Ella’s stomach knotted. No. He couldn’t see her here. He couldn’t find out the truth this way. She should have just told him. Why hadn’t she told him?
His ice blue eyes were cold and calculating. They trailed from person to person, widening just enough when they landed on her.
The worst sort of glower passed from him. How could looks speak so much? Where once affection had lingered, now his regard held pain and unreserved disappointment.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Mortification came swiftly. Ella’s entire frame dulled. She’d never answered his question about her job, but now he knew. She should have been straightforward with him from the beginning, but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to do it.
Hawk’s glower harnessed so much more than disappointment in her deceit. She’d never even considered stealing anything from anyone. How could he think she would?
“Good morning,” he began. “I know this is unorthodox, but we thought it would be best to address the situation upfront with each of you. During the past few weeks, we’ve been getting reports about missing office supplies. A stolen printer. Paper and ink cartridges. Sticky notes and packs of pens.”
Beside her, Janice shifted. Ella swallowed.
“This morning, a few tablets came up missing in several offices. This time, these weren’t the property of Ever After Sweets. They were the personal belongings of members of my marketing staff. In the past, when we’ve made inquiries, our security cameras have come up blank, but this time one of you failed to cover her tracks.”
With a nod from Hawk, the bald guard at the desk clicked an icon on his screen. He widened the video to full screen, and Ella watched with the rest of the crew as a woman darted glances behind her inside an office as she unceremoniously stuffed a tablet into her purse.
Ella’s entire body froze from head to foot. It was her—it was clearly her. But how could that be? She hadn’t been anywhere near those offices on Christmas Eve. Not only that, but she never cleaned while carrying her purse. It always remained in her locker. Her discomfort grew as every gaze in the room gradually shifted to her. She wanted to speak up, to defend herself, but what could she say that would disprove this?
“That looks like Ella,” Pris said.
Ella closed her eyes. This couldn’t be happening. She couldn’t speak. Her tongue refused to work.
“What do you think?” Hawk asked Stina. “You know your staff better than anyone.”
Stina. Yes. Ella perked up. Stina knew Ella hadn’t been cleaning offices recently. She’d been detailing halls, cleaning out the garbage, and sweeping, mopping, and vacuuming stairs. She hadn’t had the keys to those offices. How could she have been caught in that feed?
Though they’d had their differences, Stina wouldn’t throw her under the bus for something like this. She would come to her defense. She had to.
“It does fit her profile,” Stina said with reluctance.
“No,” Ella cried, finding her voice.
“Search the lockers,” Hawk said.
Stina provided the master key, and one by one, lockers were opened, their contents examined until the guards arrived at Ella’s. The door was jammed. The handle wouldn’t budge. The guard jiggled it, pounding on the metal until it gave way and popped open.
The missing printer tumbled out, hitting first the bench before crashing to the cement floor. Reams of paper, the missing tablets, and sticky notes, everything that had been reported missing recently, had been stuffed in and spilled to the ground.
Reaching deeper, the guard withdrew her purse and removed two more tablets from within. Ella had never seen them before. How did they even get in there?
Horror struck her like an inferno. “I didn’t,” Ella said, praying they heard the plea in her voice. “I didn’t steal those things!”
Words were spoken. Hawk dismissed the other workers. Several offered sympathetic statements or glances, but Ella heard it all as if underwater. She was detached. Devastated. Disbelieving.
She didn’t hear Stina’s words until her stepmother grasped her by the shoulders and shook her. “You’re finished, do you hear me? This is humiliating, and I want nothing more to do with you inside or outside of work. You’ll get no references from me. And I’ll make sure your dad knows the truth about you.”
Ella’s lower lip trembled as pieces began rattling back into place in her brain. She fisted her hands. “You’ve been waiting for something like this to happen for a long time.” Her voice was quiet, but she pressed on. “But you were finished with me long before this.”
Stina rounded on her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Indignation made her throw caution to the wind. She had nothing else to lose now. The words gushed from her, tumbling like the bottled-up contents of her locker. “Why else do you not invite me to my own family’s Christmas lunch? And then you schedule me to work in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve?”
“Yes, but you didn’t work Christmas Eve.” The flash of take that in her eyes was enough to provoke her.
Ella caught sight of her stepsisters by the door. The room hadn’t completely cleared after all. Charlotte appeared worried, but Pris was as haughty as ever.
In a desperate attempt, Ella reached toward her. “Pris knows this wasn’t me. She handed out the keys. Pris, tell her. You gave me keys for the first-floor closet, not the offices on the fifth.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Suspicion trickled in with a wretched tang. Pris had given Ella her keys for months now. As manager beneath Stina, she was also the only other person who could have gotten into Ella’s locker.
“If this is about Derek, nothing happened. Please, Pris, this could ruin my life.”
“I guess you should have thought about that before you went around stealing things.” She added an extra bite to the word before she and Charlotte strolled out, leaving Ella alone with Hawk, Stina, and the security guard.
Or almost alone. Ella hadn’t noticed Janice hang back until her supposed family left.
“Did you need something?” Hawk asked. His arms were folded. Clearly, he was trying to keep his cool.
Janice’s cheeks pinked. Her expression grew both serious and sorrowful. “I’d like to just say that I’ve known Ella for a long time, and she wouldn’t do something like this.”
Hawk’s scowl deepened. “Thank you, but evidence has proven otherwise.”
“Then check it again,” Janice said with more bite. “Ella hasn’t cleaned the fifth floor offices all month. Her sister, Pris, was.” Janice offered Ella a hang-in-there smile and ambled out.
Confusion lined Hawk’s forehead. His scowl crept to her for a moment before the guard at the desk invited her to sit.
Somehow, she convinced her knees to bend. She took the chair he offered.
“Ella,” the guard said kindly. “My name is Ethan. I’d like to ask you a few questions if that’s okay.”
Dazed, shaking, she managed a nod.
“Is that true, what your associate said? You were cleaning a different area?”
She shook herself. “Y-yes. I couldn’t have accessed the fifth floor offices without keys, and they haven’t been assigned to me for weeks now.”
Ethan considered this before directing his next question to Stina behind her. “Is that true?”
“Here’s the schedule,” Stina said. “It’s true; Ella had no keys to access those offices.”
Ella blinked in shock. It almost sounded like Stina was defending her, but why? Why now, when she could have earlier? And why now after snapping at how finished she was in front of everyone else?
It was to make herself look good. Stina was nothing if not cooperative.
The guard sniffed, returning his attention to the computer screen where Ella’s image was frozen in an act she hadn’t committed. She blinked, still baffled at how someone managed to superimpose her face into the feed. It looked exactly like her.
“The time of this
footage was just after midnight last night,” Ethan began. “Would you care to tell us where you were at that time Christmas Eve?”
Ella thought back. She’d kissed Hawk at midnight. She’d been in such a stupor from its aftermath, but she’d gone directly home after that.
“I was in my car,” Ella said. “I was driving home after the ball.”
“The ball? Then you were in the building after all?”
Her gaze shifted to Hawk’s. Whether he wanted his security guard to know or not, she was going to tell the truth. “Yes, but I left. I swear. Hawk—Mr. Danielson saw me to the door. He saw me leave.”
“It’s true, I did,” Hawk said. His arms were still folded.
Ethan pointed to his laptop. “Then why is there footage of you using custodial keys to get into offices on the fifth floor?”
“I don’t know,” Ella said desperately. “I was with Mr. Danielson on the twelfth floor. I wasn’t wearing the jumpsuit. I didn’t even have my purse that night.”
“Is it possible you changed and returned after Mr. Danielson thought you left?”
“Does any of your other footage show me returning?” she said, her voice rising. Closing her eyes, praying for patience, she caught herself and attempted to lower it again. “I went home. I went to sleep. I swear that wasn’t me.”
“How did these objects get to be in your locker?” Hawk asked from where he stood on the cement floor.
The disgust in his tone sickened her. She wasn’t sure how to explain her relationship with her stepfamily to him now, to make it sound believable, like she wasn’t making excuses or relocating blame. Especially not with Stina there. But truth had to triumph, didn’t it?
“It had to be Pris. Or Stina. They both have keys to all of our lockers.”
“Now come on,” Stina said from behind her.
Ethan silenced her. Stina straightened, but did as she was asked.
“Why would they want to do that?” Hawk asked.
“I told you about her. Pris was the one who attacked me Christmas Eve,” Ella said. “They both hate me. They’ve hated me for years.”
It was satisfying to say it, to have Stina know that Ella knew, and to have a buffer in the room as she said so. It’d been a long time coming. If there was anything good about this situation, it was that.
“It’s true we’ve had some…animosity here and there,” Stina said in a defensive manner, “but I would never set her up like this. Ella, you can’t really think I would do this. You can’t think—”
“Enough,” Hawk said. He paced away, running a finger along his eyebrow, before turning to the security guard. “Ethan, I’d like a minute with Miss Embers, please.”
Ethan rested his hand on the edge of the desk. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. Just a minute.”
“All right,” said the guard, taking his laptop with him. He paused at the door and turned back to Ella. “I’ll take your testimony into account, Ella,” he said. “But it still doesn’t change the fact that we have video feed of you in the act.”
“That feed is wrong.” Ella’s voice broke. “I didn’t do this. And you know it.” The last part was directed at Stina, whose eyes shifted, refusing to meet Ella’s.
“I suggest you find a good lawyer, Miss Embers. Good day.”
Tears stung her eyes, but she blinked them away. Hawk had to believe her. She didn’t do this.
With the room cleared, the ticking clock was the only sound between them for several long, agonizing moments. This wasn’t how their next time alone together was supposed to be. They were supposed to go ice skating. They were supposed to snuggle up together on his couch, hold hands, and talk, to get swept up in one another’s arms and kiss until they were both dizzy.
She never imagined she’d become the suspect of his interrogation.
Hawk had one hand on his hip and the other on the back of his neck. “I can’t believe you would do this to my company. You stole office supplies?”
Ella rose to her feet. Her heart shredded before him, piece by piece. “It wasn’t me. Hawk, I swear. You heard my stepmother as she was leaving. They framed me.”
He simultaneously dipped his head and shook it. “All that about stealing kisses. I thought you were just being demure and romantic. You said you weren’t a thief.”
Ella circled to face him. She gripped his wrists, entreating him to look at her. “I’m not. Hawk, I swear, I didn’t steal these supplies.”
“Is that why you wouldn’t tell me who you were? Because you were stealing from me?”
Her voice went up in pitch. “I promise it wasn’t me.”
“I can’t believe I’ve been daydreaming about a woman who could do something like this.”
“Hawk, please.”
He turned his back to her, speaking to the lockers and the collection of stolen items on the bench in front of them. “It’s over. I’m not going to press charges,” he said. “But I never want to see you again.”
He stalked out without another word, ripping her heart the rest of the way.
Ella crumpled to the cement. Tears streamed down her cheeks as emotion, betrayal, heartbreak poured from her in waves. Helplessness crushed her with unforeseen force.
It wasn’t until the tears ceased, till she felt the strength, the will to stand that she saw it. Lying beside the broken printer, the tablets, and her purse, the shoe she’d accidentally left in Hawk’s office. It sparkled on the bench beside the stolen goods, a painful reminder of everything she’d just lost.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Ella had worked early morning custodial for so long, her body was trained to wake up at three-thirty am whether she had an alarm or not. The fact that she slept until five-ten was laudable. She sat up in bed, but the usual pressure to dress and brave the cold to be on time to work extinguished the instant memories of yesterday’s events rushed in.
A wedge in her chest grew heavier with every step. Nothing she did—straightening her apartment, sewing pieces for a quilt she was making for the homeless shelter using leftover pillowcase scraps, wallowing on her bed after a tasteless lunch of bread and cheese—did anything to ease it.
How could it? Not only had she been accused of theft, but she’d been publicly humiliated in front of the man she was falling in love with. He thought she was a crook. A scummy liar.
A line from Pride and Prejudice haunted her. After her sister’s scandal, Elizabeth Bennet lamented not only that she’d lost any chances of being with Mr. Darcy, but that he thought badly of her because of it.
“I cannot bear to think that he is alive in the world and thinking ill of me,” Lizzy had bemoaned.
It perfectly described Ella’s own regrets. It was one thing to be accused of such a horrific thing. But to have Hawk believe it of her? Hard as she tried, she couldn’t manage to fill her lungs completely. Her reputation, her pride, had been completely destroyed.
What could she do? She didn’t have the first clue how she could prove her innocence. At least Chloe was still gone so she didn’t have to witness this. She’d managed to transfer her ticket and had flown out to Illinois Christmas afternoon instead.
A knock interrupted her thoughts. Of all the people she thought it could be, Ella never expected to find her dad on the doorstep. The shame that had been eating at her since she woke redoubled its efforts, weakening her knees and compressing her throat. She hadn’t seen him in so long. Why did he have to come to see her now, with her wallowing in misery?
Dad’s thinning hair was graying more along his temples than it’d been the last time she’d seen him. He wore glasses and a sweater over a collared shirt. Still, he was as handsome as she’d remembered. His looks must have been what had drawn Stina to him.
“Dad? What are you doing here?”
“Mind if I come in?” he asked. “Stina told me what happened.”
Ella stiffened. “So you care about me now that I’m a potential criminal?”
He gave a weak wince. “Be fair,” he
said, entering and kicking snow from his shoes. “You knew you could come for Christmas if you wanted to.”
She closed the door behind him and, without waiting or inviting him to follow, made her way back to the living room. The space was still clean, thanks to Grammy, Adelie, Suzie, and Chloe. Dad’s mention of Christmas hunched her shoulders that much more. How could he bring that up? Her stomach sickened as if she’d drunk poison.
The old Ella would have brushed this off. She would have smiled and given her dad the benefit of the doubt.
She was so done with benefitting doubt.
Ella rotated to face him. He was standing beside her couch. “Your wife has made it clear how unwelcome I am, Dad. And frankly, you’ve done little to help me think otherwise.”
“Ella Bell,” he said in a pleading way. “Come on.”
Pain climbed in her chest. “No, Dad. You’ve hurt me. Stina hurts me. So I’ve stayed away.” She wasn’t sure where this gumption was coming from. It was what she’d always dreamed of saying to him. Maybe now, with defeat coursing through her, she couldn’t ruin anything worse than it already was.
“I thought, since you continued working for her, things were okay.”
Ella released a pained laugh. She couldn’t bring herself to sit, and her father hadn’t either. They stood like opposite poles on a planet, each on one end of the room.
“I work for her because I thought you wanted me to. I have spent all my time trying to please everyone else. Look where that’s gotten me.”
Ribs squeezing with heartache, she gave in and sank onto her couch. Her father joined her, taking the cushion beside her. He reached for her hand, but she pulled away.
“Clearly, we’ve been miscommunicating here,” he said almost inwardly. “Ella, I want you to come and visit me whenever you’d like to. And if you don’t want to work for Stina, then don’t.”
She scrubbed at her nose. “It’s a little late for that. She fired me! I’ll be lucky if I can find a new job, period. And as long as Pris is living there at your house, I’m not coming over.”
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