Chapter 27: Chapter 27

At first, Sabrina thought it was her mind playing tricks on her. She never got visitors. Especially at this hour. But then it came again, a faint tapping that could almost be dismissed for another apartment, but something about it made her heart palpitate, and she knew in her gut that it was for her…and she was instantly wary of answering.

With great caution, Sabrina climbed out of bed and shuffled her weary body to the door. She didn’t even bother looking out the peephole because, frankly, she knew in her heart who it would be. Or, at least, one of who it could be.

When the door opened, her chest tightened as her suspicions were confirmed. Judging by the look of shock on his face, Conner hadn’t been expecting her to answer.

“‘Brina? Thank God,” he breathed. “We’ve been trying to reach you all week. Every night, one of us comes by hoping you’re home. But yesterday the super told Will that you haven’t been here all week. Where were you?”

Sabrina glared like she’d never glared before. “You lost the right to ask that question the moment you decided to betray my trust.”

“Baby—”

“Nope. Try again.”

He shot her an impatient look that didn’t help lift her mood any. “Sabrina, will you just give me a minute to explain?”

She glanced behind her at the ornate clock hanging on the wall. “You have one minute. Go.”

That was the first time she’d ever seen Conner Hargreaves taken aback by anyone or anything. For a moment, he was speechless, and that was the best gift any heartbroken girl could ever get, as far as she was concerned.

“Can I come in?”

“No. You’re wasting time.” And she was growing impatient. Sabrina didn’t want to be standing there, let alone giving him the time of day. Or night, rather. She wanted to kick him in the balls and slam the door in his face—a prospect that was becoming more likely by the moment.

He sighed. “None of this is what you think. Not at all.”

“You don’t know what I think.”

“I think you think my brothers and I betrayed you. We didn’t.”

Sabrina rolled her eyes dramatically. “Of course you would say that. It’s practically a rite of passage with people like you. You’re never to blame. When you’re caught, you lie more to get out of it. You have twenty seconds. Better make them count.”

“Let me come in. Let me explain.”

She stared him down, letting him think she was considering his request. In reality, she was counting down the clock. “Time’s up.” In an instant, she slammed the door in his face and flipped the locks so he wouldn’t be able to come in if he tried.

He didn’t. Instead, Conner stood outside the door pleading with her to open it and listen. She was done listening.

Sabrina lifted her shoulders and turned on her heels, and then she marched her way back to her bedroom to continue the attempt at a good night’s rest that wouldn’t come.

By morning, she had exhausted every position. Her bed was a total shambles from all the tossing and turning, and she could feel the puffiness around her eyes. She shouldn’t be going into work today, but she wasn’t going to lie around a single moment more pining over people who didn’t deserve an ounce of her consideration.

As she showered and readied herself for the day, she caught herself grinding her teeth multiple times. “You have a lot of nerve,” she muttered over her second cup of coffee, brewed extra strong to help her face the day ahead.

It was going to be a trying one, and she needed all the energy she could gather.

Of course, she was still expending far too much brain power on Conner and his attempt to woo her back into his life. And that got her thinking about William and Oliver. Then the vicious cycle of regret and anger and hurt and longing would hit her once again, so she was on a constant roller coast of emotions.

Dressed in her favorite navy and cream power suit and a killer set of heels that called attention with every click that followed each power-filled step she took, Sabrina eventually made her way into the office.

Determination filled her as she breezed past Shawna sitting behind her desk and said, “Good morning, Shawna. Please pull up today’s schedule and have it on my desk in ten. Unlocking her office door, she flipped on the lights and headed for the desk as she continued to issue orders. “I’ll also need a vanilla latte, skim, and a bagel with extra cream cheese. And can you call the florist and have them put together three of their smallest baskets for the Hargreaves? Have the cards read: Thank you for your time with us. We’re sorry to see you go.”

Shawna was busy taking notes, but that last order gave her pause. She appeared in the doorway a moment later, pen and pad in hand, staring at Sabrina as if she’d seen a ghost. “They’re leaving?”

“Their time with us has ended, yes.”

“W-Why?” she spluttered.

Sabrina gave her an impatient look. “Shawna, you know I can’t discuss details with you. The nature of their employment or lack thereof is private.” Unfortunately. She’d like nothing more than to reveal the lying scum they truly were, but it would also come with a confession of her own that she would rather put firmly behind her and move on from.

Swallowing, Shawna tipped her head in a brief but sharp nod. “Yes, ma’am.” She pointed the pen at the paper. “I’ll get right on this.”

Gripping the edges of the desk, Sabrina stared at the empty space Shawna left behind and felt her shoulders slump. She’d managed to get through the first hurdle. She could do this, she told herself. She could get through this day, one step at a time.

She didn’t even get to the next step because, before she knew it, Oliver was standing in her doorway looking every bit like a kicked puppy.

She almost folded like a deck of cards then and there. Why was it that Oliver was the one who pulled at her heartstrings the most?

“Shouldn’t you be putting in applications?” she quipped, feigning strength and perseverance when she truly felt weak and seconds away from crumbling into a useless heap.

Maybe she wasn’t ready to return to work after all. It might have benefited her to spend a few extra days alone coming to grips with herself before throwing herself back into the grind.

“Can I come in?”

She looked down at her laptop screen and clicked around to open a few browsers, pretending to be busy and not at all interested in anything having to do with him. “Seems you already are.”

He took that as the invitation it wasn’t and entered the room fully, and Sabrina’s heart pitter-pattered at an alarming rate, quickening in direct relation to his every step closer to her.

“I heard you spoke with Conner last night.”

“Briefly. It wasn’t enlightening.”

“He said you didn’t give him much chance to say anything.” He stopped to stand behind the basic wood and upholstered office chair that offered visitors a modicum of comfort—just enough to feel comfortable for a time, but not enough to overstay their welcome. Gripping the back of the chair, he said, “There’s a lot that needs to be said here, and if you give me or us the chance, I think you’ll find that—”

“Nothing is what it seems,” she interrupted. “I’ve heard it all before. Honestly, you guys have to come up with some original material. A girl gets bored.”

“Sabrina, please, be fair.”

“Fair?” Her voice rose. “That’s rich, coming from you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She spluttered through her indignance. He couldn’t be serious. The writing was on the damn wall. “Fair would have been telling me that you didn’t want more than a romp in the sack. Fair would have been telling me that you didn’t intend to take our relationship to the next level. Fair would have been telling me not to get attached because nothing was going to come of this. Instead, all three of you encouraged me to trust you, to try for more. I put myself on the line for you, and you let me down!”

She hadn’t meant to shout, but it couldn’t be helped. This was definitely not the time nor place to get into an argument over personal matters, but she wasn’t about to risk any one of them coming to her place or her to theirs to hash it out. Better to flesh it out now, lay out all the cards, then burn them with a thousand matches and a gallon of butane, because she was done.

“You have it all wrong, ‘Brina.”

“Don’t!” She paused, squeezing her eyes closed and taking a deep breath to control her temper. When she spoke next, her words were tempered but no less strained. “Call me that.”

Oliver’s expression was pained, but he acknowledged her request with a tip of his head. “We were just as broadsided by what your father said as you were last week.”

“Oh, you mean you didn’t know about your father’s plan to make me look like a complete idiot?” she sneered.

“Of course not! It was the first we’d heard anything about it.”

“Then why didn’t you say anything?”

“You didn’t give us a chance.” He tilted his head, sadness in his eyes.

“You could have told my father after I left. You could have straightened it out then.”

“We didn’t know how much he knew. The last thing we wanted to do was throw you under the bus. We wanted to speak with you first. But then you went off the grid. No one could find you.”

“Then they didn’t look very hard.” Sabrina wasn’t in a forgiving mood. She didn’t want to hear all of the logical excuses that she knew could and would change everything—assuming they were true. To be fair, which she also wasn’t feeling inclined to do, not many knew about Janet, and those who did, like her parents, had only cursory knowledge of her, which was half the reason she’d chosen to seek shelter with her in the first place. Janet was a safe harbor that she could be relatively certain wouldn’t be found.

“Fair, I guess,” he conceded. “But it’s not as if we’ve been avoiding you or any of this. Conner told you we’ve been checking in at your place every day, hoping to catch you. We’ve made the effort to clear the air, you have to admit that. If we’d pursued you out of some malicious intent, don’t you think we’d have just walked away when it was revealed to everyone? Don’t you think we’d be done with you now, not chasing after you?”

Sabrina didn’t have a rebuttal for that. The truth was, what he had said made sense.

“Fine, explain yourself,” she snapped back, far from ready to shed her attitude or anger.

“Everything your father said at the meeting was true. But we learned about it when you did. You have to believe me when I tell you that we had no idea what our father was up to. We thought his motivations were genuine and that we were helping to save the company. And in a way, we were. It was struggling. The merger with Colloway Corp was the best thing that could have happened to it, and it saved it. We just didn’t know that it was coming with a secret agenda.”

He sighed, hung his head on his shoulders, and considered his next words. Sabrina, for all her effort not to buy into his explanation, found herself being drawn in. There was just something about the way Oliver spoke and carried himself that rang true. She couldn’t outright dismiss him.

“My father is many things, but we never realized how cutthroat he could be. He raised us to be honest and hardworking, and we assumed that’s how he approached business and life as well. This isn’t something we could have foreseen and we certainly never would have supported it.” He lifted his head and looked her dead in the eyes. “What we had with you was genuine. Is genuine. There wasn’t a single moment that was fabricated, and we would never exploit you for personal gain.”

Did she dare to believe him? Did she dare to take the risk?

Sabrina was struggling within herself to decide. She had no idea what was right or smart or up or down or if the sky outside was actually blue. Her whole world was suspect in that moment, and she was standing on the edge, unsure of what direction to turn.

The only thing she knew for certain was that no decision was her safest bet. At least until she could get a second opinion.

“Thank you for taking the time to stop by. I’ll take your words into consideration.” Her dismissal was delivered with cold calculation, leaving no room for argument.

Oliver waited a heartbeat and then stepped back from the chair, straightened his suit jacket, and told her, “As you wish. And for what it’s worth, we love you. Not past tense, ‘Brina, but right now. Every minute that passes, we love you. Whatever you choose to believe, that won’t change, but I hope, after you take some time, you’re able to see that we’re telling the truth. You know how to get ahold of us when you’re ready.”

As if it was a foregone conclusion that she would forgive them? Sabrina huffed to herself, staring through the empty doorway he’d passed through. Such nerve. Such arrogance.

Or maybe she was just being unreasonable? Was she lacking the foresight, the confidence to see what was right in front of her face: the truth? Or was she being naïve even considering thinking about it at all?

The situation felt impossible, an insurmountable decision that had to be made, and it all hinged on her being able to untangle the details and get to the root of the problem. But how?

And then it came to her. The solution to her problem was obvious and had been in front of her all along. Bursting out of her seat, she slapped the laptop closed and grabbed the sensible clutch that contained her essentials and speed walked from the room, closing the door a mite too hard and loud and locking it up.

“Shawna, hold my calls and cancel my appointments for the day. I’m stepping out of the office.”

“Um…okay? When should I tell them you’ll be back?” she asked nervously after her, probably afraid that Sabrina was going to pull another week-long disappearing act.

“Tomorrow morning. Move everything out a day. Overbook if you have to.” She punched the down arrow on the elevator and spun to face her receptionist as she stepped into the ready car, aware a triumphant smile was spread across her face. “Have a great day.”

And it would be a great day, too, if she had anything to say about it.