Insufferable Proximity (41 page)

Heaven had made a bee line to her desk, but could not help but feel the odd intensity around her. She looked around the floor to see a few employees staring at her. A few of the secretaries were also looking, whispering behind their hands with their eyes focused on her. Heaven continued on to her office despite the chaos surrounding her, wondering what the hell was going on while praying it wasn’t about her.

She had made it to her office when her secretary handed her a large cup of coffee, extra sugar and plenty of cream just the way Heaven love it.

“Thank you Mrs. Styles, you’re a godsend.” Heaven took the cup before entering her office, her dutiful secretary right behind her.

“You’re going to need it, you have that appointment with the district attorney in thirty minutes and you know how long winded he can be.”

“Shit!” she hissed, something she rarely did at the job, “I forgot all about that meeting today.” she hurried and grabbed everything she needed for the meeting then headed back out of her office. “And do you have any idea what is going on? When I came in everyone was acting very strange.”

“I noticed it too, the entire floor has been unusually quiet and I can’t get anyone to tell me what was going on.” she shrugged, “but you know if I hear anything I will tell you immediately.”

“Thanks again.” Heaven said before leaving for her meeting.

***

Maite Montage, Ayden’s loyal secretary had just entered the cafeteria when she noticed some of the younger secretaries holding something, their eyes wide as talked amongst themselves. Whatever it was looked important to them, so Maite, in her usual fashion walked over to see what they were whispering about. Adele tried to hide the paper behind her back but Maite grabbed it, she took one look and almost gasped.

“Where did you get this rubbish?” she snapped at the secretaries.

“It was just laying here on the table.” Adele answered with a frown and Maite turned around and stormed out of the room.

“Oh shit.” Adele said in alarm.

“Oh shit is right.” Reese scoffed before stepping away from Adele.

“Mr. King.” Maite opened his door to see him sitting behind his large desk.

“Come on in, Maite.” he smiled, thankful for such a loyal secretary. Maite was a joy to have around, she never took things to seriously but was not afraid to speak her mind, a quality he valued.

“Someone left this in the cafeteria.” she laid the black and white computer print out on his desk with Heaven and Julian’s named in bold black ink at the bottom. “The secretaries were actually passing it around when I took it.”

“Thank you, Julian warned me about this himself,” he felt a little bad lying to her since she was such an honest woman but he had to protect his son, “it’s some ex-flame holding a petty grudge who just happens to look like Ms. Deville. She’s trying her hardest to get him fired and thought that fraternizing might work.”

“I know it had to be something like that, if she had of tried it with anyone else, she may have been believed, but not Ms. Deville. Those two couldn’t be in the same room without killing each other.” she grinned with relief.

“I said the same exact thing, and thank you again Mrs. Montage, you are such an asset to this firm.” he winked and Mrs. Montage felt her heart swell, there was nothing she wouldn’t do for this firm.

***

Julian was on his way to his father’s office when he finally noticed the hush that fell over the floor as he walked through. He turned to see almost every employee staring at him, somewhere cautious enough to turn away as he looked in their direction. Although a couple of the secretaries were looking at him as if he had them fired from their job and then he saw Lila Strain looking at him like he had just attempted to strangle her. In his usual costume, he walked into his father’s office unannounced.

“What the hell is going on?” he blurted out.

“This.” Ayden said and slid the computer printout of him and Heaven across his desk. “This was left in the cafeteria and has been passed around the floor.”

“You’re fucking kidding me?” he felt his fury unleash and he stormed out onto the main floor to speak to all the employees directly, preferring to get this cleared up before Heaven got back from her meeting with the DA. “Who saw this first?” he yelled out.

“I think we were the first to find it.” Adele answered him with a smile, happy to just be acknowledged by him for any reason.

“You and who else?”

“Me, sir.” Reese answered with a smile matching Adele’s.

“Was anyone in the cafeteria when you first got there?”

“No, no one was there.” Adele answered

“You’re sure?”

“Positive.” Reese backed Adele up.

“This picture is a fake.” Julian spoke to every employee, “I have an ex-friend who is trying to sabotage me and as of recently she has been trying to have me fired for fraternizing. That is not Ms. Deville in the picture, the woman that did this will tell any lie to destroy me.” he fumed before storming off.

***

There was only one man Ayden knew for a job like this, only one man he truly trusted, his chauffer and ex body guard, Riley Fitzpatrick or better known as Fritz.

The big burly man sat at the conference table with his good friend Ayden King. Riley Fitzpatrick was an ex-detective turned bodyguard and had been employed by Ayden for over 20 years. Ayden had helped him out of a sticky legal situation and Fritz had felt indebted ever since. If Ayden needed his help finding the culprit trying to sabotage his youngest son, then Fritz would do everything in his power to get the culprit and bring him in, because he knew Ayden would do the same for Fritz’s own son.

“I want security beefed up here, and I also want cameras installed all over.”

“Hidden cameras?”

“Hidden cameras, obvious cameras, and I want you to do it during the middle of the day so every employee can see you. I want there to be no doubt that we are taking this very seriously and any suspicious move made will be documented and then discussed.”

“I put an extra one to the side of Julian’s door.”

“Good, I have a man coming today to replace the big glass window on his office wall, with a regular wall. Between that and the security camera, we should be good.”

***

Heaven had been gone most of the morning and afternoon at her meeting with the district attorney, and when she came back to work things were even odder then they had been before she left. She was aware of all the strange looks she was getting, some were giving her looks of condolences, their sympathy written all over their faces. Others were looking at her with doubt, some with disapproval and one of the secretaries was giving her a look of pure hostility.

“What the hell is going on? This place is a madhouse.” she asked her secretary.

“I guess one of Julian King’s ex-girlfriends or whatever is on a mission to have him fired, so she makes a fake picture of him having sex and posts it in the cafeteria.”

“What?”

“Oh yeah, but wait you haven’t even hear the best part yet, take a wild guess who they tried to say the woman in the photo with him was.”

“Who?” Heaven was afraid to ask.

“You.” she laughed hard, “can you believe it, of all people, his one and only arch nemesis.”

“You’re kidding me?” Heaven asked in disgust, her anger mounting.

“I know that’s what we all said, but of course there were a few who wanted to believe it, but he cleared all that up real quick.”

“Who cleared it up?”

“Julian King, he came out and announced that the picture was a fake and explained that there was some stalker ex-friend who is trying to sabotage him. Guess she didn’t take the rejection well.” she shook her head, “I don’t know why these girls keep setting themselves up for heartbreak. I haven’t been here long and even I know better, some girls never learn.”

***

Heaven refused to come out of her office, she had work to do and had decided to refocus her energy on getting it all done. But after a while she needed stretch her legs and get some coffee, so she decided to head to the cafeteria and on her way, she watched Lila Strain walk out of Julian’s office.

“How are you Ms. Deville.” she heard the voice coming from behind her and turned to see Gavin standing there, his usual smile in place. “Going for a coffee run?”

“Yes.” she answered him.

“Mind if I walk with you?” he asked in a gentlemanly manner.

“Of course not.” they walked towards the cafeteria, seeing three of the secretaries standing at the door.

“I think something is going on between the two of them.”  Juliette whispered, but Heaven had heard it and automatically assumed Juliette had meant Julian and not Gavin.

Adele put her head down, refusing to look Heaven in the eye, for fear of turning to stone, Gloria on the other hand, smiled at Heaven as if they shared a secret. Juliette stood there seething, unable to control her animosity for the woman and openly glared at heaven.

Already feeling a little self-conscience about the whole picture incident and furious that Juliette would dare whisper about her as well as look down at her, Heaven stood there looking Juliette in the eye for a moment, seeing the secretaries hatred for her.

“Don‘t you have better things to do then to just stand around gossiping?”

“Excuse me?” Juliette snapped.

“You heard what I said. If you don‘t like your job, maybe you should step down and let someone who actually works take your place.” she said and Juliette frowned as she raised her chin, still glaring at Heaven until she turned and headed in the direction of her desk. Juliette was furious, but she knew her place and being rude to that particular attorney could quite possibly get her fired. She would get her back for that one way or another and she would never know who had done it to her.

“Hello Ms. Deville.” Gloria said with a huge smile. Heaven gave a slight nod then walked into the cafeteria, ready to get her coffee and get the hell away from these people.

“Don’t worry about them,” Gavin said with a sympathetic look, “they wish they had half the intelligence you have, and half the money.” he chuckled at his own joke and Heaven could not help but smile at his offbeat attempt at humor.

“Thank you Mr. Grant.” she said sincerely.

“It’s the truth, just don’t forget it.”

“So how is everything going with your case, how did the DNA match up?” she asked changing the subject as she finished making her coffee. She then headed towards the door that would lead her back to the sanctity of her office.

“It wasn’t his, I know I am going to be able to get him off.” he smiled ear to ear, impressed that she had remembered. They both looked up to see Julian coming out of his office.

“That’s good.” she nodded, trying not to look at Julian who was openly staring at her.

“I also wanted to say something and I pray I am not crossing the line with this, but I really wanted to let you know that no one believes that was you in that picture. I’m sorry I am not trying to be disrespectful in the least by bringing it up, I just felt that you should know so you don’t have to worry. No one would ever believe that was you, we know you better than that, Ms. Deville.” he put his hand on Heaven arm and sent Julian’s rage to an all-time high. He took a step towards them, ready to fight when he saw Heaven step back from him.

“Thank you.” she spoke softly, not feeling comfortable discussing that with anyone. “I have to go.” she said before turning around and walking back to her office.

Julian watched Heaven walk to her office and wanted nothing more than to follow her in, but under the current circumstances, he would have to wait until he got home. Instead he turned around and walked back into his office to cool off.

When they left for the night, it was as if nothing had happened and everything seemed like it was back to normal. But Heaven knew that one of those people had been the one to take those photos of her and Julian. Despite the fact that Julian had convinced their co-workers that it was a different woman, she still felt an odd chill running up and down her back.

***

“Get undressed he said once they were in side of his room.” she didn’t speak instead she slid her blazer off and tossed it on the chair then began to unbutton her shirt. “I warned you, I told you to stay away from him.” he stood close to her, hardly containing himself.

“Stay away from who?” she asked as she slid off her shirt, then tossed it on top of her jacket.

“From Gavin Grant.”

“I did stay away from him.” she said unzipping the back of her high waist skirt then slid it off. She stood there in only her thigh highs, her bra and her shoes. “So you’re telling me that with everything going on with the pictures of us that all you care about is if I talked to Gavin Grant?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t care that everyone we work with saw a picture of us together?”

“It was a black and white printout that only showed the back of your head, even if it had showed your entire face they wouldn’t believe it, every one of them thinks that we hate each other. And if you’re so upset about that picture being leaked why did you take the time to talk to Grant?”