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Who in their right mind was calling me to disrespect me in this way? They had to be a lunatic.
I was about to hang up when they said the word predator. “Excuse me?” I reared back to say. Those kinds of accusations could be grounds for a lawsuit.
“I will be taking my business elsewhere to a more reputable firm. I don’t want my case to be handled by the likes of you,” the person said.
“Who the hell is this?” I yelled so I could get a word in over Mr. Yappy mouth.
“It’s Mr. Robert McIntosh, you braindead creep,” he said before slamming the phone down in my ear.
Oh, shit.
Mr. McIntosh was a younger client, one who would have brought incredible business to our firm. Landing him would’ve meant good things for our investors and our bank account.
Damn it.
Where the hell was Melissa? I jumped up from my seat, fire burning below my feet, launching me out the door to search the floors for her. I ended up in the breakroom. It had a large flat-screen television mounted on the wall, and the otherwise generous space was packed full of my employees.
“What the hell is happening here?” I shouted, and all heads whipped around at me in unison, sounding like a whoosh against the soft air-conditioned wind. Soon, the crowd dispersed, but not everyone was apologetic, running to their seats to get back to work. Some of them ran to their seats to grab their bags instead and storm through the office doors.
As I stared at them in incredulous disbelief, Melissa’s voice broke through the haze of confusion. “Mr. Crawford, you need to see this,” she said, hurrying to her desk.
My eyes were still frozen in the direction of the door as associates and upper-level attorneys alike kept filing out. As I opened my mouth to yell at them, Melissa came back to tug on my hand, pulling me forward.
“Mr. Crawford, that’s the least of your worries. Trust me, you’re going to want to see this,” she said as I followed her, almost stumbling forward in bewilderment.
Her fingers tapped away at her keyboard before a video of Mr. and Mrs. Levine popped up on the screen. She pressed play, and my knees wobbled. I couldn’t feel my feet and had to clutch onto Melissa’s desk to keep from falling.
We were losing clients and employees. This company would crash and burn just as it had before with my father, and it would all be because of a stupid, devious lie.
Chapter 4
Mario
Mygraysuitjacketwas draped around the back of my chair. My body was so hot from the conversation with Tiffany. She was right, I was avoiding her. But I was also right; work was holding me hostage as I tried to get her apartment back from Chris.
It had me tapping my fingers against my desk in frustration now as I responded to another email from Chris’ attorneys; he was being intentionally difficult.
But she and I both knew that under normal circumstances, it would be so hard for me to keep away from her, I’d be filling her phone up with the things I wanted to do to her. And man, there were a lot of things.
Her sweet lips were one of the top things I ached for, so was the softness of her breasts and the brightness of her smile. My cock tightened in desperation, missing the feel of her stretching around me. But I couldn’t say any of that to her without thinking about how Chris knocked me unconscious with a bar stool.
There was pain, deep pain, and disgust in Chris’ eyes, and I put that there, along with the rest of the guys. The thought of messaging her just felt wrong for some reason. And I was trying not to. Not only that, but there was a sense of responsibility that I felt for the loss of her apartment and the rift between her and her brother. If I had just gone ahead and resisted her that night. If… then I would’ve missed out on her, and that would’ve also been a shame.
Being with her wasn’t what filled me with regret. I broke Chris’ trust in me, ruining our friendship and ruining their sibling relationship. It was the reason he got the apartment for her in the first place and now to have him take it back? The apartment was more than just a gift for her. It was his first big brother gesture to act as some kind of missing glue between them. Their age difference made him miss so much of her life.
It always felt like she was someone he’d have to gain the respect of, gain the trust of, and her choice not to tell him about us made him feel like he had failed. He trusted me with information like this, which made this even more painful. I should have known better. It could’ve been helped if I had told him. If I wasn’t such a coward.
Knowing the amount of years we spent with each other, supporting each other, growing with each other, made this so hard to swallow for Chris. It was knowing the stages of life we’d lived through together. Compared to her stages of life, it was disgusting for Chris to think about. And his disgust made it feel that much worse for us even if we had nothing to be disgusted about.
To distract myself from the thoughts that threatened to eat me alive, I put on a livestream of the news and gave the emails from Chris’ lawyers a break. Calling my assistant’s line to check up on another client, there was no answer. When I popped my head out to look for her at her desk, she wasn’t there.
Okay, maybe it was time for a stretch and some coffee anyway before moving on to something else. Getting up from the desk, I grabbed my mug and made my way over to the lunch room. On my way there, I noticed that most of the office was empty and while standing in the lunch room, my ears caught wind of the chatter coming from the break room next door. Did I miss something? Why was there a gathering in the break room?
After I filled up my mug with coffee with the press of a button, I sipped on it on my walk toward the chatter. I hadn’t even gotten to the door yet when I heard ‘Mario Sharpe, Anthony Whitlocke, and Jared Crawford did something to my daughter.’
What the fuck? I spat the coffee out in shock, hurrying toward the source of the audio to see Tiffany’s father on screen, telling a bold-faced lie, basically calling me and the guys predators. Oh, the nerve of them. I couldn’t believe Chris allowed this to happen. Okay, maybe that was out of his control. Heaven knew that neither of the Levine children had any control whatsoever over their parents’ actions.
“I’m sure they’re going to sue me for defamation anyway. Bring it on!” Mr. Levine said. My heart sank because of what had to happen next.
