Betrayed by the CEO

by Clare Connelly

And so he’d forced himself to bide his time.

  Two long weeks had passed, and today, she was coming to his office.

  His smile was without humour. Undoubtedly the fact that the venue was so non-threatening, and that he was her lawyer, were the only reasons she’d agreed to meet him.

  He glanced at his gold wristwatch for the tenth time that hour. She was late. Only a few minutes, but he’d been waiting for her all day. Hell, he’d been waiting for two weeks. He returned his attention to the notes, his temper spiking at Wiliam’s outrageous behaviour.

  Then again, what else could be expected of a man so coldly brutal as Ansell-Johns?

  “Sir?” Maria’s sleek head appeared around his doorway. “Mrs Ansell-Johns is here to see you.”

  The name was like acid being dribbled over his flesh. He stood fluidly, buttoning his jacket as he looked towards the door. His face was all nonchalance, but inside, his body was begging him to move closer to the door.

  She appeared, backlit by sun drifting in through the windows, slender and petite. It was a cool Autumnal afternoon, and she’d dressed in a black suit and a thick grey trench coat. A pale pink scarf at her neck complemented her pastel complexion.

  Her face was ... beautiful.

  He sucked in a breath as he took in her features as though he was seeing her for the first time. Not as Chloe Ansell-Johns, and a tool he could wield to hurt the man he hated. But as a woman. A woman he wanted.

  “Hendrix,” she spoke quietly, and with a tone of steel that he knew, somehow, was costing her to produce.

  “Chloe,” he responded, his face gently mocking. “I thought you might have forgotten my name.”

  Her throat moved as she swallowed. “No.” A simple admission, but one that he understood.

  “Come in,” he gestured for her to sit in one of the sofas. “Tea? Coffee?”

  “No. Thank you,” she tacked on. Her legs felt like they were filled with lead as she crossed the plush office and eased herself into one of the arm chairs. Not a sofa. Nowhere that he could sit close. It had taken her the whole morning to prepare herself for seeing him again. She wasn’t sure she could feel his touch and not fall to pieces. The resolve she’d made, to put Ellie first, was hard and unbreakable. At least it was, until she saw Hendrix.

  Then, it became a wall of glass, and he a hammer that could easily smash through it.

  He retrieved a water bottle from the fridge and handed it to her. He noticed the way she kept her fingers at the very bottom of the glass, to avoid accidentally brushing his hand.

  His temper flared but he restrained it. He took up the seat opposite her.

  “My colleague met with your husband this morning.”

  She knitted her brows together. “Your colleague?”

  “Yes.” There was no way William didn’t know who Hendrix was. He didn’t need to see him yet. Not until Hendrix was ready. “It was smarter this way.”

  “Why?” She asked, her breath catching in her throat. “You’re my lawyer.”

  “Yes. And if he saw that you had me, personally, representing you, he’d go and hire ten more attorneys to outgun us. Better to lull him into a false sense of security while we’re getting a feel for how he’s going to play this.” It was true. Perhaps it hadn’t been his main reason for missing the preliminary conversation, but it did make good sense.

  “Okay.” Her fingers were working furiously in her lap, and he ached to reach over and take her hands in his. “And?” She prompted, her eyes focussing on a point over his shoulder. “What did he say?”

  Hendrix spoke slowly, so that she could properly absorb what he was saying. “Your husband wants to petition you for divorce, on the grounds of abandonment.”

  “Abandonment?” She shot up out of the chair, and rubbed a hand over her temple. “Abandonment? What does that mean?”

  His smile was lopsided. “That you abandoned him, essentially, without any hint of wishing to return.”

  “Oh, God.” She looped a finger over her necklace and slid the pendant from one side to the other. Her eyes were filled with fear as they shifted to his face.

  “He also claims you’ve flat out refused him access to his daughter. He feels you’re an unfit mother, on the basis that your finances are stretched and you leave Ellie with a woman who has a criminal history.”

  “Oh my God!” She was shaking unstoppably. “That sounds dreadful! Georgia only has a criminal record because she spray painted a train when she was little more than a kid. It’s nothing. She’s a great person. You’ve met her. I would never leave Ellie with someone whom I didn’t trust.”

  “I know,” his voice was thick with compassion. “I’m only telling you where William is trying to take things.”

  “Hendrix,” her fear was a tangible weight in the room. “None of this is true. My finances are only stretched because he withdrew all my money.”

  Hendrix nodded. “He also alleges that in the line of your work, you frequently have strangers in your living environment, any of whom could present a threat to Ellie.”

  Her eyes were enormous, her mouth dropped open. “How dare he!” She sucked in a deep breath and paced from one side of the room to the other. Until that moment she had still held a tiny thread of hope that her husband would find the will to be a good, decent human being. That he would see the best thing for all of them was to let her go without a fuss.

  But William was not a decent human being, and he would never let her go. Not because he loved her, but because he didn’t like to lose. She was a possession to him, as much as his precious Van Gogh and Faberge Egg.

  When Chloe spoke, it was as though a different person altogether had flown into her body. “You asked me if my husband was abusive, the other day.” Her eyes had a faraway look, and she seemed almost like a robot. Her words were without passion. Her face without expression.

  Hendrix was enthralled. He leaned forward in his seat, studying her while she spoke.

  “He hit me three times.” She couldn’t look at him as she spoke. “The first, he was drunk. We’d been at a party, and I’d danced with a friend of his. Actually, it was the father of his friend. He got it into his head that I was flirting, and he slapped me when we got home.” Still her tone was ice-cold. “He apologised the next morning, and I still thought I loved him. So I accepted it at face value.”

  Bile flushed Hendrix’s system and adrenalin spiked sharply through his body. He wondered where William was at that point in time. He wanted to bash his head to a bloody pulp. “Go on,” he urged gently, as though they were talking about the build up of midtown traffic earlier that day.

  Only the way her fingers were clinging together betrayed that she was finding this discussion difficult. “The second time was when my mother died.” Her eyes were bleak. “I’d flown to England, for the funeral. He hadn’t been able to come because he was in the midst of some big contract negotiation.” She furrowed her brow, trying to recall the details. “Something about a golf club he was buying and the staff he was obliged to keep under the terms of the purchase agreement.”

  Hendrix nodded, his breath clutched in his chest while he waited for her to continue.

  “I arrived back late at night. His meeting hadn’t gone well. The golf club was insisting he retain ninety percent of their employees for a minimum of twelve months.” Under different circumstances, the details she recalled would have made him smile. But he was far, far from amused. “I was showering. You know what it’s like. I just wanted to get the aeroplanes and grief off my skin and out of my hair.” Her eyes met his, but she wasn’t seeing him. She was dipping back in time, into her history. “He grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me out of the water. He slammed me against the tiled wall and put a hand against my neck.” She lifted her own hand there now, rubbing the flesh as if to remind herself that she was fine now. Hendrix must have betrayed a hint of his fury because she sought to reassure him. “I was fine. It was over very quickly. I had a sprain in my wrist, that was all.”
r />   “Did you see a doctor?”

  “Yes.” Her eyes darkened. “I told them I’d hurt it playing tennis.”

  He swallowed the dark emotions he was feeling away. “And the third time,” he prompted, wondering how he could erase that pain from her expression forever.

  She nodded. “The third time was after his accident.”

  All the air rushed out of Hendrix’s chest. “His accident?”

  “Yes,” she nodded, moving back to the seat opposite him. She eased herself into it with a grace that he now knew came naturally to her. “He was thrown from a horse. His family has a home in Maine. He used to go there whenever he could.”

  “And you didn’t accompany him?”

  “No.” Something flickered in her expression. “I had an obstetrics appointment. I was pregnant with Ellie.”

  And Eleanor had also been pregnant with another of William’s children. Were there more out there? More descendants of this out and out bastard?

  “I felt awful, of course, when he came back all bruised and out of sorts.”

  “It must have been some accident,” Hendrix drawled, his cynicism something he was struggling to conceal.

  But Chloe was too absorbed by the recounting of the past to notice. “Bruised ribs, a few gashes to his face.” Her smile was reminiscent. “He was never a great equestrian.”

  Hendrix’s hands balled into fists in his lap.

  “In any event, he sulked for a week, and I kept to myself. He was a terrible patient, far better left to the nurse I hired.” Her face darkened, and the words that had been falling from her lips with a level of cathartic freedom clung to her mouth now.

  “I need to know it all,” Hendrix said, though it was not just from a legal perspective. He wanted to know it all. He wanted to understand what her married life had been like.

  “I’d been out with a friend, to see a movie.” Her cheeks coloured. “A male friend.”

  Hendrix’s interest spiked. “Romantic?”

  “No.” She cast him a distracted look. “You should know, better than anyone, that I’m not cut out for infidelity.”

  The reminder of the other night was a flame licking at his flesh.

  “I knew my husband struggled with the idea of monogamy. But I was prepared to accept it.” She lifted her hands to forestall any remark he might have wanted to make. “I was young and stupid. I still believed, and hoped, that our fairy tale would come true.” She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know what I was thinking, if I’m honest.”

  “So you saw a movie with a platonic, male friend.”

  “Yes. David is his name. We’re still friends. He’s from London. We get together and eat scones and drink tea and watch tennis and laugh at Ricky Gervais.”

  “I think Ricky Gervais is funny on all continents,” Hendrix couldn’t resist teasing, though his mood was not jocular in the slightest.

  “Of course he is. In any event, I’d got home, and William was absolutely livid. He accused me of cheating. He told me the baby could be anyone’s. That he didn’t want to raise another man’s child.” She sucked in a deep breath for courage and spoke, but her words were slightly high pitched. “I could see that he was in one of his rages. So I went to walk away.” Her brow furrowed. “When Will got in those moods, he wasn’t worth being around.”

  Hendrix was struggling with what to say, so he said nothing.

  The robot had returned. Her next statement was without emotion, without pain, though he knew how badly William had hurt her.

  “He punched me, in the face, and he kneed me in the stomach. Then he pulled my hair and shouted that he didn’t want the baby. That he’d never want it.” Her fingers rubbed together. “He told me to get rid of it, or that he’d do it for me.”

  Hendrix stood, his powerful frame feeling constrained by the conservative office he was in. He’d grown up as a wilding in the countryside, and in that moment, he wanted to run like a cheetah, fast and furious, across this concrete landscape.

  His fury was the wind at his feet. He needed to do something physical to release the catatonic rage that was bursting inside of him.

  “I presume he meant that he’d hit me until I … lost her.” Now her voice shook with emotion. “You can imagine, then, Hendrix, why I ‘abandoned’ my husband with no intention of returning.”

  Hendrix’s feet carried him to her, and he crouched down so that their eyes were at a level. “And yet still you want to protect him.”

  “I want to protect Ellie,” she whispered. “She can never know that her own father felt that way about her. That she was so unwanted by him. For her sake, I need to keep some part of the fairy tale alive.”

  A muscle jerked in his jaw. “If you want to protect her, you will let me do my job. If you do not fight this to win, Chloe, you will lose her. To him. And you know what he’s capable of. Would you really run the risk of a man like William raising your child?”

  Her heart turned over in her chest. Sensing her indecision, Hendrix pushed forward his advantage. “You can’t have it both ways. The softer you are with him, the harder he’ll push. You know that. That’s why you came to my firm. That’s why you came to me.”

  She closed her eyes. Her head hurt. Her heart ached. Her stomach churned. “Yes.” She exhaled a slow breath, and it fanned his forehead. His gut clenched in remembered pleasure at all that she was. “So? What next?”

  His smile had been intended to reassure her, but it sparked a kaleidoscope of butterflies inside her soul. “There’s danger here too,” she said quietly, unable to stop herself from touching his face now. She cupped his cheek, her eyes conveying her worries.

  “For both of us,” he promised, thinking how easy it would be to forget about what he owed his father and his sister. How easy it would be to forget that he had revenge within his grasp, and a means of wounding the person who’d taken so much from them.

  Chloe’s frown showed her confusion, and he laughed.

  “You think I don’t feel it too?” He asked, moving his head closer to hers, so that their noses almost brushed. “You’re the one who believes in fairy stories, and old fables. But I’m looking at you and seeing an angel.”

  Her heart was leaping with such alacrity that it felt like a bird had become trapped in her breast. Hadn’t she decided that the wisest course of action was to steer clear of this man?

  She had, she was absolutely certain of it.

  And yet, she smiled at him, and the gentle curve of her soft pink lips carried all the agreement and promise in the world. Yes, it said. I want you too. I want this.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “You know, you chop mushrooms like someone who’s only ever done so once or twice in his life.”

  Hendrix raised his eyes, the laughter in them obvious. “Guilty as charged.”

  Chloe wiped her hands on a tea towel and crossed to his side of the bench. “Here. I’ll show you,” she said quietly. He let her peel his fingers from the handle of the knife, and watched as she expertly and quickly scored ten deep marks into the small white button, and separated it as perfect slices. “Like this,” she said, choosing another mushroom and inflicting the same precision attack on it.

  “Chop, chop,” Ellie cooed from her high chair, her own plastic knife digging into a stubborn piece of cheese.

  Hendrix cast her a look of sardonic mirth. “Yes, I dare say you could do this better, Ellie.”

  Chloe’s heart turned over painfully in her chest. It was the first time she’d seen Hendrix since that day in his office, and he was behaving like a true Prince Charming. He’d arrived early, brandishing flowers and a bottle of wine for her, and a set of Duplo for Ellie. And he’d immediately moved into the kitchen to help prepare lunch. Of course, Chloe now suspected his ‘help’ was a far greater hindrance, but she would never say as much. Not if it risked putting an end to the shockingly happy domesticity she was diving into.

  “You’re doing a fine job. They don’t have to be perfect. They’ll get reduced in the sa
uce.”

  “What exactly are we making?”

  His use of the word ‘we’ brought a smile to her lips, because he had butchered seven mushrooms and done not much else. “Gnocchi. It’s Georgia’s favourite.”

  “Ah. Your criminal friend,” he drawled quietly, earning an exaggerated roll of the eyes from Chloe.

  “Yes. The very one.”

  “You said on the phone that this is a family lunch. You meant Georgia?”

  Chloe’s face showed pleasure. “Yes. I’m an only child. My dad and I aren’t close. Georgia’s more like a sister to me than a friend. We’ve had lunch together every Saturday for over two years. It’s a very small way that I can thank her for all that she does for Ellie.”

  He chopped another mushroom, approximating the noise she’d made against the board, if not the effect. “Better,” she nodded with approval, scooping a generous knob of butter into the heavy based saucepan. As it began to sizzle and melt into a golden pool, she stirred it with the wooden spoon. “What about your family? Are you close?”

  The mention of family almost had him dropping the knife. Guilt stabbed him but he quickly suppressed it. “My mother died when my sister was born. And then my sister died in a car accident a few years ago.” He deliberately shied away from the gentler term, passed away. “So it’s just my father and me, also.”

  “I’m sorry,” her sympathy was so genuine and so intense that he shrugged uncomfortably. Her eyes skipped to Ellie, who was busy jabbing the cheese intently. “What happened with your sister?”

  A hint of dark colour flushed against his cheeks. “A drunk driver,” he muttered. “She died instantly. No air bag.”

  “Oh, Hendrix,” she put the wooden spoon down and stepped closer to him. “That’s awful. Were you close?”

  He ran a hand over his stubbled jaw. “I didn’t see her often. I was busy with my firm. She was still in college. But I had always been her big brother, charged with defending her and protecting her. That I couldn’t do so that night was a terrible feeling.”

  “I can only imagine.” She put a hand on his arm. “When did it happen?”