“Thanks, Ma.”
Eli looks at his daughter again. I can see the longing in his face. He wants to hug her too, I can just tell. But she wouldn’t be comfortable with that yet and he respects that.
On a frustrated exhale, he grabs his keys from the mantle and heads out the door.
10 Eli
I’m still not sure how I feel about heading back to work so soon after getting out of jail. But after what happened in the kitchen with the nanny last night, I couldn’t trust myself to spend the entire day cooped up in that house with her without putting my hands on her.
So, here I am, in town, ready to face the world after being locked away for years.
The moment I step into the lobby of the Kingston Realties’ headquarters, a scowl takes up its place on my expression. Jesus. I wasn’t gone that long. Yet somehow, they managed to completely undo everything I once worked so hard to put together. Everything.
First off, where the hell is the rug I had in the entryway? I remember it took my assistant months to find the right piece. And what idiot decided that gold tin-foil walls were a good idea? There’s this weird light fixture thing casting dizzying geometric shapes all over the floors and ugly digital cityscapes on big-screen monitors looming down from the ceilings. What the hell?
The whole thing is weird. It’s all cold. So clinical.
Nothing about the lobby is warm and inviting. Not anymore. I feel like I stepped into downtown Manhattan, instead of small town, Illinois.
This place screams, “We’re rich and posh and way too good for you.” It’s gross.
Cannon. This whole place has Cannon written all over it.
“Can I help you, sir?” a chirpy mannequin-lady with too-shiny hair asks from behind her gleaming chrome desk.
Is she talking to me? I pause and check over my shoulder for someone who might have followed me inside. “Who? Me?”
She nods, with a sickeningly enthusiastic smile. Her cast-iron stiff hairstyle doesn’t budge.
“No. No, you cannot,” I bite out.
Her face falls. Not my problem.
I jab at the elevator button and when the doors slide open, I take a ride up to the top floor.
The office is bustling when I walk in. Phones ringing. Printers spitting out paper. Busy-looking people swerving around each other like worker ants in the narrow spaces between their cubicles.
No one stops to spare me a glance so I make my way down the hallway. Everything looks different around here, completely redesigned in that frigid, impersonal style that took over the lobby like a disease.
I find my brother just where I expected him. Dad’s old office. Can’t say that it doesn’t sting.
That’s supposed to be my office. Mine.
I had planned on moving my stuff in there eventually. But I hadn’t swooped in the minute Dad retired. I’d wanted to give him the chance to clear out his thirty-plus years’ worth of belongings. I felt like I owed him that much respect. Now, my brother has overtaken the space. Looks like the corner office is just another one of the many things I lost when my ass landed in jail.
Cannon is babbling on the phone, ankles crossed on top of the desk, twisting a pen around his fingers like a pro. A pro at taking over my life.
When my brother’s eyes land on me, his brows shoot up into his hairline. His surprise wears off quickly and he holds up a finger, asking me to wait. But patience is not my friend today. I just keep right on walking, eyes laser-focused on my own office down the hall.
Within seconds, I hear Cannon bounding after me. Apparently, he cut his call short for me.
Aww. I’m touched. Whatever.
I shove open my office door. But instead of finding my old desk collecting dust, I find yet another rearranged room.
The idiot in my chair jumps and blinks in surprise. He snaps his laptop shut and swallows hard. With the weird look on his face, I’m willing to bet I just walked in on him watching porn on company time. We embark on an awkward stare-off.
My brother is now right behind me, calling my name. I turn to face him. “Who is this guy, and where the fuck is my stuff?”
Cannon grimaces and looks almost as uncomfortable as the asshole sitting in my chair. I liked that chair, dammit.
“Uh. Well, this is Jeff. Jeff is our head of acquisitions. He came highly recommended from—”
“Where’s my stuff?” I cut him off, already bored of hearing about Jeff.
Cannon’s face morphs into an oh shit! expression. He yanks his collar away from his throat and his eyes go deer-in-the-headlights wide, like he has no idea how to answer my simple question.
He calls down the hallway to his secretary. “Sally, would you show Eli to his stuff, please?” His eyes plead with her, hopeful that she knows where my belongings are stashed.
“Of course…” In the sea of employees, Sally—who worked as Dad’s secretary back in the day—is the only familiar face I’ve seen so far. She jumps up, sends a scrutinizing look my way and starts off down another hallway.
I shoot a glare at Jeff, then my brother, before following after Sally. The prim and proper older woman leads me. Cannon is still on my tail like a security escort.
Whispers sweep through the room now. The new employees are beginning to realize who I am—Eli, the criminal son—and they’re watching my every move.
I may be out of jail, I may be a free man, but my name is forever sullied by the crimes attached to it. That’s my sad reality.
We stop at a narrow door in a dark corner, and Sally attempts to yank it open. It takes her three hard pulls before the hinges give, and the door flings open. A cloud of dust spills into the hallway just as the jerky movement sends her flying backward. Cannon
