Page 5 of The Attraction File

THREE

Edgar

Ashton Graham was missing.

No one had seen him for two weeks.

My security engineer, the man in charge of the cyber security of Mimir, was nowhere to be found. I was his boss, the head of the IT department at Mimir, and it worried me that he hadn’t shown up to work in weeks.

Maybe he had gone on vacation and I wasn’t aware of it?

It was after hours so the floor was vacant. I maneuvered around the dark wood cubicles and into my office. A glow came from my desk. My laptop was open as I slipped into my dark leather chair. I searched for Ashton’s name on the employee vacation calendar for the IT department on the Mimir company site—he wasn’t listed.

I was hoping he would be on the calendar. Something about that didn’t feel right, and I had learned to trust my gut since I was a kid. My instincts helped me avoid many potential problems both in my life and for Mimir, my brother’s company.

Did he quit? Not come back because he was unhappy here?

I mentally went through Ashton’s two years with Mimir. He seemed content, and I always received good reports about him from his coworkers. Early on he made a few mistakes and didn’t catch some script issues, but that was to be expected from a new hire. For the past year and a half, he had been a model employee.

Somehow, knowing he liked it here made this even worse. Something was wrong and I feared what it might be.

Worse still, I would have to talk about this to the one person I had been avoiding for five years—Evaleen Bechmann.

Grabbing a pen and a blue sticky pad, I wrote a note to the head of human resources. Taking a deep breath, I pushed away my hesitation and wrote that I needed to discuss this with her first thing in the morning. Picking up the small square note, I made my way to the elevator and up to the twenty-eighth floor.

The only good thing about any of this was I knew Evaleen wasn’t in the building. She never stayed later than six in the evening and since it was now eight thirty, I was in no danger of running into her.

It’s not that I didn’t like Evaleen. I liked her. I really liked her. Perhaps I liked her because she never pretended to be something she wasn’t around me. Maybe I had some subconscious desire to want women who didn’t like me. All I knew was when she first met me and her hands touched my chest, I felt a shiver run through my body that made me want to do anything to feel her touch again.

Of course, I had done the opposite. I avoided her and went after every woman but her.

Sometimes I thought my brain and heart liked to play sick games with me.

Despite all my flirting with women, I got the feeling Evaleen was the only one who could see through it for what it really was. And what was it?

I wish I knew what Evaleen saw in me.

Evaleen wasn’t the only one who didn’t find my flirting amusing. My brother, Jacob, didn’t like it at all. But it’s not like I had any chance of being perfect like him.

He created a billion-dollar Internet retail business by the time he was in his late twenties. He married a beautiful, kind woman and had two sweet daughters. Who wouldn’t want his life?

What had I done?

My brother gave me a job because it’s his company. Women go home with me because I had money and looks, both of which I never worked to achieve but were handed to me. I couldn’t even help my mother when she needed me the most; that award goes to my brother. He swept in to take care of her while I struggled to graduate high school.

Now, I’m a thirty-four-year-old man with a job bestowed on me from nepotism and only good for a one-night stand where women are concerned. And the one woman I really wanted acted as if I was a three-day-old rotting corpse and avoided me every chance she got.

Stepping off the elevator, I hesitated.

I knew Evaleen wasn’t in her office and yet, my heart pounded in my chest with just the thought of going there. Instead of turning left toward the HR department, I made a right to my best friend, Henrik Payne’s, office. Perhaps a night of drinks with him and finding a lady to take home would help me keep my mind off the things I could never have.

Henrik was usually up for keeping me company. Well, sometimes he was. Hopefully, tonight was one of those nights.

Henrik was head of Sales and Marketing and had recently lost his assistant. It’s not unusual for him to go through secretaries like he does pieces of gum due to his strict stance on work and people. But Morgana Drake was different. She seemed to understand Henrik. Mostly, she put up with his crap.

Something about her brought back the old Henrik I knew when we first met in college. The guy that loved to laugh and made a joke any chance he could.

I noticed his office door was ajar and light filtered out.

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