Page 71 of My Forbidden Boss

Andrea speaks, “While you were gone, the employment agency rang to ask how our latest hire is working out. Imagine my surprise when they told me they never heard of an ‘Adeline Rayner’. The woman we hired from them is a woman by the name of Sandra Donato. She’s a fifty-year-old mother of three teen boys who lives in the Bronx, and comes highly accredited in Excel by the way.”

She sniffs and turns to David, taking her knife-blade eyes off me. “I’m sorry this has come as a shock to you on your return, Mr Chandler, but the hotel said you were unreachable and you weren’t answering your phone. I didn’t know what else to do, so I did some research about her. She has no social media pages or postal address. I went into her company email to gather as much information as I could, where I saw messages from our CFO regarding the Moss Creek tender forwarded to Max Bourke, at the Keystone Group. It seems Adeline has been stealing company information and giving it our competition. I’m unsure what you want to do with her now. I’ll be happy to carry out your decision.”

Her brows flick as she turns her hot gaze on me, triumph moulding with her victory. She’s back-bone soldier rigid, ready to do her boss’ orders. Salivating to dig her teeth into me as deep as she can.

There’s nothing to say. Nothing to refute, because Andrea is right. All I can do is stand my ground and accept the fallout that will change my world forever.

Chapter 26

David

The moments pass, stretch into eternity and fill with emptiness. My chest protests the lack of oxygen, expanding on automatic and dragging in air, but there’s not enough. My lungs are a vacuous space that flows to all parts of my body. The only muscle that moves in my body is my pounding heart because it has to, and is the only way I’ll be able to move again. Breathe again. Think again, as if Adeline says something.

Anything.

I stand in this timeless moment and wait.

I need her to refute Andrea’s claim. Tell me what she’s said is utter nonsense because how can my beautiful Adeline be any of those things? Do any of those things?

But she stares at me with those big blue eyes that are the key to my heart, her full lips pressed together, her body locked frozen and she doesn’t say a damn word.

“Adeline?” My voice is a stranger, hoarse and filled with disbelief. With agonizing hurt. I wish I didn’t hear it, but I do.

Her eyes fill and a tear slips free, sliding down her smooth cheek, but she makes no move to brush it away. She looks at me with too much pain. Too much experience.

Too much fucking guilt.

“Adeline.” My voice is as hard as the blade slicing through my chest cavity. “Tell me…tell me it’s not true.”

Her mouth parts. The same mouth that kissed me. The same mouth that wrapped around my cock only hours ago. The same mouth that made me soar past the clouds to heaven and she whispers, “I’m sorry, David.”

The ground drops away under my feet and I’m sucked into a black hole. I tumble head over heels, caught in a place where nothing makes sense. Nevertheless, I need to hear it again, in case I don’t fully understand. “Andrea is right?”

She swallows, her lips pressing together. I think for a moment she’ll shake her head in that shy way she does; that her brows will pinch and she’ll say she doesn’t understand what Andrea is talking about.

She straightens her shoulders. Notches her chin. Readies herself. “Yes, Andrea is correct.”

I don’t comprehend how I’m standing because the world tilts upside down.

“I can assure you, Mr Chandler, I have done my due diligence. Everything I have said is correct. Especially with something of this magnitude,” Andrea says.

I blink at my first PA, aware I’d forgotten her even though she’s standing at my side. She places a bland smile on her red painted lips, as though she hasn’t torn my world apart.

“Thank you, Andrea. Some privacy, if you would,” I say.

Andrea jolts, as though I’ve hit her with a live-wire. She recovers quickly. Always the consummate professional. “Yes. Of course, Mr Chandler.”

She scurries away and thank God the area outside my office is otherwise empty, giving me the privacy I need. The door to my office is locked, but I don’t have it in me to take Adeline in there. I would have to unlock the door, open it, step into my space. There isn’t room for this in there. I don’t want to draw this out more than it already has.

“You’re the leak.” The words are foreign on my tongue. I shouldn’t be accusing Adeline of anything. I should only provide words of comfort to her. Say words that fall willingly from my mouth. Yet still I wait for Adeline to tell me I’m wrong.

She blinks. Her face shutters as she closes herself off and in a second her blank mask has fallen into place. “I take full responsibility.”

No, she can’t…this is wrong…she isn’t guilty…she can’t be. All the reasons this isn’t happening scatter on the inside of my skull.

“Why?” I tilt on the edge of a cliff, my toes over the edge. “You want to get ahead that badly?”

Her eyes tighten before she steels herself. “It isn’t like that.”

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