Page 103 of Isolated
For a long while, I stayed like that, attempting to come to grips with what happened today. I was vaguely aware of Hart returning to Landen’s office briefly to drop off the first-aid kit. He asked Landen if we needed anything, and once Landen let him know that we were okay for now, he insisted Landen let him know if that changed. Then he was gone, closing the door behind him.
When I finally stopped crying, Landen tugged lightly on my hair and urged me to look at him. His eyes were pained. “I’m so sorry, sunshine.”
I closed my eyes in response, a tear spilling down my cheek.
Reaching for my hands, Landen inspected my palms. “How about you tell me exactly what happened while I get your hands cleaned up for you?” He stood, placed me in the chair, and knelt in front of me. “So, your meeting got canceled on you, and you went to Robert’s office?”
I nodded. Then I went on to tell him about what happened in Robert’s office. How Bryan and Howard were already there with him, how I’d barely been given an opportunity to speak or defend myself. How they looked at me with such disgust after showing me the campaignthat had been delivered to Horizon Solutions from our competitor.
Landen had put an ice pack on my knee and immediately dove into tending to the wounds on my hands as I shared everything with him. “And you’re positive you didn’t save any of the work you’d been doing to the company server?”
“Yes. I wasn’t supposed to know about it, so I was sure to only save it to my laptop. I have no idea how it ended up in anyone else’s hands.”
Despite what he might have been feeling inside, Landen was the picture-perfect image of calm and collected. And focused. His eyes were on my hands as he bandaged them up, but his mind was fixated on every word I was saying. “Would anyone else have had access to your laptop without you knowing about it?”
“No. I mean, well, I guess anything is possible. I generally always have it with me. I work a lot from home, so I bring it back with me.”
“Since all of this started, even the stuff with your emails, has anyone been around your laptop while you were at home?”
I shrugged. “Well, my family has come to visit me, so any of them. Walter helped me search for water heaters when mine needed to be replaced. But I was right there with him until…”
“Until what?”
“My sister called, and I walked away from the table to talk to her. But it’s Walter. I don’t think he’d even know what to do to sabotage me. And I can’t imagine he’d ever do something like that, anyway. How would he even gain access to the servers at Mono Mark?”
Landen nodded, tending to the last of the wounds on my hands. “Okay. What about at work? Is your laptop unattended?”
I shook my head. “No. Other than when I use the bathroom or go to lunch, it’s always with me. And I don’t ever leave it at the office, except…”
Landen’s attention shot to my face. “Except what?”
“Well, I’m just now remembering the weekend of my birthday,” I explained.
“What happened then?”
I thought back to that day. It felt like it had happened a lifetime ago. “It was that Friday when Robert told me about my promotion, telling me to consider it a birthday gift. Then he urged me to enjoy my weekend and leave my laptop at work for once.”
Landen arched a brow. “And did you do that?”
Feeling so stupid, I nodded. “I did.”
“Do you still have your laptop?”
“It’s in my car.”
Lifting his hand to the side of my face, he brushed his thumb over the streaks of tears that had been left behind. “You’re going to wait here while I go out to get it. Then I’m going to figure out who did this and how. And when I’m finished, we’re going to march back into that building and clear your name.”
Landen so often talked about how confident I was, but as he spoke to me now, as he stared into my eyes and explained what would happen next, I couldn’t miss the conviction in his words, the promise in his tone. I didn’t doubt he’d do precisely what he set out to do. “Thank you.”
His features softened, and he moved to stand. Landenleaned down, kissed my cheek, and said, “I’m going to fix this for you, sunshine. Whatever happened, whoever did it, I’m going to figure it out. You’re not going to shed another tear over this.”
“I might start crying for other reasons,” I warned him. The way he cared for me just blew me away.
His lips twitched just before he touched them lightly to mine. “Sit tight. Keep that ice on your knee. I’ll be right back.”
A moment later, he was out the door. And while he was gone, all I could do was sit with the disbelief that this had happened and that it was likely my own boss who’d done this to me. The only question remained… Why?
Four days later
