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The last job I want is to be stuck in an office building all day.
Being here, though, makes me think about my parents. I should call them. Answer that text from my mom that I’m currently avoiding. The truth is, I feel bad for them. They lost the one good person in this family who wanted to do all the things they wanted her to do. Sure, she wasn’t going to do it in a conventional way. Not Dee. I smirk at that while we walk into the building. But she wanted the same things they did. Mom would’ve been happy if she became Keegan’s wife and nothing more. Of course, there was more. With no son, her taking over Dad’s businesses would’ve made all of his hard work worth it. She was going to do so many great things…
Not me. I’ll never make them proud.
Unless I marry a prince. Mom would die happy, at least.
I peer at Oliver and chuckle. He presses the button on the elevator and glances over. “What?”
“Nothing,” I tell him. “I was just thinking about my mom.”
He grins. “Your mom loves me.”
“I know. I should probably break the news that you’re in town, but she’ll come visit if I do.”
“Your mom’s not so bad,” Ollie placates.
I peer away. The respect I had for my mother is long gone. She struts around the house worrying about arbitrary shit when she has bigger problems than that. “Yeah, for a woman who loves burying her head in the sand…”
Oliver nods knowingly. He’s listened to me bitch about my parents’ circumstances more than a few times. My hands turn to fists, the guilt about what we’re doing here fading. If one more asshole gets what’s coming to him for cheating on his wife, good. Sometimes, I wish my father would get called out too. Unlike Anne-Marie, I couldn’t care less about my standing in the marital pool full of arrogant assholes.
Weirdly, when the elevator doors open on the top floor, no one is in sight. The reception desk in full view of the elevators sits vacant. Oliver squeezes my hand as we take a left. There are no security personnel walking around, but I spot cameras in a few corners. Oliver and I walk with our heads down or turned away. I know we’re getting close to Kennedy’s office when a short cry sounds.
The quick breaths come next. My hair stands on end when I spot the door at the end of the hallway ajar. Not very smart, if you ask me. We might be able to get our pictures and go without even showing ourselves.
Oliver and I tiptoe the rest of the way. My pulse slams at my wrist, my heart beating like crazy now that we’re so close. Not only is the door open a crack, letting the sound filter through, but the blinds hanging on the door for privacy have a gap in them just wide enough to take in the scene.
Oliver and I grin at each other. Quickly, I turn my phone on video and peer through the gap in the blinds. At first, all I see is a mess of black, curly hair. I hold my phone up, checking the screen as it records. Anne-Marie’s father is laid out across his desk, the woman on top of him going to town on his dick.
He’s wrinklier than I expected—
Another cry escapes the woman’s throat, and I nearly drop my phone when I recognize who it is. It’s not Kennedy’s secretary at all, and it’s not Kennedy getting fucked. It’s Anne-Marie and… Holy shit. It’s Franklin Jarvis. Fucking on her father’s desk.
Oliver makes a small sound of surprise. He must be seeing what I’m seeing, but when I follow his gaze, he’s not watching the action, he’s peering toward a figure in the corner. I slap my hand over my mouth when the man moves.
My stomach clenches, nausea roiling inside.
It’s Kennedy.
“Holy shit.”
Oliver grabs my hand, knocking the phone out of it. He quickly scoops it up and drags me away. We nearly run down the hallway, and he taps the button for the elevator over and over until it dings, the doors finally opening for us after what seems like an eternity.
“Hello?” a voice calls out from down the hall. We scamper into the elevator, gasping for breath.
My heart soars into my throat, waiting for someone to appear in the gaping mouth of the elevator doors. The hold Oliver has on me tightens, the seconds ticking away painfully slowly.
The elevator dings, and with it, the doors finally close, hiding us away.
“What the fuck?” I yell. “What the fuck?”
“Shh, shh.”
“Don’t try to calm me down! Did you see that?”
Oliver grabs my cheeks, sending me a warning look as if to saynot here. My stomach lurches again, and I grip the cold steel of the elevator behind me. He swallows, stops the recording on my phone, and tries to hand it back to me. I shake my head, refusing to take it, so he slips it into his own pocket before squeezing my hands. “Relax, okay?”
Tears gather in the corner of my eyes as my brain tries to make sense of what I just saw.