“That’s great news,” he told her and took a seat in one of his guest chairs while she sat atop his desk. He could feel Aubrey’s eyes on him, and couldn’t help but sense a pang of guilt. He could only imagine what she must have been thinking. It didn’t help that the resident gossip of the office, Spencer, was with her at that very moment. “How long are you guys in town for?”
“A few days, give or take. I thought I’d come to visit, you know, since we haven’t seen each other in so long.”
Back when they’d first met, the way she spoke had been music to his ears. She had a spoiled tone to her voice that initially caused him to become interested in her. In the beginning, he’d assumed that she had that tone because she was feisty and didn’t put up with anyone’s bullshit. It turned out she was only a spoilt woman who’d live off her father until his last breath. He’d had a difficult time respecting her while they were together, which caused him to distance himself from her.
It seemed that it didn’t matter since she was always trying to close in the distance their breakup put between them.
“Would you like to go for lunch or something?”
She extended her hand out towards the space between them and admired her nails. “Where were you thinking of going? Also, it’s still morning. I’m interested in going to get a coffee, see some sights, and then maybe go for lunch.”
He should’ve known. His dad was behind this, which meant it was an all-day excursion. Likely brought about by Lisa’s pouting to her father. If he denied her request, he’d only hear about it from his dad and the likelihood that it could ruin the business transaction between Lisa’s father and his own. That was an entirely different kind of guilt that he wouldn’t be able to live down. His whole family would disapprove.
“That sounds great,” he lied and stood up from the chair. “Why don’t you wait for me down in the lobby? I just need to send a few emails, and then I’ll meet you down there.”
“Promise?”
“Absolutely.”
She skipped as she left his office and overlooked everyone as she passed. He could tell that she must’ve spotted Aubrey immediately. Lisa wasn’t known for liking other women as pretty as she was. There had been too many times where he’d seen her destroy girls that she’d decided were her opponents, either through word-of-mouth or social media. When you had as much money as her family did, it was easy to buy your way into ruining someone’s life.
Elijah exhaled deeply the minute she stepped onto the elevator and the doors closed. He took his phone out of the front pocket of his dress pants and tapped onto his contacts. He didn’t care if his dad was in the middle of golfing or having drinks with Lisa’s father. He needed answers, and he should have been warned about this atom bomb beforehand.
He swiped across his dad’s icon, which was an image of him in Bermuda, and listened as the phone started to ring.
“Hello?”
“Dad? Hey. It’s Elijah.”
The phone broke up slightly on his father’s end. “Sorry about that. What is it?”
“Did you send Lisa here today?” Elijah asked and began pacing in his office. He watched as fog covered the skyscrapers in the distance. A grey day for a grey visit.
“She wanted to visit you while she’s in town,” he stated, his voice sharp. “I need you to show her around for the next couple of days while her father and I complete a merger.”
“Seriously? And you couldn’t have told me sooner?”
Elijah wanted to throw his phone on the ground. A few days? He had actual work to do. It was clear that his father would never take his start-ups seriously. Elijah had built Spectrum from the ground up and repaid whatever his father had loaned him in the beginning phases, but it still wasn’t enough.
“You’ll be fine, son. Just keep her preoccupied for a few days.”
Elijah sighed. “Fine, but I can only do two days, max.”
He heard his father laugh on the other end. Elijah wasn’t sure if it was because of the situation or something to do with what was going on wherever he was.
“All right, son. You need anything in the meantime?”
“No, dad,” Elijah said flatly. “I don’t need any money or anything. I’m good.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. I’m good. Listen, I have to go see Lisa. She’s waiting in the lobby.”
“All right, Elijah. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Bye, dad.”
Elijah hung up the phone and gripped it in his palm. Of course, he had offered Elijah money, as though having to hang out with his ex-fiancee was a business transaction. His father always thought in the form of money, a trait that was carried by his oldest brother and passed down from his grandfather. The fact that he’d even offer after having her show up uninvited was enough to cause him to clench his teeth and want to break his desk. Entertaining Lisa was the last thing he wanted to do.
It was just lunch, though. Even if he didn’t want to, he knew he could easily survive a day of visiting a few sights in New York City and having lunch with her before returning back to work. He brought his eyes to Aubrey, who’d started working at her desk. Her red hair fell in front of her face so he couldn’t see her expression. There would have to be some explanation afterward.
In the car later that evening, even the chauffeur appeared frustrated by the sound of Lisa’s voice, and it caused Elijah to physically cringe. She never stopped talking. Eight hours had felt like a lifetime, and he was thanking the universe that he didn’t have to spend the rest of his life with her. They finally reached the office building, and he jumped out first and held the door open for her. Even if he loathed her, it didn’t mean that he couldn’t be a gentleman for his father’s sake.
“So, I was telling Jessica,” she continued, placing a foot outside the limo, “that her boyfriend just wasn’t good enough. I mean, sure he was a doctor, but what did he really have to offer, you know what I mean?”
She followed him into the building without so much as taking a breath or waiting for his reply. The sound of her heels clicking on the marble floor and the screeching of her voice made him grind his teeth together in frustration. It kept his mouth busy with something other than shouting at her to get out and never come back, which his father would certainly not appreciate.
“Then there was what her parents would think,” Lisa said, checking her phone as the elevator dinged. “Like, she should have taken that for granted, too, you know? I just felt as though he wasn’t the one for her.”
Elijah wished someone would come into the elevator and end his life with a bullet to the head. She paused, which caused him to naturally respond as he would have when they were together. “Yeah, that makes sense.”
“Right? I mean, it was just such an obvious thing. So, in the end, she was pretty torn up about it.”
The elevator opened to the office, and, despite everyone working, he could feel their eyes shifting toward him. He could imagine that Lisa being back in his life would have been decent gossip during lunch. She had, after all, caused enough scenes in the office to become a name that you didn’t say for fear that she showed up.