He Said Children Were a Mistake, So I Ran With His Baby novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Her Own Logs

Elena returns to the city dinner in a wool coat and proves in public that she took nothing. Maxim sees her, and she sees Margot's hand on his arm.

Five weeks later I walked into the Plaza ballroom in a black wool coat I did not take off.

It was the Logistics Association dinner, the one night a year when every client Maxim had ever signed sat in one room.

I had organized it for six years.

This was the first time I'd come in through the front.

The man at the door looked at my name card, then looked again, and said, "Ms. Bruni, we weren't told."

"I know," I said. "Is my table still the third one from the stage?"

He didn't answer, so I went and found it myself.

Half the people there were already staring.

I could hear the word thief traveling from table to table, one quiet whisper at a time.

Margot was at the head table in a pearl-colored dress, laughing with a woman from one of our biggest accounts.

When she saw me, her whole face went soft with concern.

She stood up, crossed the room and took both my hands.

"Elena, you shouldn't be here," she said. "Not with all this. Come out to the hall and let me get you some water."

"I'm fine," I said.

I had a folder under my arm, a dated printout of every file I had touched in my last month at the company.

At the center of the room, a reporter from the trade site was talking to Maxim's general counsel.

I walked up to them.

I was shaking, but I kept my voice level, because I had learned that from the best.

"You ran a story saying I copied the client list on my last night," I said. "I'd like to correct it."

The reporter went pale.

The room went quiet one table at a time.

"Ms. Bruni, we had multiple sources, and..."

"Then you had multiple liars." I opened the folder and held it up so the nearest tables could see. "I left the building at 12:10 on a Wednesday afternoon. My badge was deactivated at 12:15. The client list was copied at 9:14 that night, under my login."

I turned the page.

"My login was dead by then. A dead login can only be reopened by two people in that company. One is Maxim, and he was at dinner with the Singapore partners, on camera, until eleven."

Somebody at the next table put down a fork.

"Who's the other one?" the reporter asked.

I didn't look at Margot.

I didn't need to, because every head at the board table had already turned to find her.

"I don't know," I said. "Ask the person who told you I'd been negotiating with a rival for months."

"This is outrageous," Margot said gently. She laughed, one small laugh. "Elena, you're upset. We all understand. Nobody here is accusing you of anything."

"You are, Margot," I said. "You're just doing it kindly."

The general counsel took the folder from my hand and read the first page, then the second.

His mouth went thin.

He gave it to the reporter without a word.

"I'll want a retraction by tomorrow morning," I said to the reporter. "On the front page, not the bottom."

The reporter nodded, and kept nodding.

I turned to leave.

Maxim was standing ten feet behind me.

I hadn't seen him come in.

He wore the dark suit I had picked up from the tailor for him in August.

He was thinner, and there were shadows under his eyes I had never seen in six years.

His eyes went over my face, my coat and my hands.

"You left without a word," he said.

His voice was low, so that only I could hear.

"You told forty people why," I said. "I didn't need to add anything."

"Elena."

"I didn't take your files, Maxim. I didn't take anything."

"I never thought you did."

I stopped.

"Then why did you let them say it?"

He opened his mouth.

For one second he said nothing at all.

"Because I couldn't find you," he said.

That was the best he could do, and it was not good enough.

My coat was heavy and my back was starting to ache.

I could feel, very faintly, a flutter under my ribs that I hadn't felt before.

I put one hand inside my coat, over it.

His eyes went to that hand.

Then someone from the next table called his name, and he looked away, and I walked out through the lobby with my head high and my knees weak.

A cab was waiting on Fifth Avenue.

I got in and told the driver the bus terminal.

As we pulled away I looked back through the rear window.

Maxim had followed me out onto the steps.

Margot was beside him.

She laid her hand on his arm and said something, close to his ear, and his face turned toward her.

He didn't pull away.

He stood there and let the cab go.

← Chapter 2 · All chapters · Chapter 4 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend