AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Confusion clouds my head. Only one person would be using my card, and she's supposed to be at Ravel. There must be a mistake. "Are you telling me that a woman came in trying to use the card and you took it away from her?"
Silence. "Er, yes. We didn't think that it was an authorized."
I take a moment before I answer. "I'm coming down. Don't leave."
"Yes, sir. Of cour —"
I tuck the phone in my pocket and stand up. "We're done here."
"Respectfully, Matthias, we're not done. There's still a lot to discuss about you and Clarissa."
I face the five members of the board who decided to ambush me on the closest thing I have to a day off. One of them being Terry Masters, Clarissa's asshole of a father.
I've been tempering my annoyance for half an hour while they talk at me about all the reasons they think my engagement to Clarissa is a bad idea. They have conveniently forgotten that the whole reason I even considered this solution in the first place is because they had given me a veiled ultimatum: fuck up the Kids & Care IPO and you're done.
"I'm leaving, but please, by all means spend your Saturday discussing something that's already happened. I'm doing it for the good of the company since you all decided that it was so important that people pay attention to my reputation rather than the work I do. So, I've appeased you once, you don't get a say any more. Now, if you will excuse me, I have to attend to my fiancée. Because, unlike some people at this table, I actually care about how she's doing."
As I make it to the door of the conference room, I twist around, glaring at her father.
"You and me, we're going to talk, Terry. And you're going to have a lot of explaining to do."
I run out of the office and jump into the first available cab before it even has a chance to come to a stop.
"The Ravel showroom. Make it fast and there's a $500 tip for you."
I pick up the phone to call her, but there's no answer.
Kevin picks up before the first ring is over.
"Kevin, where is she?"
"Sir, you need to come here quickly."
I roll out of the still moving cab when it pulls up outside of Ravel. Kevin is standing by the car, pretending he's not looking in the backseat window, but he's been with me for too long to fool me.
A quick glance at him as I run to the car is enough to tell me I'm not going to like what I find.
He opens the door for me and I climb inside.
She's sitting, back straight, staring out the window. I rub my arms, goosebumps trailing forearms. It shouldn't be cold in here, but it is.
"Clarissa."
She doesn't say anything, doesn't move. Like she's turned to stone.
"Are you having a panic attack?" I ask, but this feels different.
This time she shakes her head.
"What happened, darling?"
She looks at me, no, she looksright throughme. "Nothing. I don't think I'm going to get a dress for the gala from here. There just wasn't anything I wanted."
My heart aches, the pain in her voice is the only give away that something's wrong. "We can go after you tell me what happened. Did they say something to you?"
"No," she says, so quiet I can barely hear her. "I don't think I want to get a dress."
"Clarissa, there may be lots of things I don't know about you, but I know you're not going to say no to a new dress. What happened? Is it because they took my card? It's okay, we'll get a new card."
