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“Where are you going?” Derrick answered, but Chess was already at the door. She yanked the door open and stormed out of the office.
Her first stop was an office, but she found it unoccupied. However, a coworker let her know that her target was in the conference room. After a curt ‘thank you’, Chess marched to the conference room. When she got there, she didn’t even bother knocking. She just shoved the door open and barged into the room.
“What the hell?” Mark, who was currently in a meeting with three of his team members, looked up in startled confusion. “Didn’t your mama ever teach you to knock before you enter a room? Manners, lady!”
Ignoring the three bystanders, Chess focused her fury on her nemesis.
“It was you, wasn’t it?” Though her tone was low, no one could miss the rage thundering below it.
“Umm… I think we’ll leave you two to talk,” one of the bystanders spoke before Mark could answer, and a second later, all three bystanders fled the room.
“What are you talking about, Winters?” Mark asked once he and Chess were alone. Though he was trying to sound calm, Chess could see the fear glimmering in his eyes.
“It was you, wasn’t it?” She took a step towards him.
“Hold it. Hold it.” Mark shot up from his seat and quickly circled the large oval table so he and Chess were facing each other but with a very large barrier between them to protect him. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
Chess slammed her palms into the table and scowled at him. “If you didn’t want me to do anything stupid, you shouldn’t have touched my family.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mark said, but his shifty eyes and the way he grabbed a seat and stood behind it as if to create a bigger shield for himself made it clear that he knew what she was talking about.
She bit out, “You crossed a line by bringing Jay into this nonsense.”
“Well, you crossed the line first.” Pouting, Mark added, “If you hadn’t decided to leak confidential information about my premiere to tea channels, I wouldn’t have had to go nuclear on your ass.”
“So you admit-” Chess paused for a beat once she digested his whole sentence. “What confidential information did I leak?”
“Oh yeah, pretend like you don’t know. Classic Chelsea Winters; pretending to be nice while hiding your hands.” Mark’s top lip curled in a sneer. “I contacted one of the presenters of those tea channels and they said you’d sent them an email with all the details about the event. KGM is threatening to replace us. And it’s all your fault.”
“I didn’t send an email to anyone,” Chess protested. “I have my hands full with my own shit. Why would I bother with yours?”
Mark kissed his teeth. “Lies!”
“Not lies,” she said. “And let’s say I did – which I didn’t-”
Mark flipped his imaginary hair. “More lies!”
Chess pulled in a deep breath before continuing, “Even if I did what you claim I did, that’s still not a good reason to bring my personal life into our drama.”
Now Chess’s anger was tinged with a fair bit of distress. “This is a child we’re talking about – my child. You used my eight-year-old baby as some kind of tool for revenge. That’s low. Actually, that’s worse than low… it’s nasty, demented, and psychopathic. Who does that? You scarred my child just to score a few petty points? For a job? What is wrong with you?”
She was almost in tears by the time she finished, and Mark noticed it. All the bravado and sassiness drained from his expression. His body sort of sagged and he exhaled heavily. “Okay, you’re right. Maybe I went a little too far.”
She exploded. “A LITTLE TOO FAR?”
“Look, I’m sorry.” He winced. “I was just mad because you were messing with me and acted without thinking things through. I shouldn’t have brought your kid into this. I’m sorry.”
Instead of soothing her, his apology was like a knife burying itself deeper into her heart. Though her tone was lower, she was still incredibly furious as she said, “I’m sorry won’t cut it this time. The gloves are off, Mark. I will make sure you pay for this.”
CHESS’S DISTRESS WAS NOTHING WHEN compared to what Tazeem was feeling. Even hours after their confrontation, he was still reeling in pain.
When he’d left her office, his first thought had been to go to a bar and drink his pain away. He’d even started driving to one, but halfway there he’d changed his mind. Eight years ago, he’d quit alcohol after realizing that intoxication was the reason he’d had to take a ride from ‘disloyal’ friends, and thus lost his family. Chelsea Winters wasn’t going to make him step back into the person he’d been back then.
His next option was to go home. But the thought of sitting in that big condo all alone and wallowing in his misery wasn’t appealing. In the end, he’d chosen to come back to the office in hopes that being around people and immersing himself in work would ease some of his pain.
None of that had worked. And now most of his coworkers had signed out, which meant he was once again alone in his thoughts.
Though night had set in, he didn’t bother switching on the lights. The darkness in his office made the city skyline beyond the large window he was facing seem so much brighter. However, his eyes did not see that beautiful brilliance and his brain did not acknowledge it. All his senses were still blinded by the haze of rage that the afternoon’s events had birthed. The more he thought about everything, the more he hated Chess.
