fact that Daniel had slept with his half–brother's mother played heavily on his mind. Some amount of incest existed in that reality, one that Daniel didn't want to think about since he… He swallowed the lump in his throat and a pain deep in his gut boomed. He loved Deborah.
Touching the back of her empty chair, his fingers felt the smoothness of the leather. This was her spot in his life, and he had only now really seen her.
All this time, she had kept a huge secret from him. He should be upset, but all he could think about was how she must have sacrificed time and money to raise the boy on her own.
Shaking his head, he entered his office and tossed the scholarship paperwork on his desk. He then turned on the lights. The window shades remained drawn, so he gave a halfhearted attempt to search for the remote to open them. He couldn't find the damn thing.
Checking the clock on the far wall, he was fifteen minutes late to his meeting, and yet Scott was nowhere to be found either. Of course, no assistant sat in the outer office to welcome him, give him a cup of coffee, and ask him to take a seat while he waited.
Hearing footsteps in the hallway, he walked back into the assistant area and peeked out the open door to see Ms. Ortiz marching toward him. She held a Starbucks cup in one hand and her phone in the other.
She entered the office and stared at him. Her eyes grew wide, and a smile spread across her lips as she put her phone away. Her expression wasn't one of shame at being caught arriving late to the job, and she didn't apologize either. Oh, no. The look she gave him differed from her usual 'my boss is handsome.' Today's look was more of a 'my boss is worth billions, and I must have him.'
She knew about the list.
Fuck. Everybody knew about the damn list.
Did all women monitor the Top 10 list searching for their prey? Didn't they have more pressing issues like their careers or education or family to attend to?
She set her coffee down and then swung her purse off her shoulder. It landed on one stack of paper on her desk with a thud, scattering the pile. When she took off her coat, she wasn't shy about parading her cleavage in front of him.
He felt like a small animal caught in a cave with a tigress. But this cave belonged to him, and he wasn't about to be hunted on his own territory.
“You're late,” Daniel said in a voice that shook the room. He removed his coat and walked into his office. Placing the garment on the rack and his work satchel on his desk, he turned and looked at her. “I have a meeting…now with the company lawyer. I don't see him, so he may be in the guest office.”
“Looks like his office light is finally on,” came a familiar voice from the hallway.
After knowing the man for years, he recognized Scott's booming voice from a mile away. He’d come to discuss the legal issues within the new merger; the merger Deborah had helped him with last night before joining him in his bedroom.
They never did get a chance to finish the document or dinner or any other merger details. His lips curled into a smile as he remembered some of the details of why.
Another voice came from the hallway. It too sounded familiar. It was the one man Daniel wasn't ready to confront just yet, and he wasn't pleased when his father moved his wheelchair into the office.
“Son! It's good to see you.” Vincent Ellington opened his arms wide to hug him, but Daniel forced himself to give just a cold, half-hearted side-hug.
“Scott was just filling me in on a few things.”
Daniel stared at his father. Deborah had worked for him for a brief period before rejoining the secretarial pool, making her available to become Daniel's assistant. With his mother now deceased, he wondered if his father's marriage had been as happy as Daniel always assumed it to be. Perhaps there was more going on than he’d ever noticed.
God, what if Deborah wasn’t the only woman.
Ms. Ortiz hovered around her desk—Deborah's desk—and looked out of place like a cat showing up at a premier dog show. She stared at Vincent Ellington, which made Daniel wonder if the Top 10 Bachelor complete article about him had mentioned that his father was also wealthy.
Ms. Ortiz eyed Vincent as though she didn’t mind winning silver, especially with an older man. Daniel couldn't let his lecherous father to be a victim of a shallow bitch like her.
Daniel picked up the phone and pressed the red button. “Ms. Ortiz was just leaving. Escort her from the building.” He turned to face her and, in his most commanding Donald Trump voice, he said, “You're fired.”
“What?” Ms. Ortiz spilled her coffee walking over to him. “I was just a few minutes late.”
As she rattled off why he was too hasty, he opened the door to his office and told Scott and his father to make themselves comfortable. Daniel waited just long enough for security to come and collect the temp before joining the men in his office.
“Your new assistant was terrible,” Scott said.
“Tell me something I don't know,” Daniel said.
“What's going on with Deborah?” Scott moved a chair out of the way so Vincent could slide in closer to the desk.
“I filled your father in on the ruse while we were waiting for you, especially since he saw a posted article in the lobby about you making that dreaded list.”
Daniel stared at his father and his jaw tightened. The man had said he wanted to talk about Deborah. He took the merger document out from his work satchel and gripped it firmly.
“Deborah is doing well.” He took a seat at his desk and rubbed his fingers across the paperwork. In his coldest tone he could muster, he said, “The contract has ended, as well as her employment.”
“What?” Vincent asked. “Please tell me you didn't fire her because she couldn't keep you off that list.”
“I didn’t fire her. She quit.”
Had the announcement that she was leaving upset his father? Whatever they might have had between them had ended a long time ago.
“Did she say why she quit?” Scott asked.
Scott’s voice held concern. He may be one of his best friends, but this was an employee matter. He wasn't about to discuss Deborah’s decision in front of Scott, at least not until her employee dissolution paperwork from the company was drafted. He felt a pain in the pit of his stomach at the thought of her no longer working for the company.
Working for him.
“She is leaving for personal reasons,” he managed to choke out.
“Is she upset?” Scott asked.
Both men had a concerned expression on their faces, their worry for Deborah evident.
Daniel picked up a pen from his desk and fiddled with it, trying to recapture a business atmosphere. “She might be upset.”
“She can't sue the company, right?” Vincent glared at Scott.
“No, sir. The contract's fine print made sure of that.”
Daniel's gaze ping–ponged between the two, and he felt as if they shared a secret. He hated secrets. “What are you two talking about?”
A blank
stare crossed Vincent’s face. It was a look Daniel had never seen on the man before. “Deborah, although she's never been a problem for this company and certainly an asset to you, has been a ticking time bomb just ready to explode.”
“I found an opportunity to defuse the bomb, and I took it,” Scott said. “She won't be an issue for this company.”
27
A time bomb?
Daniel understood how shrewd the lawyer could be, which was why Daniel kept Scott on the Ellington–Weston payroll.
If Deborah were a ticking time bomb, it meant that Scott knew about the affair. His friend knew and hadn’t mentioned a word to him.
Damn secrets!
“What fine print?” Daniel’s fingers gripped the pen tightly, causing his knuckles to turn white.
Hearing Daniel’s rage-filled voice caused Scott to sit straighter in his office chair. “The fake engagement contract made it quite clear that she could not hold this company liable for anything past or present in regards to any sexual harassment or consequences thereof,” Scott explained.
Daniel caught Scott's gaze and he read between the lines. “Deborah's son is a rather big life changing consequence. You don't have to be so cavalier about protecting this company and screwing her over.”
Silence filled the room to the point of it being deafening.
“Deborah told me everything about the affair.” Daniel glared at his father.
Scott put on his best professional face and straightened his tie. “I'm here to do a job,” he said in a matter–of–fact tone. “The gist is that she can't sue the company because of what happened in the past. She signed her rights away.”
When Daniel glared at him, Scott added, “I even circled that section of the agreement and pointed it out to her before she signed it. Remember?”
Daniel narrowed his eyes at Scott, wishing he could read the man’s mind. No wonder people hated lawyers so much. And why large corporations paid for the best to protect them. He wanted to lash out, but Scott wasn't the problem.
No. The problem would be his lecherous father.
No longer able to look at his father, Daniel stared at the closed window. Had his mother learned of the affair? If so, the betrayal must have cut her deeply. Perhaps she’d died never knowing. Would that be better or worse?
Bachelor Heart Page 18