Infidelity: Sacrifice (Kindle Worlds Novella) Read online

  He nodded with a smile. “I’m going to have you shadow Kay,” he continued. “Her cubicle is the first one on the left when you leave this office.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Abbot,” I replied, turning to leave.

  “Oh, Miss Moore,” he called, waiting for me to turn back toward him before he continued. “Before you do that, go and fetch me a cup of coffee.”

  I stood, dumbfounded by his request. “Excuse me?” I questioned.

  “I take it black,” he said dismissively, typing the password into his computer.

  Leaving his office, I tried to mask my anger. Fucking chauvinistic pig. Get your own damn coffee! As I walked past the cubicles, I realized that I wasn’t even sure where the coffee was. I assumed it was in the break room, but where was the break room? I hadn’t exactly been given a tour. After a few minutes of wandering, I finally found it. Luckily, there was a fresh pot of coffee waiting.

  I was nearly back to Mr. Abbot’s office when a petite blonde girl approached me. “Chelsea?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I replied with a smile.

  “I’m Kay. Mr. Fitzgerald wants to see you in his office.”

  My heart dropped. Fuck! What did I do now? “Thank you, Kay. Can you tell me where his office is?”

  “Take the elevator to the top floor and go to your left. You should be able to find it from there,” she explained with a gentle smile.

  I thanked her again and continued toward Mr. Abbot’s office.

  “Where are you going?” she asked. “The elevators are the other way.”

  “Mr. Abbot asked me to get him this cup of coffee.” I held the cup up. “I just want to drop it off before I go up to Mr. Fitzgerald’s office.”

  She shook her head. “Mr. Fitzgerald doesn’t like to wait. I’ll take the coffee to Mr. Abbot.”

  “Thanks,” I said, handing her the cup.

  Stepping off of the elevator on the top floor, my nervousness grew. I understood the danger associated with Alex’s stepfather. I had no doubt that if he thought I was a threat to his business, I would disappear. Alex was family and he apparently had no problem hiring someone to shoot at her.

  Kay was right. It was obvious which office belonged to Alton. There were only a couple of other offices on that floor and his was by far the largest. I walked up to his secretary’s desk. “Hello,” I greeted her. “Mr. Fitzgerald asked to see me.”

  “Your name?” she questioned, not bothering to look up from her game of solitaire.

  “Chelsea Moore.”

  “Oh,” she gasped, looking up at me. She pressed the button on the intercom. “Mr. Fitzgerald, Miss Moore is here to see you.”

  “Send her in,” his deep voice replied. “And make sure that we are not disturbed.”

  “Go on in, dear.” She smiled as if I hadn’t heard his response.

  Returning her smile, I walked toward the office door and taking a deep breath, I turned the handle and entered. My step faltered when I saw Bryce standing near the window along with another man sitting on one of the couches against the wall.

  “Hello, Miss Moore,” Alton greeted me from his seat behind the large desk.

  “Hello, Mr. Fitzgerald,” I replied, wondering when it would be acceptable to address him by his first name instead of his last.

  “Close the door and take a seat,” he ordered.

  Timidly, I did as he said, sitting at one of the chairs in front of his large desk. He gestured toward the man sitting on the couch and introduced him as Mr. Porter. After we exchanged greetings, Alton didn’t waste any more time with pleasantries. He set several pages of paper in front of me. Printed on them were copies of the articles written about Melissa’s accusations and her disappearance. My eyes fluttered toward Bryce. I no longer had any doubt that the accusations were true.

  “Bryce said that you are aware of the situation,” Alton said.

  “I am,” I confirmed.

  “What is the story that the two of you plan to tell in Evanston?” Mr. Porter asked.

  Together, Bryce and I performed our act. By the time we were done, Bryce was sitting in the chair next to me, holding my hand.

  “How much?” Alton asked.

  “Excuse me?” I questioned.

  “How much is Bryce paying you?” he asked, leaning back in his chair.

  “M-Mr. Fitzgerald,” I stuttered, glancing at Mr. Porter. “I don’t think th–”

  “Twenty thousand every month,” Bryce answered, his thumb gently stroking the hand he held.

  “Do you want to know what your problem is, Bryce? You think with your dick instead of your brain,” Alton asserted, shaking his head. “You’re spending over two hundred thousand dollars on a whore when you could have had Alexandria for free.” He turned his attention to me. “Adelaide said you weren’t trustworthy. She always thought you were after the money.”

  “That’s not true,” I argued, tears teetering on my lids. Bryce squeezed my hand tighter.

  “Alexandria thinks it is,” Alton retorted.

  “What?” I gasped.

  “Last night, Adelaide called Alexandria. We thought it would be better coming from us instead of social media,” he said.

  Turning toward Bryce, I begged, “Let me call her. Please! I need to explain.”

  “Adelaide explained everything,” Alton assured me.

  “And your contract with Mr. Spencer is confidential,” Mr. Porter chimed in. “You cannot tell Alexandria, or anyone else about it.”

  Bryce was silent as he led me through the building and into his own office. It was a floor below Alton’s and less than half the size. I knew that he was angry, but I was too worried about keeping my own emotions in check. It was a miracle that I hadn’t burst into tears. Bryce closed the door and ran his hands through his hair.

  “Please let me call her,” I tried again, following him to his desk. “I promise that I won’t say anything about Infidelity. I’ll stick to our story.”

  “No,” he growled. “I told you last night. A cell phone is a privilege, not a right.”

  “Bryce, I need my phone.” I tried to reason with him. “Even if I can’t call Alex, I still need to be able to communicate with other people. My mom doesn’t even know I’m in Savannah. She’ll get worried if I don’t call soon.”

  “I’ll get you a new phone.” He sighed, collapsing into his chair. “With which you may communicate with a pre-approved list of people. No one else, understand?”

  “Yes, Bryce.” I wished with all my heart that I could call Alex, but this was better than nothing. “Thank you.”

  “Come show me how thankful you are.”

  My stomach churned. “No, Bryce,” I pleaded. “Not here.”

  Standing, he towered over me, once again reminding me who was in charge. “Yes, here,” he countered. “Anywhere I want. Anytime I want. Why?”

  I tried to back away but he grabbed my hair. “I’ll scream,” I whimpered. “Let me go or I’ll scream!”

  “No, you won’t,” he taunted, twisting my hair tighter. “Now tell me why.”

  “Because I’m your whore,” I responded. It was a phrase that he had made me repeat numerous times the previous night. He seemed to get pleasure out of my misery.

  The phone rang, causing us both to jump. Releasing his hold on me, Bryce answered it. “Hello.”

  I took the opportunity to move away from Bryce to the other side of the desk.

  “Yes, send him up,” Bryce said before placing the handset back on the base. “Go back to HR. I have more important things to do.”

  Chapter Seven

  “You were amazing,” Bryce praised, pulling me into a kiss. The driver steered the car away from the curb and started driving toward the hotel.

  We had just left the prosecutor's office in Evanston. The experience had been harder than I imagined. I hadn’t realized that my testimony would be taken under oath. I could tell that Mr. Stanton, the prosecutor, didn’t believe our story.

  “Miss Moore,” Mr. Sta
nton began. “These proceedings have been going on for quite some time. Why didn’t you come forward sooner?”

  “As I stated before, the relationship between Mr. Spencer and I was a secret due to the previous relationship between him and my old roommate,” I explained. “We didn’t want her to find out about us. Besides, I was not with Mr. Spencer or Ms. Summers on the night she claims that he attacked her. I was, however, with Mr. Spencer when Ms. Summers disappeared.”

  “You were?” Mr. Stanton asked with a raised eyebrow. “Do you have evidence to support this?”

  “We have Mr. Spencer’s travel documents,” Mr. Porter offered, handing the papers to Mr. Stanton. As the papers exchanged hands, my eyes caught a snippet of the words. It was a plane ticket proving that Bryce had flown into Palo Alto. However, the date on the ticket was the same night that I had been attacked. I tried to hide my surprise.

  “Let’s go out tonight,” Bryce suggested. “There’s a great little French restaurant in Chicago.”

  “Chicago?” I repeated. I hadn’t realized how close we were.

  “Yes.” He ran a hand up my thigh. “And then, if you’re good, we could go out and do a little dancing.”

  “Alton said to keep a low profile,” I reminded him, placing my hand on his to stop its ascent underneath my dress.

  “I feel too good to stay locked in the hotel room,” he complained, moving his lips to my neck. He freed his hands from mine and moved them up the sides of my body. “Then again, maybe staying in won’t be so bad after all. I’m sure that you could think of a way to keep me entertained.”

  “I’m sure that I could,” I agreed. Playing along had gotten a lot easier over the past couple of days. He had been acting like the perfect gentleman. I was sure that it was because of the upcoming deposition. If I didn’t testify, he was screwed. He knew it, and I knew it. Now that it was over, I wondered how his mood would change.

  “I have something for you,” he offered, reaching into his pocket.

  Pushing away from him, I threatened, “I swear to God, if it’s another Mardi Gras necklace…”

  “It’s not.” He chuckled, pulling out a phone.

  My heart leapt but I tried to contain my excitement. Being without a phone for the past four days had sucked. I reached for it, but he pulled it away.

  “I transferred your contacts,” he stated. “With the exception of one. Do not call Alexandria. I will find out about it and you won’t like the consequences.”

  “I won’t call her,” I promised.

  Bryce handed me the phone as the driver pulled up next to our hotel. I wanted to call my mom, to fill her in on my move to Georgia, but Bryce had other plans. The rest of the evening was filled with keeping him entertained.

  The next morning, Bryce had a business meeting that I wasn’t invited to attend. That was fine. I was more than happy to stay in the room with my new phone and make some long overdue phone calls.

  “Hello,” Mom answered after the fourth ring.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “Who is this?” she asked.

  I rolled my eyes. “Scarlett Johansson. I’m calling to let you know that I’m your long-lost daughter. Jesus, Mom! Who do you think it is?”

  “Kelsey?” she questioned.

  “Mom,” I screeched. “It’s Chelsea!”

  “Well, I’m sorry, dear, but you haven’t called in so long that I’ve forgotten what your voice sounds like,” she teased.

  “I’m sorry.” I laughed.

  “So what’s been going on that it’s kept you too busy to call your ma?”

  I took a deep breath to steady my voice. I didn’t enjoy lying to her. “Long story short,” I began, “I moved in with my boyfriend.”

  “You have a boyfriend?” she questioned. “Who? Is he hot? Give me all the dirty details!”

  “Actually, you’ve already met him. Remember that guy who came to see me while I was in the hospital? Bryce Spencer?”

  “Vaguely,” she replied. “Wait. Wasn’t that guy looking for your friend?”

  “Yes.”

  “Isn’t he her ex-boyfriend?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  She paused before continuing, “And you moved in with him? Doesn’t he live in, like, Georgia or something?”

  “Yep.”

  “You moved to Georgia?” she screeched.

  “To Savannah and I got a job working at the same place where he does. Montague Corporation,” I said. “I’m in the human resources department.”

  “Slow down, girl,” she begged. “You’ve got my head spinning in circles! Let me get this straight. You moved to Georgia, without even talking to me, to move in with some guy that you barely even know, and to take a job that has nothing to do with that degree that you worked so hard for?”

  “I do know him, Mom. We’ve been dating for nearly four years.”

  “You never told me about him,” she hummed.

  “It was a secret. We didn’t want Alex to know.”

  “You slept with her ex behind her back? What does she think about that?”

  “I didn’t just sleep with him,” I argued. I needed to make our story believable. “If it was just sex, I never would have done that to Alex. You know that. I fell in love with the guy, Mom. And to answer your question, Alex hates me. She doesn’t understand.”

  “Can you blame her?”

  “No,” I replied, shaking my head.

  “You should call her,” she advised. “You two have been friends for a long time. You shouldn’t throw that all away over a boy.”

  Bryce opened the door and walked in, eyeing me suspiciously. “I need to go, Mom. I just wanted to give you my new number.”

  “Have you been a good girl?” Bryce asked with a raised eyebrow as I disconnected the call.

  “Check for yourself,” I replied, forcing a smile as I handed him the phone.

  He accepted my offer and scrolled through my call log. “Who’s Dee?” he asked.

  “She’s my aunt,” I lied. In actuality, it was what I had changed Deloris’s name to in my contact list. I did have an aunt named Dee but I hadn’t spoken to her in years. I didn’t even have her number.

  “You called your aunt before you called your mom?” he questioned.

  I shrugged casually. “The last time that I spoke to my mom she mentioned that she was going to go on a trip to visit my aunt. In the past, my mom hasn’t gotten reliable cell service when she went to visit Aunt Dee, so I thought that it would be better to just call Dee first. But Dee told me that something had come up and Mom hadn’t been able to make the trip.” He didn’t say anything so I continued. “How was your meeting?”

  “Fine,” he answered, handing me back the phone. I relaxed. He'd bought the lie. “Are you ready to go? We need to be at the airport in an hour.”

  Chapter Eight

  “Did you like that restaurant last night?” Bryce asked as he bit into a slice of toast.

  We had gone out on our first official date the night before. He had taken me to an overly fancy French restaurant. “The food was nice,” I commented, sipping my orange juice. After the deposition, it had become easier to talk with him. When he was in a good mood, he even enjoyed a little banter. Still, I wasn’t sure that I could tell him that I thought the restaurant he took me to was boring.

  “We need to go out again tonight if we want Savannah to notice us,” he said.

  “It seemed like a lot of people noticed us last night.”

  “There’s a seafood restaurant near the coast,” he offered.

  “Okay.” I worked to hide my disappointment.

  “You don’t like that idea?” he questioned. Apparently, I hadn’t hidden it very well.

  “It sounds lovely,” I lied.

  “Lovely?” His eyebrows arched. The twinkle in his eye eased any concern I had about him being upset. “Well, now I know that you're lying. Chelsea Moore does not describe things as lovely.”

  “I’m sorry, Bryce,” I apologized with a g
iggle. “Fancy restaurants just aren’t my idea of a perfect date.”

  “All right then,” he said. “What do you suggest we do?”

  My eyebrows scrunched together in confusion. I couldn’t be hearing him right. “You’re seriously asking for my suggestions?”

  “The day is yours.” He smiled. “After your performance at the deposition, I think you’ve earned it. Whatever you want to do, my dear, we will do.”

  “You’re going to regret this,” I laughed, moving to stand.

  “God, I think that I already do.”

  “Put on some jeans,” I ordered. “We’re going to the fair.”

  “The fair?”

  “Kay told me that the county fair started a couple of days ago. And we are going!”

  “Is it too late to take back my offer?” he asked, scrunching his nose at the idea.

  “Oh, there is no getting out of this.”

  ***

  “Up and down or round and round?” I asked, handing Bryce the tickets to put in his wallet.

  “I agreed to come to the fair,” Bryce grumbled. “I never said anything about getting on one of these broken-down death traps!”

  “Stop being overly dramatic.” I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “If we die, you can say I told you so.”

  “Very funny. Can’t I just win you a stuffed animal, eat some excessively greasy food, and go home?”

  “Oh my God,” I squeaked. “They have the Zipper.”

  “Which one is that?” His eyes widened as I pointed to the ride.

  “You’re kind of cute when you’re scared,” I teased, standing on my tippy toes to kiss his cheek.

  “I’m picking the next ride.”

  I smiled, leading him to where the line for the Zipper began. “Yes, Bryce,” I agreed. “You can pick the next ride.”

  I wasn’t sure who screamed louder, me or Bryce. However, as my screams mixed with laughter, so did his. “See?” I gloated as we stepped off the ride platform. “We survived!”

  “It’s a miracle,” he retorted.

  “You loved it.”

  “What I would love is to get some food,” he suggested, wrapping his arm around my shoulder. “I’m starving.”