“Sir, Mr. Lloyd is still waiting in the conference room.”
Roman looked away from the report on his desk to see his timid personal assistant, Penny, at his door. He had no idea how she hadn’t quit yet. It had been a couple of months of him acting like a bastard for no reason so she was well within her rights.
He looked down at the report again.
“Is John here?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Tell him to take over the meeting. I have something I have to do.”
John was the Chief Operating Officer and had more than earned his salary lately. He’d kept Ashfield Construction going.
“I’ll call his assistant now,” she said as she walked back out of his office and closed the door.
He was supposed to be finalising the downfall of Allan Bains but here he was stalking Evelyn instead. It was all he had done lately. Poured over the reports of her whereabouts. Her new employment. Her daily routines. Her pictures. She was smiling in all of them.
While he was stuck in this place that didn’t make any sense to him, Evelyn Bright was moving on with her life.
His phone vibrated and he stomped down the stupid hope he had that it was Evelyn. She hadn’t called to ask about her car or her university paperwork as he had expected in the beginning, so fuck knew why he was still expecting her to get in touch now.
He picked his phone up and saw a message from his father.
‘Lunch? We have some news.’
Were they finally getting divorced? That was the only news he wanted to hear. But his father said ‘we’ so if his stepmother was going to be there, it was unlikely that they were divorcing.
‘Where? I’m free right now.’
That was a lie, but he was just wasting time at the office. Maybe tomorrow would be a better workday.
‘Come home. I’ll tell William.’
He closed the folder and put it in his briefcase before he switched his computer off. When he walked out to the other office, he found Penny busy working at her desk.
“I’m leaving. Reschedule my day.”
“Yes, sir.”
He remembered the days Penny used to get shocked when he left the office before five. Now it was barely eleven in the morning and she hadn’t even batted an eyelid.
“Mr. Barrow is in the meeting now, and I’ll have these reports ready for you on your desk in the morning,” Penny said.
He supposed it was also Penny who was keeping the company going. He needed to get his shit together and get back into his work. It wasn’t fair on his team.
“Thank you, Penny. Give yourself a raise,” he said as he walked out.
Could he even afford to give her a raise? He had no fucking idea. For all he knew the company had tanked because he’d taken his eye off the ball.
He took the elevator to the basement and got into his car. Evelyn’s car. The one she had refused from him as if he was asking her to drink poison.
Evelyn Bright was a conundrum that he had yet to solve. She wasn’t going to the university he had paid for and her parents had moved into a cramped two-bedroom Council flat in the same neighbourhood instead of the house that was sitting empty. Instead of being taken care of, she had two minimum wage jobs that still barely paid her bills.
Was that life preferable to the one he had offered?
Or was it only because he was not involved in any way with her new life?
How did she go from claiming to love him to this in such a short time? To hating him so much that she’d gone to such lengths to hide from him?
He was driving up his father’s driveway an hour later and realised he’d spent the whole drive thinking about Evelyn. Something had to give.
William opened the door for him with a smile on his face.
“Master Roman,” he greeted as he let him in. “What a rare pleasure to see you on a Wednesday afternoon.”
“Dad said he had news. I was holding onto my hope that it was good news, but from the lack of crying and things being thrown at my head, I’m guessing they’re not getting divorced yet,” he said drily as he followed the butler down the hallway.
“Not yet, unfortunately,” William said. “They’re in the sitting room. I’ll bring you a shot of whiskey before lunch, I’m sure you’ll need it.”
He sighed as he walked towards the room he had been directed to and found Esther sitting next to Charles, holding onto him and not a tear in sight. They were both giggling like children and didn’t see him come in. His father looked happier than he had seen him in a while.
“For fuck’s sake,” he muttered.
He really wasn’t going to like this news at all.
“Rome!” His father said as he extracted himself from his plastic wife’s arms and rose to greet him. “I thought you’d be too busy to see your old man. Come and sit, we have some great news.”
William was by his side with a glass of whiskey the moment he sat down and disappeared quickly out of the room.
“How have you been? You look troubled,” Charles said as he took his place next to his wife.
“I’m fine.”
“It’s that Vivian girl, isn’t it?” Esther said. “You were all over the tabloids after you took her to that dinner. She’s been bragging to everyone who will listen. Is she the one who’s made you so miserable?”
He detected a hint of jealousy. Vivian and Esther ran in the same circles and had the same values. Whatever he said here would be all over London by the end of the day, but he would not be drawn into mindless gossip.
It was bad enough that their names were being mentioned together in the first place. It was something he had actively avoided all his life.
“I’m sure you didn’t ask me here to discuss my private life,” he said before he took his drink in one go and then set the empty glass on the side table.
“It’s just small talk,” Charles said, defending his wife. “Let’s at least make it through lunch before you start insulting your stepmother.”
So he endured Esther’s gossip and lustful looks. How he had ever compared Evelyn to this woman was beyond him. Esther was so blatant with her games that he had to wonder if his father really didn’t see through them.
The moment he pushed his half-eaten lunch away and picked up his drink, his father put his cutlery down to get his attention.
“I know this will come as a shock, Roman, and I know you’ll have plenty to say about it,” Charles started. “But Esther is pregnant.”
He put his drink down before he had any and picked his napkin up to wipe his lips.
“Is it yours?”
Esther gasped, and his father’s smile disappeared.
“That’s uncalled for, Rome,” Charles said.
“Are you surprised I’m asking?”
“Yes, it’s mine,” Charles said, throwing his napkin onto the table.
His father already had children he had failed miserably, and now he thought it was a good idea to throw another one in the middle of all this shit?
“Well, I hope you and your new family will be very happy.”
“I’m already very happy, Rome. I think you’re the one who needs to sort yourself out and stop meddling in my business,” Charles said. “Go and fix whatever has made you such an asshole the past few weeks.”
He shook his head and stood from the table.
“Goodbye, dad.”
How did his father continuously make so many mistakes without learning from his past?
He left the house without saying goodbye to William and got into his car. The briefcase caught his eye, and the contents brought thoughts of Evelyn back to the forefront of his mind
He remembered the panic he’d felt when he’d assumed she was going to tell him she was pregnant.
Would he have been so happy about it as his father was? His answer then would have been ‘no’. Now… Now he wasn’t so sure.