34. Nathan

Chapter 34

I ’d told Kat I could work from home for as long as I wanted, and while that wasn’t strictly a lie, it wasn’t exactly easy. Many clients want face-to-face meetings, which I usually prefer as well. Thankfully, most know I also have a young child and no wife, so when I moved some meetings to video conferences under the pretense that she’d been sick, nobody questioned it.

Not that I would let them. Who are they to question why I’m doing business the way I am? No, they should be happy I gave a reason to begin with.

That didn’t mean our first day back wasn’t slammed. From meetings, to conference calls, and everything in between, the day was packed from the second we walked in the door, and by the time lunch finally rolled around, I was ready to make a run for it.

It’s strange, honestly. For years, work had been my first love, then I had children, and things changed. They were the only things that I ever put above my job, but even then, balance was often tricky. Now I find I can’t wait for the day to be over, that I’m looking for a way to cut and run to be with my queen and our princess, and I know the others feel the same.

Even Oliver, though he has yet to admit it.

Unfortunately, it’s not just us either, and I don’t even mean Vince, though he might be an issue later. For the moment, our biggest issues are Carter and Trevor.

I should have dealt with Trevor better before, but I’d thought he was simply jealous. Most jealous men will run off with their tails between their legs, all talk and no action. Never did I think he would be a danger to Kat.

Now Vince has shown his hand, and while I’m happy he was there to keep Kat safe, for the moment, Trevor is lying low. Not that we couldn’t find him if needed; no, I doubt anyone could hide from Vince for long if he put all his resources into finding them. But Trevor hadn’t been our main concern the last few days.

I’d wanted us at the house to show Kat she was safe and to make sure of it, and it seems I might have done too good of a job with the way she all but demanded we go back to work and stop coddling her.

Vince is with her and Addison now, and I make a mental note to have him start looking for Trevor in his downtime when we talk next. My mind wanders to about five hundred other things I need to handle, from business to home life, yet somehow, every thought I have brings me right back to her.

I sit staring at my lunch as she consumes everything. Images of her as Alex fucked her over my desk, the way she so easily complied, her willingness to please me. I’m so hard, it hurts, but I still can’t bring myself to think of anything but her. The idea of her round with a child, of children of our own running around the house with her while we work, a rock on her finger fit for the queen she is.

“Shit.” I shift in my chair, trying to relieve some of the pressure in my dress pants, but it doesn’t help.

The faster we finish up here, the faster I can have her in my arms, in my bed, where she belongs.

I know it’s true, but still, I have to force myself to pick up my sandwich and eat. The urge to skip lunch to make the day over faster rides me hard, but I know if I get my way, I’ll need a good meal in my stomach for later.

Maybe we should schedule a vacation. I text Alex to have him get the house in Curacao cleaned up. A smile threatens to turn up my lips at the thought of her at our waterfront home on the island. Like the rest of our lives, it’s a bit over the top, which I know she isn’t used to, but she will be someday.

I’ll make sure of it.

I finish my sandwich just as the doors to my office slam open, and I can’t stop the scowl that pulls my brows down. I hate being interrupted without warning. That's why I pay a secretary, speaking of which I need to see about replacing her. I didn’t like the way she handled Addison when she was here last and now this.

It’s not until I get a good look at who’s just barged into my office that I realize why my secretary wouldn’t have called me.

It’s Oliver.

Had it been Alex or Desmond, this wouldn’t be strange, but I can’t remember the last time Oliver came bursting into my office or anywhere for that matter.

Not only is Oliver usually all for the rules, but he’s also well put together and composed, all of which seems to have gone out the window right now as he runs toward my desk, not even bothering to close the door behind him.

He reaches my desk, panting, slamming down a few papers on the edge of my desk. I push to stand, reaching across the desk and grabbing them, my eyes flying over the papers despite having no idea what I’m looking at. Whatever it is must be important to have Oliver behaving like this.

By the time I reach the bottom of the first page, I think I have a pretty good understanding of what he’s trying to show me, but it seems crazy, impossible even.

Looking at him, I find him mostly composed as he straightens up, pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. I want to give him another minute, but I don’t have it in me with what I believe this paper is saying, and he seems to know this because with just one look, he reaches out for the paper, and I quickly hand it back.

“Something seemed off. What are the odds that not only Carter would be after her, ransacking her apartment, but Trevor would also be after her? At the start, I thought maybe she was just highly coveted, after all she had gotten all of your guys attention so it might not have been that crazy.” He flips the paper before quickly glancing up at me, and I try to keep my temper in check. This is my nephew, after all, but I know how he gets; he loves data, the numbers, and all of that. That’s why he works in our IT department and tends to stay away from customers.

“But then the flowers showed up at the school, and somehow it connected the two that might have been seen as separate entities before. I looked into all the airlines I could access, even called one of Vince’s guys, and none of them have any record of Carter flying. Not when her apartment was broken into or when the flowers were delivered, and both of those things seemed highly personal. A lot more so than just having flowers delivered, because they had her underwear wrapped up inside of them. Underwear that tied him back to the break-in.”

Everything he says makes sense. That’s what Oliver does, after all. He makes things make sense, and this is no different, no matter how much I might not want it to be true.

Trevor and Carter are related, cousins, the same way Desmond and Oliver are, and clearly close if Trevor has been doing all of Carter’s dirty work for him.

“You said you didn’t find any record of him flying out when the apartment incident happened or the flowers…” I trail off, shuffling through the stack of papers he’d presented me with. I’d just glanced at them before when I was trying to figure out what he was showing me, and I’m almost positive I saw airline paperwork.

“No, Carter wasn’t here for either of those incidents…” Oliver looks down at my desk, seemingly no longer able to meet my gaze.

I find the paper I’d seen and quickly read it over to find he’s right.

The airline’s paperwork isn’t dated near either of those; instead, the date reads three days ago.

My phone is in my hand before I even make the conscious decision to reach for it. The sound of the line ringing echoes around the room as I wait for Vince to answer.

He always answers. It’s one thing I’ve always been able to count on him for: no matter what, he’s there. I’ve had his answer with a man screaming in the background, mid-torturing, so as the line continues to ring, my anxiety continues to climb until I can no longer stand still.

“Get the others!” I snap, unable to keep my voice even as I dig through my drawer, grabbing my keys and wallet. I don’t look up, but I hear Oliver as he takes off toward the door as fast as he’d come flying in here, and I can’t help but feel grateful for that. He might insist he doesn’t have feelings for Kat, but his feelings aside, he knows we do, and that means something to him.

Vince’s voicemail picks up, and I quickly end the call, swiping through my phone to call Kat. Something tells me she won’t answer either, but I can’t help calling anyway, hoping I’m wrong and that whatever this sinking feeling I have is unnecessary anxiety.

I hear commotion in the hall and realize that it’s time to move. Alex and Desmond won’t sit still and wait to hear back from Vince, and if I’m being honest, I don’t really want to either. Something isn’t right, and I can’t seem to shake the feeling that Kat might be in very real danger. I make it all the way to the door of my office before I’m struck by an idea and quickly turn around.

“Where are you going?” Alex shouts, but I don’t stop, instead running back to my PC.

I’d been hesitant to give Kat that gift, worried that if she learned what it was, I might scare her away, but now I can’t help but be grateful.

“We need to get home!” Desmond yells, storming into my room, but I don’t look up as I quickly type in the information needed to log into the software.

Desmond, in his usual impatient fashion, doesn’t wait around to see what I’m doing. That’s fine, I’d rather him leave, that will put him ahead of us and keep him busy while I do this. I can call him when I know more in a few minutes.

“Tell me you have a good reason for us to still be here, brother,” Alex says, bracing his hands on my desk and leaning over it to try and see what I’m doing.

I know the second he sees what's on the screen when he chuckles. I glance at him and find him shaking his head, but despite that, he doesn’t seem upset, not that I would care much if he did. Oliver stands only a few steps behind his father, looking between us, clearly not understanding but either not feeling the need to ask or not caring enough.

“The children’s museum.” The second her location pops up on the map, I’m moving, not even bothering to shut it down. The program will time out eventually and log me out, and anything else on the PC is protected.

Alex and Oliver follow me out without a word as we move down the hall toward the elevator, not quite running but moving much quicker than we usually do. Anna’s head whips up at the sound of us, and I watch her scramble to put her phone away and appear busy.

Yes, I definitely need to look for a new secretary.

As we make our way down the hall toward her desk, she quickly stands, not even attempting to be subtle, as she presses up her cleavage and makes her way around her desk.

Alex had said she was a bit flirtatious a few times, but for the most part, her attempts were easy to ignore, and she did her job well enough. For whatever reason, today, it’s not so easy to ignore, though.

“Mr. Lawson, I—”

I hold my hand up to stop her talking and hear Oliver chuckle from beside me. I’d forgotten Oliver wasn’t her biggest fan. Maybe I’ll leave him to find her replacement.

“Push everything out for at least two days and hold all calls. Nothing should be forwarded until you hear back from me.”

I expect that to be the end of it, but of course, it’s not.

“But I just scheduled them for today. I can’t move them. Some of these clients have been waiting for a week or longer,” she says, moving to walk with us toward the elevator.

I stop, turning to face her, and I can see that she thinks she’s done something, that she’s more than just a person in a chair. Many employees in this building were hand picked for their position by one of us, but Anna was not. Eleanor, our old secretary, had left on maternity leave almost two years ago and, while out, decided she wanted to stay home with her baby boy instead of returning. I can’t say I blame her, but as such, we had a position to fill, and Anna was exactly that—a fill-in—one of our employees’ cousins who was referred by them and needed a job. We hadn’t had any issues with her that warranted us looking harder, until now.

“You're right,” I tell her and watch as a dazzling smile lights her face.

It’s a shame her attitude is so self-centered. She does well with phones and is very pretty, but her attitude ruins both of them.

I turn to Oliver, who is near the elevator, the button already lit up, meaning he called it. At least we’re not wasting any more time with this, we would be waiting anyway, so why not handle two birds with one stone.

“Can you send out an email to everyone regarding pushing meetings for the next few days on the way?” I ask, and for a moment, Oliver seems caught off guard before he nods. Of course, I knew he could. Honestly, he could probably send them in his sleep, but I was trying to make a point.

I turn back to Anna who looks between us confused. Not that I can blame her, but I’m about to clear it all up for her.

“You're fired. Pack up your things. I’ll have security come up to escort you out.”

Her mouth falls open at the same time the elevator dings, telling me it's arrived. She opens and closes her mouth a few times, but nothing comes out, and I don’t have time to wait around for her to gather her thoughts. In fact, I can’t think of many things that would be worth stopping for right now.

We step into the elevator, and the doors quickly close, leaving Anna behind, and I can once again focus on what’s important.

Fishing my phone from my pocket, I can’t help the frown that pulls at my brows when I see no new messages or missed calls.

What the hell is going on that Vince still hasn’t called back?

My mind races with all the possibilities, but I push them aside for now as I click on Desmond’s number to call him with an update on where we need to be headed.

Even as the elevator reaches the main floor, I know he’ll make it there much faster than us. Not only did he leave before, but that damn bike could get him there in a fraction of the time, even if he hadn’t. I might be a bit jealous of the fact, but I can’t deny I like the idea of one of us being there. Who knows what Carter is up to, especially when he has help we weren’t counting on.