Chapter 15: Daddy’s Dirty Little Secret: Chapter 15

The call rang through to voicemail at least four times, and I had all but given up trying to reach Mr. John Smith—the man I’d met for dinner that turned out to be a very awkward glass of wine shared over a tense table. After several days of client calls and meetings where I’d been shot down every time, I was following up on a few prospective clients I hadn’t gotten confirmation out of yet.

The phone lay on my desk facing up, screen alight with Mr. Smith’s number scrolling across it as it rang through. I wasn’t holding my breath. I knew when he gave me his name, it was most likely an alias, and I didn’t expect much from it. And after the strange way I saw him sneaking a look at my phone over the table, I didn’t know if we would even make a good fit. What I did know was that direct sales through our website for our project management software were our golden ticket item right now, and the days of handling clients’ individual builds seemed to be fading. I hated it.

“Hello?” I heard, but it wasn’t the voice of a man. From the sounds of it, it was an older woman.

“Hello, yes, my name is Xander Blackwell, calling from Next Gen Solutions. I’m calling to speak with Mr. John Smith. Is he available?” I paused long enough to click the phone over to normal mode and picked it up. When I pressed it to my ear she was already speaking.

“… Mr. Blackwell, but I’m not sure I know a John Smith. My name is Harriett Gershom. I live here alone.” The shake in her voice betrayed her age, probably some eighty-something widow whose husband had passed on years ago, and now she lived alone hoping her kids would come to visit.

“My apologies, Ms. Gershom, I was given this number by mistake.” My tone remained pleasant, but my inner calm was rankled. I scowled at nothing in particular and let my shoulders drop.

I’d had four rejections already this morning, and though I somewhat expected this, it felt like another blow to the gut.

John Smith had been a long shot anyway. The last follow-up call I had was to Gerard Millet, who may or may not have signed with one of my competitors by now. He was leaning that way anyway, and I didn’t have any wiggle room in the budget to undercut any of them. Laurence kept our profits tight in order to pay our team what they deserved. It was more than enough cushion for me, considering I had a cushy salary, but at times like this it punched me in the gut.

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Blackwell. I do hope you find the person you’re looking for.” Harriett sounded like a sweet old lady, but she wasn’t the sort to be in the market for a website or app build.

“Good day, Ms. Gershom,” I told her before hanging up.

This crappy situation had started to wear me down mentally, on top of several other large stressors I’d been carrying around. Dad insisted I meet his latest fling, and dinner hadn’t gone well with them. Turned out Candy was years younger than I even thought and probably believed Dad was oozing money based on his designer suits and flashy car with driver. A gold digger if I ever met one, but try to tell my father that.

Still, I wasn’t a quitter. And I wasn’t going to let these rejections get me down. Worst-case scenario, I would have to go to Laurence and have him coach me on how he roped clients in hordes. If that didn’t work, the entire focus of our business would have to change, which wasn’t something I looked forward to telling our team.

With renewed determination, I dialed Gerard Millet’s number and held the phone to my ear. The last time we talked, he had mentioned ProForge or Tacticon and their lower prices. I prayed at the time that Next Gen’s quality would shine over both of my lesser-known competitors, but Gerard hadn’t confirmed with me.

The phone rang through to his secretary, whose chipper voice annoyed me. “Millet and Sons, how may I direct your call?”

“Yes, Gerard please. Tell him Xander Blackwell is calling from Next Gen.” I sat straighter, leaned over my desk rubbing my forehead with my thumb and forefinger. Gerard took his good time getting to me, and when he answered he sounded rushed.

“Yes, Blackwell, how’s it going?” There were voices in the background, this call taken on the fly. He wasn’t expecting me, clearly.

“Mr. Millet, I’m doing fine. How are you today?” The tension in my body wouldn’t let me relax. I was starting to get a complex, feeling like a total failure at this job with as many contracts as I had lost in the past nine months.

“I’m doing alright, Xander. What can I do for you?” He was playing coy, nonchalant like he didn’t know what I wanted, when he knew darn well I needed him to commit to me.

“I’m calling to follow up with you after our meeting a few weeks ago. Did you decide on a final design for the app build?” I knew one of the tricks was to direct them toward a decision about the project, not to ask them directly if they were choosing to go with my company. It didn’t work though. He sighed hard, and I felt like I was the one annoying him now.

“Listen, Xander, I tried. I have the board breathing down my neck and investors chirping about every red cent. ProForge offered us almost a 40 percent discount over what you were able to give. I had to go with them. You understand, it’s just business.”

“Just business,” I repeated, careful not to take a tone with him. “I do hope your build goes well and that your app is successful. If you need a good UX team to demo their work, I’m your man.” My heart sank like the Titanic.

“Sure thing. Thanks for understanding.” He hung up before I did. I sat back in my seat and let the phone drop to my lap. Another call, another deathblow to my confidence. What was I doing wrong to let so many clients slip through my fingers? Laurence had no problems getting people to pay a bit more money for the professionalism and higher quality service we provided.

I was too on edge, too frustrated to sit here and think about work stuff anymore. If Amelia hadn’t already gone home for the day, I’d have had her bent over my desk with her butt in the air, but she mentioned taking her dad some dinner, and I didn’t want to intrude on a father-daughter moment. I knew how he’d been struggling, how concerned she’d been. I didn’t, however, want to sit here a second longer and stew over things. It would only make me more tense and my need for release grow.

I grabbed my wallet and house key, put on my suit jacket, stuffed my things in my pocket, and then started toward the elevators. I made a habit every day of passing by offices with doors open and shutting them. I heard once that it lessened the risk of fire spreading through a building quickly, and ever since then, it had been my normal thing.

When I saw Godwin’s office door cracked, I scowled at it and walked over there, reaching for the handle. Everything about the man irritated me and reminded me of how cozy he and Amelia got while working, like a bug crawled under my skin and into my ear whispering invasive thoughts meant to anger me. The intrusive thoughts didn’t help my focus at work or the way I felt about myself after my long day. And when I peeked through the door to make sure his lights were off, I saw a screensaver playing through a photo collage.

Most of the pictures that flashed on the screen were images of him and people I assumed were friends or relatives, but when one came on the screen of him and Amelia I froze. I shouldn’t have been there staring at his computer screen, shouldn’t have cared that he had a picture of her. They were friends, anyone could see it. But I couldn’t unsee it.

The image of her leaning in, smiling at him, pressing her hand on his arm over lunch was seared into my conscience. And the way I took her against that window, as if announcing to the whole world that she was mine had been my retaliation. Except, no one saw it. No one could. And I couldn’t stake a claim and tell the world anyway. What we had was no strings attached; our original agreement made sure of that.

Now grumbling, I slammed his door, pushed the button for the elevator a little too hard, and rode down to the parking garage below the building. I never thought I had an anger problem in my life, but the more frustrated I got with the work situation, the more I realized how capable I was of wanting to hurt people or scream like a lunatic. It wasn’t healthy at all, though it had only gotten this bad when I started sleeping with Amelia. Never pegged myself for the jealous type either, but here I was.

The parking garage was quiet, not very many cars left. I passed by a few sedans on my way toward where David parked normally. He had his hat down over his eyes, likely dozing lightly while he waited. But something else caught my eye across the garage.

Amelia’s car sat there, not running, lights off. She told me she was going to have dinner with her father, so I didn’t understand why her car was still here. I stopped for a second, wondering if I should be nosy and snoop around or just go home and blow it off. A million things could’ve happened. She could’ve gotten a flat tire, a dead battery. Laurence could’ve picked her up or maybe she got a ride home with—Godwin.

The thought made a new surge of anger flood me, propelling me—against my better judgment—toward the car. Every step that took me closer made my blood boil hotter. I fully expected to see her car empty, and a million accusations flew through my mind. I specifically asked her not to sleep with other men if we were going to keep doing this and while her car being here might’ve meant she got a ride home, it didn’t immediately mean she was disregarding my request. But tell that to my irrational thoughts and the defense mechanism I’d had since Mom walked out on Dad.

The way I stomped up to the car, I was shocked Amelia didn’t throw her door open and run away. I probably looked like a rabid dog about to attack. But when I strolled up and saw her head down, realized she hadn’t seen me approaching, and that she was, in fact, in the car, something inside me softened instantly. She was crying, hands cupping her face.

Any thought of anger vanished as I tapped on the glass. My insides felt like lead, my heart a stone. I was a fool for letting my insecurities run away with my thoughts, but if Godwin Tharmor was the reason she was crying, I was going to have a word with him. A very loud word.

Instead of rolling down her window, Amelia opened the door. She sat there swiping at her eyes, forcing a smile to her face as she turned and set her feet on the ground. Her heels were off, stockinged feet seeming smaller than I remembered. Her entire frame seemed smaller now, like she was shrinking in on herself.

“Hey,” she chirped in a less-than-happy tone.

“Amelia, are you okay?”

“Oh, I’m fine.” She waved her hand in a dismissive gesture, but more tears sprang to her eyes. I wanted with everything in me to pull her into my arms. I knew it was what Laurence would do, but Amelia and I didn’t have that sort of relationship really. I wanted to, but we didn’t.

“You’re not fine. You’re crying. What’s wrong?” I wished I had a handkerchief to give her. My father would’ve had one. Any grown man worth his weight in marbles would’ve had some way of helping her. But I stood there with clenched fists and a scowl I was unable to shake.

Her shoulders drooped and her head dropped. “I had an argument … I’m fine. Really.”

She said she was fine, but her body language screamed that she wasn’t. Nothing about this seemed fine—not her tears, not her posture, not my inability to even function. This was why I was incapable of having a real relationship. When things like this happened, I stood staring, gawking the way my father did at me when I was a child and I skinned my knee.

The only thing I knew to do was the thing that I knew helped me. When she was stressed out, she sent me a text—albeit fewer times than I had texted her for a hookup, but she had. However, it felt cold, callous even, to offer her a quickie for stress relief in the face of so much deep emotion.

Amelia wiped tears off her face again and looked up at me. “I uh …”

“Came here to M-4-S?” I said carefully, unsure if that was what she wanted. She had been somewhere and argued, or maybe she argued here. Either way she was missing dinner with her father, and I hoped Godwin Tharmor was to blame for her mood.

She licked her lips and sighed, then looked thoughtfully up at me. “Yeah, I think so. I think that will help.”

“My place?” I said, feeling a surge of hope shift my entire mood.

“Should I follow?” she asked.

“Ride with me …” I waited, holding out my hand to her. She turned and grabbed her shoes and purse, then locked her car and took my hand. Now we were getting somewhere. And I was going to get her to tell me exactly what Tharmor had done to hurt her, and then I was going to make sure he never did that again.