The Fischer building had always been vast and impressive. I couldn’t believe it the first time Harry took me there. I knew Cat and Harry came from wealth, but when they started letting me into their lives and I went home with them for a long weekend, I saw what it truly meant to be rich. And it was jaw-dropping. Way beyond any of the losers Sally conned.
But I’d completely forgotten myself and screwed Harry over instead of grovelling in the dirt like the fucking scum I was.
Sally would be happy I finally went through with the plan to scam someone like Harry. Just not in the way she wanted.
I was fucking pathetic.
Echos bounced off the walls and ceilings from all the suited pricks who clicked around in expensive heels and shoes, along with snatches of over-important conversations stuffed withtheir dying need to impress whoever they were talking to. It was boring as hell, but at least there was noise to distract me.
The elevator doors pinged open, and I stepped inside the empty box. I had a great opportunity to feel into how fucked I was from all of it. As if I hadn’t been doing that non-stop for months. The lying, the cheating, hurting my friend and fucking up almost everything good in his life just for a quick buzz.
I still couldn’t understand how Sally lived with herself.
Now Harry had taken a nice half an hour out of his day to summon me to his office.
I sighed deeply as the elevator carried me up and up and up. Only, rather than heaven, it was taking me straight to hell.
The elevator stopped just before I reached the top floor. The doors slid open and two men stepped on, chatting about some business deal. But I was grateful because at least it filled the space and dragged me away from my own thoughts.
They looked how I was supposed to. Well put together, manicured nails and styled hair, a confidence that showed they knew who the fuck they were and they deserved everything they had. They were both older than me; they carried themselves like they were lords, and I hated them for it.
It wasn’t that I was unkempt, but I was so not ready to meet Harry, even after sleepless nights preparing myself.
I already had arguments for why I did what I did, but there was no way any of that was going to fly as soon as Harry asked me the question I’d been mulling over since I started.
What the fuck is wrong with you?
And that was exactly the question I couldn’t answer.
The doors pinged again, and the men both got off.
I had four more stops to go before I reached the main floors of the Fischer Foundation, and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t bricking it.
I took another deep sigh, preparing to lay myself at his feet and wait for my execution.
Harry
Ispent all day at my desk, filing through project after project, meetings, presentations, contracts, and finances since 7AM. But sitting here, waiting for Dom to arrive at 6PM, felt like the longest day I’d ever worked – and that was compared to the twenty-hour days I used to do before I was voted in.
I’d rearranged my desk three times, changed my suit twice, and stared out the window as if it would somehow cool the red rage that had been festering in me since I discovered the truth. Molly was coming back in a week. Cat and Co. were full steam ahead with engagement party plans, which I couldn’t stop. And my heart was quietly shattered in pieces on the floor.
I didn’t know if I could see him again. But we needed to have a conversation in a situation where I was calmer and more in control of myself.
I couldn’t shake the thought of what would have happened if Dom had come to me the morning after we first sexted. If he’d just handed me the phone and confessed the truth, would it still have caused the waterfall of emotions that had been tearing through me since I first heard his voice in my office bathroom?
Would I feel this much for him if I hadn’t thought I had to hide my feelings? I kept glancing between my bathroom and the main door, hoping it would somehow give me answers or a way to fix this situation as I waited for Dom to walk through it.
I couldn’t get stuck on pointless questions. It wouldn’t change what had happened.
I closed my eyes, letting out a sigh as lust rolled through my body again. It was so fresh. Just the feel of Dom’s lips, his desperation, his need stronger than my own, and how he—
There was a buzz from the intercom. I pressed the button. “Yes?” I asked, as if I didn’t already know what it was.
“Mr Fischer.” Anita only ever called me that when someone else was present, “Dominic Outrem is here to see you.”
I lowered my tone to sound more professional. “Thank you, Anita. Send him in.”
I only had a moment to swallow down every little ounce of weakness and slip into the role of a true Fischer, the one where I imitated Dad. Not Mum’s showtime smile, but Dad’s ruthless demeanour that had maintained the Fischer fortune for decades. My ‘business face’ as Dom called it. The one I forced myself into when I left his flat five days ago.