by Hannah Ford
His Belt
Part Nine
Hannah Ford
Contents
His Belt
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Copyright © 2019 by Hannah Ford
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
His Belt
(Part Nine)
Chapter 1
ABIGAIL
“What are you so focused on?” I ask the next morning, sliding into the booth across from Hailey at Two Broken Eggs, our favorite place to get breakfast. It’s a cozy diner right near our office that’s famous for its omelets and frittatas. Hailey and I usually opt for something sweeter, though, like blueberry pancakes or banana walnut French toast topped with whipped cream, an enormous order of their hand-cut home fries on the side.
It’s the kind of food that is definitely a guilty pleasure, which is why we only come here when one of us is having some kind of crisis.
Like Hailey’s break-up with Ryder.
She looks up from her phone now, a determined look on her face. “I’m rebound Tindering.”
“You’re what?” I frown and lean over, taking a sip of the drink that’s already in front of her, some kind of whipped iced coffee concoction that looks more like a dessert than a morning pick-me-up.
“Rebound Tindering. It’s a thing. My cousin told me about it. You set up a profile immediately, and then swipe right on anyone you think is even remotely cute. Then when you match with someone, you set up dates with them right away. No small talk, no asking any questions. Just a meet-up.”
“But if there’s no small talk, then how will you get an array of dick pics?” I joke.
“I’m being serious!” Hailey says. “And don’t worry, they still send dick pics.” She turns her phone so I can see the screen.
“Hailey! We’re in public!”
She shrugs and places her phone back in her bag. “Relax, no one saw. I didn’t know what you wanted, so I waited to order.”
“Thanks.” I pull a sticky menu out from where it’s wedged between a jar of syrup and a bottle of ketchup.
“Even though you get the same thing every time we come here,” Hailey points out.
“Maybe not today.” I mean it, and yet when the waitress comes to our table, I order my usual– blueberry pancakes with whipped cream, home fries, and a side of bacon. The bacon is added out of a slight sense of guilt, because I know I should at least have some protein. And according to the fitness gurus on instagram, bacon isn’t that bad anymore.
“How are you doing?” I ask Hailey, once our orders are in and I’ve sweetened and lightened the cup of coffee the waitress has set in front of me.
Hailey shrugs. “Okay, I guess.”
I study her over the table. Her hair looks clean and freshly straightened, so that’s a good sign. She’s wearing makeup, another good sign. But there are puffy circles under her eyes and there’s a slight rim of red visible under her eyeliner, so I can tell she’s been crying.
“He came and got his stuff last night.” She shakes her head and twirls her straw around in her iced coffee. “It’s so weird. I mean, we had decided we were going to spend our lives together, and now…he’s just gone. Pretty much every trace of him has been removed from my apartment. How is that possible?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know.”
“It’s like…I met his mom, I spent holidays with him in Connecticut, I was there for him when he broke his leg skiing and he had to go to the emergency room and he was clutching my hand and begging me not to let him die, even though the doctors had assured us it was as clean break and he would be fine. He was there for me when I got food poisoning from the sketchy food cart on the corner of our street, you know the one with that man who always gives you a random free piece of bread with your kabob? Ryder held my hair back while I puked and slept on the bathroom floor with me so I wouldn’t have to run to the toilet.” Her voice catches on the last words.
“I’m so sorry, Hails,” I say. “But maybe it just wasn’t meant to be. You’ll look back on this one day with your new husband and your kids and you’ll be like, I’m so glad that happened.”
“I’m not so sure,” she says. “Like, what if there’s nothing that’s really meant to be? What if there’s just a randomness to the universe and I just happen to end up alone forever?”
“Impossible.”
“It’s not impossible, Abby. It happens all the time.”
“Not to you. You’re too amazing.”
“And I can’t stop thinking about Katie Sims.”
“Who is Katie Sims?”
“She’s this girl who works with Ryder. They’re like, project leads together or something.”
“And you think Ryder is seeing her?”
“No. At least, I don’t think so. She’s married and just had a baby. But I just keep thinking about how Katie Sims, this random woman who barely even knows Ryder still gets to be in his life. She’ll still see him at work every day and text him about things, and me, the one who knows him, I’m just…gone. Erased. Like all of it meant nothing.”
“It didn’t mean nothing, Hails.” I reach out and take her hand, squeezing it softly. “It’s part of your history. And every day that goes by, it’s going to get easier, I promise.”
My phone vibrates on the table in front of me.
Elijah.
Is everything okay?
You mean since the two minutes ago, when you dropped me off? I type back, resisting the urge to add the rolling eyes emoji.
Don’t be smart, Ms. Bennett.
Then don’t be dumb, Mr. Armstrong.
The dots appear on my screen, indicating that he’s typing something, then disappear. I stare at the screen, waiting for his reply, but it stays blank. It took me like an hour of begging and pleading this morning to get him to allow me to meet Hailey for breakfast. After what happened last night at the movie theatre, he wasn’t in a very accommodating mood. Finally, he acquiesced, after I’d promised to answer any text he sent as soon as I got it, and that my new security guard could accommodate me.
“Is that Elijah?” Hailey asks.
“Yes.” I glance up at said security guard now, my eyes moving to where he’s sitting at a booth a few yards away, one that’s up against the plate glass windows so that he can keep an eye on me and the street at the same time.
His name is Chase, and he looks like he’s straight out of central casting.
Close-cropped dark hair, a black suit, broad shoulders and a stocky frame. He sits with an untouched cup of coffee in front of him, his eyes scanning the street outside.
“Who’s that?” Hailey asks, catching me looking.
“No one.”
“Really?” She raises her eyebrows.
“He’s no one.”
“He has a gun.”
I almost choke on my coffee. “How do you know that?” She’s right. He does have a gun. But it’s concealed in the waistband of his pants, and from what I can tell, he hasn’t moved.
“The cut of his suit. It’s designed so that he can carry a weapon. So you want to tell me why you have a guy packing heat following you around?”
“No one says packing heat anymore.”
“Abby.”
“Fine.” I sigh. “Yesterday, when you said you didn’t feel like going to the movie with me, I invited Elijah. And we…someone followed us. They took pictures of us and emailed them to me.”
Sh
e frowns. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, someone took pictures of us, um…”
“Someone took pictures of you, what? Spit it out!”
“Um, having sex.”
“You had sex at the movie theatre?”
“Who had sex at the movie theatre?” Will appears as if from out of nowhere, and he slides into the booth next to me.
I shoot Hailey a look. She shrugs. “Sorry. I forgot to tell you I invited him. You shouldn’t have been talking so loud.”
“Who had sex at the movie theatre?” Will repeats, showing no signs of being embarrassed that he’s an interloper in this conversation.
“Abby and Mr. Armstrong.”
“Really?” Will grins as he slides his messenger bag off his shoulder and sets it down next to him. “Good for you, Bennett.”
“No, not good. Someone followed us and took pictures. So now I have that guy following me.” I indicate Chase, who still hasn’t taken a sip of the coffee that sits in front of me. “At least until we find out who’s been doing all these things.”
The waitress returns, setting down heaping plates of food in front of Hailey and I, and a coffee in front of Will, who tells her not to worry about any food for him, that he’ll just share with us. I move my pancakes a little closer to me.
“Did you call the police?” Hailey asks once the waitress is gone.
“No.”
“You didn’t call the police?” She looks up from pouring syrup over her waffles. Why not?”
“Because, it’s… it’s complicated.” I shake my head. “Anyway, this breakfast isn’t supposed to be about me. This is about you. And your breakup.”
“Fuck my breakup, Abby, this shit sounds serious.”
“Please, Hailey. I have it under control.”
An awkward silence falls over the table, and I can tell she wants to say something else. But I’m done talking about this. It might not be fair, but there are just some things I don’t need to explain if I don’t want to. Especially not after the way she’s been about my relationship with Elijah.
“Doesn’t anyone want to know why I’m all dressed up?” Will asks finally, breaking the silence. I shoot him a grateful glance.
“Why are you so dressed up?” I ask.
“Today’s my court date. For the restraining order against Joy Morgan? I have to present the court with all the ways she was harassing me. Thanks for sending me those emails, by the way, Abs. My lawyer says they’ll be really helpful.”
“No problem.” He doesn’t say anything about the emails being sent from Elijah’s email account, which fills me with a sense of relief. Elijah must have made it look as if I forwarded them myself.
The three of us sit and eat our breakfast, sipping our coffee and talking more about Hailey’s break-up, how Jodi from work got a nose job that we all agree looks fabulous, and how Will swears he saw Kevin Hart buying sneakers at a store on Fifth Avenue.
A whole half an hour goes by without a text from Elijah.
Maybe he’s starting to relax now that I have a security guard watching my every move.
As soon as I have the thought, as if on cue, my phone buzzes.
I don’t like Will sitting so close to you.
I sigh.
Maybe not.
Chapter 2
ELIJAH
The engagement ring sits on my desk in a square black box, and I swear it’s taunting me.
It’s like it’s saying out loud, “I thought you said you’d never get married, Elijah,” and then laughing and giggling in a high-pitched, sing-song voice, the kind that makes you want to slap someone.
After I chose the diamond, Abner Wells left my apartment and shuffled himself back to his office, or his store, or his workshop or wherever it is that he works, and set the diamond I’d chosen in the setting I’d picked.
It was delivered to me a couple of hours ago, by Abner himself, and now it sits here in front of me, apparently causing me to go so insane I’m attributing human characteristics to it. I haven’t even really looked at it yet, except for a quick glance when Abner opened the box for me to inspect.
I think he was surprised that I didn’t want to take a closer look.
But looking at the ring seizes me with a kind of internal panic.
A panic that became even more intense when a writer from Us Weekly called me this morning, asking for comment on a report that I was about to get engaged to one of my employees, a Miss Abigail Bennett.
I directed the writer to my publicist, who was able to kill the story by promising them exclusive first rights to any photos if and when I did become engaged. But there will be more stories, more reporters sniffing around. These things can only be stopped for so long.
And then, of course, was the call that came after that.
There’s a knock on my door, and I grab the ring box and quickly shove it into a drawer.
“Come in.”
Abigail appears in my doorway. “You wanted to see me?”
“Yes. Close the door, please.”
“I get a please?” she says as she shuts the door behind her. “Wow, you must be in a good mood.”
“Don’t mistake every day manners for a good mood, Ms. Bennett. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.” She walks toward my desk and my eyes scan her body. “Jesus Christ, what the hell are you wearing?”
She glances down with confusion. “A dress. They’re like pants only without legs.”
“You left the house in that this morning?” I decide to ignore her smart mouth. At least for now. The dress is short and bright red, cinched in at the waist and landing just above her knee. It hugs her curves in all the right places, and the thought of anyone else seeing her with her body on display like that makes me want to shove my fist through a wall.
“Yes. I mean, I was wearing a jacket over it, but yes.”
“Put the jacket back on.”
“No.”
“No?” I repeat in disbelief.
“It’s all the way downstairs. I’m not going all the way downstairs just so you can feel better about me being covered up.”
I grip the edge of my desk. Let it go, Elijah. I called her up here for a reason, one more important than what she’s wearing. And yet I can’t stop thinking about her down there on her floor, walking around, men ogling her curves.
“Do you know a man named Ralph Palmer?” I ask, forcing my thoughts away from her dress, the expanse of creamy cleavage that peaks over the top of it.
She shakes her head no. “Should I?”
“Your mother’s never mentioned him?”
“No.” She takes a step toward my desk and sits down in the chair that’s in front of it. “Why?”
“He’s been sending money to your mother in jail.”
“Oh. Well, a lot of men send money to my mother in jail, Elijah. She has so many tricks it’s a surprise she’s not independently wealthy.”
“Well. Let me know if she mentions him, please.” I turn back to my desk. “You can go back to work now. Please send me a picture when you get back to your desk of you with your jacket on.”
“Wait, so that’s it?”
“What’s it?”
“You call me up here, ask me if I’ve heard of some random guy who has a connection to my mother, then tell me nothing else except, ‘oh, go back to work, Abigail.’”
“The less you know about this the better.”
“I don’t agree.” She shakes her head, pulls the hair tie that’s around her wrist off of in frustration, ties her long curls up in a ponytail.
“It doesn’t matter if you agree, Ms. Bennett, what matters is –”
“I know, what matters is keeping me safe.” Her eyes flare and she stands up, the bottom of her dress skimming the top of her knees. “I get it. I’m in danger. I’m taking it seriously. I let you have a bodyguard trail me around all morning, even when I was just trying to get a bite to eat with my friends. And now I need to know what you’re talking about.”
“I have work to do, Ms. Bennett.”
“So do I, Mr. Armstrong.” Her eyes flash with anger and annoyance now, and I can tell she’s going to be disobedient. I decide to give her one more chance. One more chance to shut her smart mouth before I unleash the consequences.
“Then I would suggest you get back to your work, Ms. Bennett. Don’t you have a pitch meeting to be preparing for?”
Her eyes blaze again and I turn back to my computer, doing my best to ignore the painful ache in my cock.
She stands there for a moment, staring at me incredulously. I keep my eyes on the computer. It’s true what I said – I have work to do. And once I touch her, I don’t know how long she’ll keep me from it.
And then, before I can stop her, she walks around my desk until she’s standing next to me.
“Ms. Bennett –”
“I want to negotiate, sir.”
I swivel my chair around to look at her, which is a mistake. Because before I can stop her, she drops to her knees, then places her hands on my thighs.
She looks up at me, those blue eyes still filled with sweet innocence, even after all the filthy things I’ve done to her.
“Abigail,” I say warningly.
“If you need to punish me, sir, I understand.”
Her hand moves to the front of my pants, and she presses it lightly against the length of my erection. I force back the groan that threatens to escape from deep in my throat. “Go back to your desk, Abigail,” I growl. “I am warning you.”
Instead, she reaches behind her back, sliding the zipper of her dress down. Dammit to all hell. I thought women always needed help with the zips of their dresses, but apparently not.
She pulls the sleeves down as I watch her, transfixed. A black bra comes into view, the cups so sheer I can see the round circles of her nipples through the fabric.
“Jesus,” I breathe.
She continues to undress, but instead of standing up to do it, she leans back onto the floor and shimmies out of her dress. Underneath she wears a black lace thong and sheer black stockings held up with a matching garter set.
