“Do you think I’d be easier on you because I had your dick inside me?”
She was goading me. It was working.
“I’m not looking for easy. I’m looking for a sensible agreement.You didn’t present one.” I was doing everything to keep my voice down, but she was really making that difficult.
“Colson, when you steal something, sensibility goes out the window.”
I held the side of the elevator, my fingers clenching against the wall. “Are you calling me a thief?”
“I’m stating the facts.”
“You’re stating bullshit.”
And her bullshit was going to cost my family twenty million dollars.
She sighed. “Please don’t forget, you brought this upon yourself.”
My head shook as I stared at this ferocious stranger. “Do you really believe that? Or are you just trying to fill the pockets of our jealous competition?”
“I fight for justice.”
As the doors opened, I walked out first, my chivalry dying the moment I found out who she was. “You fight for greed. And I don’t know how you sleep at night.”
“Daddy!” Ellie’s voice radiated from the speaker of my cell as it sat on my desk.
My hands were on the keyboard as I attempted to finish this financial report. A report that would prove, after this morning’s meeting at the Daltons’, that today was officially one of the shittiest days of the year.
“Yes, baby?”
“I don’t want to go to gymnastics, and Michelle says I have to call you and tell you myself. So, I’m telling you Idooon’twaaanttooogooo.”
Michelle, as her nanny, didn’t want to make the executivedecision. She was leaving that up to me, even though we knew this was regarding yesterday’s incident at the gym.
“Is this about Abby?”
“Yes,” she groaned. “She’s so mean to me, Daddy. My arm still hurts from her pushing me.” There was emotion in her voice. “And ’member, she pointed at my cheek and said I had a hole.”
Her dimple was perfect. How dare Abby call my daughter’s face anything but?!
“And she called me ugly!”
My blood was boiling. “You didn’t tell me she called you ugly.”
“She did, Daddy. She’ssooomean!”
No one said those fucking words to my girl; I didn’t care how old Abby was.
I pulled up my calendar, making sure I didn’t have any meetings. “How about this? Michelle will take you to your gymnastics class, and I’ll meet you there. I’ll have a talk with Abby’s mom to make sure nothing like this ever happens again. Does that sound good?”
“Okay.” She wasn’t convinced.
“Ellie, baby, I’m going to fix this.”
“Okay, Daddy.”
“I’ll see you in half an hour. I love you.”
When she ended the call, I grabbed my suit jacket and walked down the hallway. The first door I came to was Eden’s.
