Page 7 of The CEO's Revenge

There was silence as we all read her paper. I looked up, impressed. “Sounds like a plan. Thanks, Stacey.”

“I’ll put some work into the draft email tonight as well”

She sat back, pleased. “Awesome!”

The meeting wrapped up shortly after and I traveled back home.

Twenty minutes later I pulled into my apartment complex. In my freshly painted apartment, I popped the freezer meal I’d taken out that morning into the oven and headed to the shower. While it baked, I worked on the draft email for the fundraiser. The television droned in the background as the evening news was read. I was barely listening, the news was all bad or depressing, and I was half ready to switch to a music channel when my ears perked up. My eyes widened and my head spun around towards the television screen. I was greeted with a pair of piercing blue eyes I could never forget.

I felt my heart speed up and my hands grow clammy.

“Max Blackstone, the Tech software genius and one half of Stein-Bart Innovative Software, was today released after serving four years for embezzlement. More in this report.”

I sat with my mouth wide open as they showed four-year-old clippings of Max entering and leaving court during his trial. The memories I had been staving off all weekend now came crashing in on me and I felt like a shipwrecked sailor being tossed on a stormy sea.

The last time I had seen Max in person had been just before that fateful missed dinner date on my birthday. The next time I saw him was on the screen of my television. I couldn’t help it. I was like an animal that had been starved of food for weeks. I stared at his image hungrily, devouring every little detail. Noting that his eyes were still the same brilliant blue and his gorgeous black hair was just as thick and sexy as it always was, but there were tiny lines around his eyes that had not been there before. His mouth, which used to break into a ready smile at the least provocation, was pressed into a thin, hard line. I watched entranced as the cameras followed him from the gates of the penitentiary to a waiting car. The film cut back to the reporter.

“Blackstone has always professed innocence even in the midst of his trial and has served only four years of a ten-year sentence. And in other news?”

I rushed to turn off the television. There were goose pimples on the back of my arms. I stared at a blank wall in shock. My whole world felt as if it had turned upside down.

Max was out of prison!

Fuck!

Max was out of prison!

I blinked. What was the matter with me? What did it matter if he was out or not? It had nothing to do with me. He was nothing to me. Nothing. I forced myself to think of the photo I kept in my bureau. The one of him and that other woman. That was my reminder that I needed to have nothing to do with Max… nor any man for that matter. That was my reminder that men were cheats and liars who couldn’t be trusted. Ever. I allowed the anger to come. It was the perfect foil and diffused any other emotion that threatened to overtake me. It had kept me focused all these years and I would not let it go now.

Max was out of prison. Good for him.

I went to the kitchen and pulled out my meal. I sat it in front of me and forked it into my mouth. The delicious macaroni and cheese that I had been looking forward to now tasted like cardboard and sat in the pit of my stomach like a solid brick. I washed the taste out of my mouth with a glass of wine. The wine tasted foul.

I drank another glass and started to feel better.

Work. Work was always the answer.

It was nearly nine o’clock. I worked like a demon on the email. Tomorrow I’d take another look before printing it for submission. Before going to bed I checked my emails. Stacey had sent the full list. The list I had only glanced at.

I scanned the thirty-odd names curiously. Then, for the second time that night, I felt as though I had been dealt a blow. There, staring up at me, just above Robert Steinberg, was the email and contact number for Max Blackstone. I stifled a scream. What were the odds that he would end up on my list?

What kind of sick game was the universe playing with me?

I moved my eyes up and back to Robert Steinberg. Robert and I had sort of kept in touch over the years and spoke sometimes.

I sensed he was interested in much more than a casual friendship, but I had never felt that way about him. He was always meant to be in the friend zone. In fact, I met Robert first, but it was Max who stole my heart. Robert, being the gentleman he was, had been gracious enough to step aside.

But I always knew he wanted more.

So both Robert and Max were on the list. I swallowed hard at the prospect of interacting with Max in any way, but I pushed the nervousness aside and remembered the anger.

I had to stay angry.

Ignoring the slight tremble to my finger, I typed Max’s email address on my draft email. Taking a deep breath, I then, copy pasted all the other names on the list into the sender’s box.

As the cursor hovered over the ‘send’ button, I half considered deleting Max’s address, but then I stopped myself. He was nothing to me. If the children could benefit from him, why not. Anyway, he would probably be in no position to fund anything but himself, so there was almost no reason to believe he would respond.

Before I could give it any more thought, I clicked ‘send’.

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