As she showered and readied herself for the day, she caught herself grinding her teeth multiple times. “You have a lot of nerve,” she muttered over her second cup of coffee, brewed extra strong to help her face the day ahead.
It was going to be a trying one, and she needed all the energy she could gather.
Of course, she was still expending far too much brain power on Conner and his attempt to woo her back into his life. And that got her thinking about William and Oliver. Then the vicious cycle of regret and anger and hurt and longing would hit her once again, so she was on a constant roller coast of emotions.
Dressed in her favorite navy and cream power suit and a killer set of heels that called attention with every click that followed each power-filled step she took, Sabrina eventually made her way into the office.
Determination filled her as she breezed past Shawna sitting behind her desk and said, “Good morning, Shawna. Please pull up today’s schedule and have it on my desk in ten. Unlocking her office door, she flipped on the lights and headed for the desk as she continued to issue orders. “I’ll also need a vanilla latte, skim, and a bagel with extra cream cheese. And can you call the florist and have them put together three of their smallest baskets for the Hargreaves? Have the cards read: Thank you for your time with us. We’re sorry to see you go.”
Shawna was busy taking notes, but that last order gave her pause. She appeared in the doorway a moment later, pen and pad in hand, staring at Sabrina as if she’d seen a ghost. “They’re leaving?”
“Their time with us has ended, yes.”
“W-Why?” she spluttered.
Sabrina gave her an impatient look. “Shawna, you know I can’t discuss details with you. The nature of their employment or lack thereof is private.” Unfortunately. She’d like nothing more than to reveal the lying scum they truly were, but it would also come with a confession of her own that she would rather put firmly behind her and move on from.
Swallowing, Shawna tipped her head in a brief but sharp nod. “Yes, ma’am.” She pointed the pen at the paper. “I’ll get right on this.”
Gripping the edges of the desk, Sabrina stared at the empty space Shawna left behind and felt her shoulders slump. She’d managed to get through the first hurdle. She could do this, she told herself. She could get through this day, one step at a time.
She didn’t even get to the next step because, before she knew it, Oliver was standing in her doorway looking every bit like a kicked puppy.
She almost folded like a deck of cards then and there. Why was it that Oliver was the one who pulled at her heartstrings the most?
“Shouldn’t you be putting in applications?” she quipped, feigning strength and perseverance when she truly felt weak and seconds away from crumbling into a useless heap.
Maybe she wasn’t ready to return to work after all. It might have benefited her to spend a few extra days alone coming to grips with herself before throwing herself back into the grind.
“Can I come in?”
She looked down at her laptop screen and clicked around to open a few browsers, pretending to be busy and not at all interested in anything having to do with him. “Seems you already are.”
He took that as the invitation it wasn’t and entered the room fully, and Sabrina’s heart pitter-pattered at an alarming rate, quickening in direct relation to his every step closer to her.
“I heard you spoke with Conner last night.”
“Briefly. It wasn’t enlightening.”
“He said you didn’t give him much chance to say anything.” He stopped to stand behind the basic wood and upholstered office chair that offered visitors a modicum of comfort—just enough to feel comfortable for a time, but not enough to overstay their welcome. Gripping the back of the chair, he said, “There’s a lot that needs to be said here, and if you give me or us the chance, I think you’ll find that—”
“Nothing is what it seems,” she interrupted. “I’ve heard it all before. Honestly, you guys have to come up with some original material. A girl gets bored.”
“Sabrina, please, be fair.”
“Fair?” Her voice rose. “That’s rich, coming from you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She spluttered through her indignance. He couldn’t be serious. The writing was on the damn wall. “Fair would have been telling me that you didn’t want more than a romp in the sack. Fair would have been telling me that you didn’t intend to take our relationship to the next level. Fair would have been telling me not to get attached because nothing was going to come of this. Instead, all three of you encouraged me to trust you, to try for more. I put myself on the line for you, and you let me down!”
She hadn’t meant to shout, but it couldn’t be helped. This was definitely not the time nor place to get into an argument over personal matters, but she wasn’t about to risk any one of them coming to her place or her to theirs to hash it out. Better to flesh it out now, lay out all the cards, then burn them with a thousand matches and a gallon of butane, because she was done.
“You have it all wrong, ‘Brina.”
“Don’t!” She paused, squeezing her eyes closed and taking a deep breath to control her temper. When she spoke next, her words were tempered but no less strained. “Call me that.”
Oliver’s expression was pained, but he acknowledged her request with a tip of his head. “We were just as broadsided by what your father said as you were last week.”
“Oh, you mean you didn’t know about your father’s plan to make me look like a complete idiot?” she sneered.
“Of course not! It was the first we’d heard anything about it.”
“Then why didn’t you say anything?”
“You didn’t give us a chance.” He tilted his head, sadness in his eyes.
“You could have told my father after I left. You could have straightened it out then.”
“We didn’t know how much he knew. The last thing we wanted to do was throw you under the bus. We wanted to speak with you first. But then you went off the grid. No one could find you.”
“Then they didn’t look very hard.” Sabrina wasn’t in a forgiving mood. She didn’t want to hear all of the logical excuses that she knew could and would change everything—assuming they were true. To be fair, which she also wasn’t feeling inclined to do, not many knew about Janet, and those who did, like her parents, had only cursory knowledge of her, which was half the reason she’d chosen to seek shelter with her in the first place. Janet was a safe harbor that she could be relatively certain wouldn’t be found.
“Fair, I guess,” he conceded. “But it’s not as if we’ve been avoiding you or any of this. Conner told you we’ve been checking in at your place every day, hoping to catch you. We’ve made the effort to clear the air, you have to admit that. If we’d pursued you out of some malicious intent, don’t you think we’d have just walked away when it was revealed to everyone? Don’t you think we’d be done with you now, not chasing after you?”
Sabrina didn’t have a rebuttal for that. The truth was, what he had said made sense.
“Fine, explain yourself,” she snapped back, far from ready to shed her attitude or anger.
“Everything your father said at the meeting was true. But we learned about it when you did. You have to believe me when I tell you that we had no idea what our father was up to. We thought his motivations were genuine and that we were helping to save the company. And in a way, we were. It was struggling. The merger with Colloway Corp was the best thing that could have happened to it, and it saved it. We just didn’t know that it was coming with a secret agenda.”
He sighed, hung his head on his shoulders, and considered his next words. Sabrina, for all her effort not to buy into his explanation, found herself being drawn in. There was just something about the way Oliver spoke and carried himself that rang true. She couldn’t outright dismiss him.
“My father is many things, but we never realized how cutthroat he could be. He ra
ised us to be honest and hardworking, and we assumed that’s how he approached business and life as well. This isn’t something we could have foreseen and we certainly never would have supported it.” He lifted his head and looked her dead in the eyes. “What we had with you was genuine. Is genuine. There wasn’t a single moment that was fabricated, and we would never exploit you for personal gain.”
Did she dare to believe him? Did she dare to take the risk?
Sabrina was struggling within herself to decide. She had no idea what was right or smart or up or down or if the sky outside was actually blue. Her whole world was suspect in that moment, and she was standing on the edge, unsure of what direction to turn.
The only thing she knew for certain was that no decision was her safest bet. At least until she could get a second opinion.
“Thank you for taking the time to stop by. I’ll take your words into consideration.” Her dismissal was delivered with cold calculation, leaving no room for argument.
Oliver waited a heartbeat and then stepped back from the chair, straightened his suit jacket, and told her, “As you wish. And for what it’s worth, we love you. Not past tense, ‘Brina, but right now. Every minute that passes, we love you. Whatever you choose to believe, that won’t change, but I hope, after you take some time, you’re able to see that we’re telling the truth. You know how to get ahold of us when you’re ready.”
As if it was a foregone conclusion that she would forgive them? Sabrina huffed to herself, staring through the empty doorway he’d passed through. Such nerve. Such arrogance.
Or maybe she was just being unreasonable? Was she lacking the foresight, the confidence to see what was right in front of her face: the truth? Or was she being naïve even considering thinking about it at all?
The situation felt impossible, an insurmountable decision that had to be made, and it all hinged on her being able to untangle the details and get to the root of the problem. But how?
And then it came to her. The solution to her problem was obvious and had been in front of her all along. Bursting out of her seat, she slapped the laptop closed and grabbed the sensible clutch that contained her essentials and speed walked from the room, closing the door a mite too hard and loud and locking it up.
“Shawna, hold my calls and cancel my appointments for the day. I’m stepping out of the office.”
“Um…okay? When should I tell them you’ll be back?” she asked nervously after her, probably afraid that Sabrina was going to pull another week-long disappearing act.
“Tomorrow morning. Move everything out a day. Overbook if you have to.” She punched the down arrow on the elevator and spun to face her receptionist as she stepped into the ready car, aware a triumphant smile was spread across her face. “Have a great day.”
And it would be a great day, too, if she had anything to say about it.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Mr. Hargreaves was in a restaurant, seated at a table near the window, having an extravagant lunch with none other than Mr. Harvey Thomas. It wasn’t luck that’d brought Sabrina here at high noon, a fitting hour considering the reason behind her appearance.
After making several phone calls, issuing thinly veiled threats and sugary sweet niceties, she finally secured his location and didn’t waste any time hunting him down.
Her blood burned in her veins as she watched the slimy man hobnob with her client—one of her very best, too. Her father’s big reveal came back to her with crystal clarity, which steamed her even more. How dare Charles invade her company on false pretenses and try to steal her clients out from under her.
Taking a page out of her father’s notebook, she marched into the restaurant, bypassing the hostess station with a dismissive, “I see my people over there,” and wove her way through tables until she reached his.
Standing over Charles Hargreaves was a surreal experience. For a brief moment, Sabrina felt small, as though she weren’t the executive now-owner of the company, but as if she were a little girl again, under her father’s watchful eye.
But the moment Charles looked up at her in question, that hard, cunning look in his eyes as if to say, “Yeah, what do you want, bitch?” she found her gumption and her voice.
“Mr. Hargreaves,” she said with a curt nod. Then she turned to her client and pasted on a brilliant smile. “Harvey, so good to see you.”
“What are you doing here?” Charles asked with a bitter edge.
Sabrina pulled up a chair from a neighboring table that was vacant. “I’m so sorry I’m late. I had to ask your assistant for directions,” she directed at Mr. Hargreaves without so much as a sidelong glance his way. “Harvey, I’m glad we could get together again. Please, fill me in and catch me up.”
Harvey’s face lit up, as did those signature milky-blue eyes, and he grew animated as he began talking about all the plans Charles had been spilling to him in her absence. It took everything for Sabrina to hold her tongue, continue smiling, and nod along as though she had been abreast of everything. In reality, she wanted nothing more than to turn and slap the face of the man who dared to cross her.
Never again, she thought to herself. She wasn’t going to play the damsel in distress any more than she would allow a man to come into her business and X her out as if she were nothing more than an insignificant fly to be swatted away.
It took a good hour of talking and careful negotiation before Sabrina could safely say that she’d managed to secure her holdings with Harvey while effectively pushing out the competition, which was, in a word, Charles.
The man wanted to protest, if she was reading the storm brewing in his eyes, but she didn’t give a lick about how he felt. He certainly hadn’t considered her feelings in the process of his hostile takeover attempt.
“You have a fantastic rest of the day,” Sabrina said with a firm and overly friendly hug that had become customary between Harvey and her. He was always such a lush in the sense that he was a total womanizer, but he was old and relatively harmless, not to mention set in his ways, and whether or not she was a feminist, Sabrina knew that sometimes a person had to play the game to get ahead. In this, she was willing to make a concession, and so she did.
They all shook hands and walked their client out, and once they stood alone on the street together, Sabrina got down to business.
“What was that in there? You think you’re so damn smart that you can waltz in and take over as if you have a right?” Charles was beside himself.
Sabrina thrived on that kind of energy. She’d met it head on numerous times over the years, and she always found that, no matter how nervous or upset she was, when she witnessed it in the other person, it gave her an unparalleled strength, as if she fed off their instability. Today was no different. Charles Hargreaves couldn’t contain his anger, enabling her to be the calm, cool, rational one of the two.
“You should have expected it, Charles. Honestly, it’s nothing you haven’t done to me, right? And we all know, turnabout is fair play.”
“You can’t just take my client—”
“I think you mean my client,” she asserted. “Harvey has been a longtime, dedicated professional in this business for decades. He’s personal friends with my father, and of the family, and he does business with Colloway Corp because he wants to, not just because it makes good business sense—and I assure you, it does. Need I remind you that you needed us to bail you out, so before that ego of yours gets any more inflated, I suggest you realize who you’re talking to and just what kind of leverage I can wield. Not to mention, exactly what you stand to lose if you continue on this path.”
She leaned in, baring her teeth. “I have more friends in this city, in this country, than you have dollars to rub together, and I would know, because I personally reviewed your financial reports. So if you think for one second that I will allow you to come into my sandbox and throw dirt in my face, you have another thing coming. I will chew you up and spit you out before this day is through, so don’t push me.”
&nb
sp; He couldn’t seem to find his words. Charles was, for once, speechless. “I’ll tell everyone that you’re spreading your legs for my boys. I’ll expose you for the harlot you are.”
“Go ahead,” she challenged, not sure where the words or the brazenness was coming from, but rolling with it. “Anything you say about your sons will be a direct reflection on you and your company too. So trust me when I say, if you take me down, I’ll take you down with me.”
As the words spilled out of her mouth, Sabrina delighted in the knowledge written in the creases of fear on his face that she had won this round. In words alone, she was taking down her enemy, an insidious element that she’d allowed into her world…yet she still didn’t have the answers she’d come for.
“Charles, I don’t want this to get nasty. Rather, I don’t want this to get any nastier than you’ve already made it.” She was going to be the bigger person in this equation if it killed her. “But your answer to my next question is going to be the deciding factor on how I proceed after I leave this sidewalk.”
She raised her arm to flag down a cab. In what had always been a harrowing process, she was shocked to see a yellow car with checkers down its sides veer out of mainstream traffic to pull up along the curb in front of her.
She’d have to make this quick and somehow do it with grace.
“How much of this did your sons know about? Were they a part of the planning from the beginning, maybe clued in in the middle, or were they your pawns from the onset? Answer wisely. I have my lawyers on speed dial and ready to act on my command.” She didn’t, actually, but she could. It wouldn’t take much effort on her part to sever their contract, since he was the one who violated it, and the laws that frowned on hostile takeovers and poaching were nothing to sneeze at either. She had to hope that Charles both knew and understood what was at stake. He should, since he’d been around for so long, but being from another country, she couldn’t be positive.
Indecent Proposal: A Reverse Harem Romance Page 20
