Downgrade My Ride? I'll Upgrade My Groom! novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: The Open Office

Bailey went out through the revolving door and didn't look back.

I stood there in Clay's sweatpants with her words in my ear.

"What did she say?" Clay asked.

"Ask my father who paid for her school."

He frowned.

"The Atwood & Sons scholarship," I said slowly. "It has to be. Dad's company used to pay college for kids of store staff. Her mother must have worked the counter."

"So your father put her through school."

"And then got her a job with my fiancé." I rubbed my forehead and hit the bandage and winced. "She wants me to think he chose her over me."

"Did he?"

I didn't answer.

I called my father.

It went to voicemail.

I called again, and it went to voicemail faster.

On Monday morning I walked into Kenward Hotels at nine sharp.

The offices took up the ninth floor of the Kenward Grand.

I had chosen the carpet, the glass walls and the brass letters over the reception desk.

The receptionist saw me and dropped her pen.

I was wearing my own clothes now, a black suit from the box marked WORK, and my mother's pearls.

Clay had offered to come.

I'd told him I could fire my own coworkers, thank you.

He'd said I didn't work there anymore.

I'd said that was a technicality.

The open office went quiet in a ripple, desk by desk, as I walked through it.

My box was already packed on my old desk.

Somebody had put a sticky note on top. "Feel better! xoxo."

The girl from social was at her desk by the window, scrolling.

The two guys from sales were at the coffee machine.

I stopped in the middle of the floor.

"Morning," I said. "I need three minutes."

The girl from social put her phone down slowly.

"Saturday you filmed me on my father's steps," I said. "You posted it before I'd made it to the end of the drive. Then the company account posted a clip of it with the van cut out."

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