Chapter 28
"Ms. Kelly, I have good and bad news for you," Mr. Daniels sighed, lounging in the seat across from her desk.
There was slight difference in their behavior in the workplace with Troy holding back the kiss on the cheek he would have given her upon greeting and the slightly cracked open door. If these so called people were talking and investigating they had to be careful.
"Well, Mr. Daniels... please start with the bad news," she instructed, intimidated with the knot in her throat.
He exhaled a great breath, "The bad news is that there is no real bad news."
"What do you mean, Troy?" she asked with disbelief.
He couldn't hide his smile while he scratched at his freshly shaven chin. Once Troy opened his mouth, Eliza didn't hear anything that should have made her pace around the room as she did for the next five minutes. But she was furious.
"I thought you'd be happier," Troy murmured.
She slammed her hands down on her desk, vehemently whispering, "How can I?! This happened right here! Right underneath our noses!"
"I suppose I can't fault you. I was mad about it at first too. But c'mon Liza–" he cut himself short, realizing he had forgotten his conduct. "Eliza... just look at the bright side of this now."
She huffed in a stance, hands gripped into her sides.
"C'mon darlin'," he whispered, before letting his voice rise once more. "Really, really think about how amazing this is."
"But he can still be granted custo–"
Troy threw his head back and laughed, "Ms. Kelly, I told ya. I didn't have any bad news. The second I put the pieces together, I put the plan into action."
Trusting in Troy had proven nothing but good thus far, and because of his faithfulness Eliza figured out how to smile about it.
The Monday financial update was excruciatingly long and intense for Eliza. Not a damn thing that was being presented mattered to her. The tables had turned once Andrew's confidence vanished at the sight of her enveloped by an invisible inferno.
Troy left Eliza alone, allowing her to her to leave the conference room and simmer in her office in peace.
"Geez, Eliza looks really pissed. I wonder what's going on with her," Andrew commented aloud, feigning no surprise while picking up his folders without rush and strolling into the hall.
Disgusted, Troy's narrowed eyes quickly shifted away from the open door and to the scarlet-faced owner across the room. Blackwell's eyes fluttered away from Troy and around the table in front of her. More indignant that usual, Blackwell was stampeding into her own office and yanking up her phone to her ear.
"Kelly, my office now!"
Eliza's eyes rolled to a close before she knocked on the tyrant's door. Before she could knock, the knob turned and, in a quick yank of the panel, the brittle woman appeared.
The door closed behind Eliza, and she stared at the fervid steps of her boss.
"I have a question about this inappropriate behavior that is still under investigation," Blackwell confessed with a shortage of breath, pacing near her lavish office chair.
"I refuse to answer any questions or discuss the matter," Eliza spat.
Blackwell lifted her cold blues to the unrepentant CIO of Bluestar Technologies.
"What?"
Eliza separated her lips once more, "I was clear. I said I refuse to answer any questions about this investigation or discuss any matter related to the subject."
Blackwell was filled with pressure, and she was seconds away from popping. What was she to do with a different Eliza Kelly? This was not the same demure, obedient woman she strategically hired for a successful business and interpersonal advantages.
"I am going to ask you anyways," Blackwell threatened.
Eliza lifted a brow and tilted her head.
"Does Mr. Daniels have anything to do with this investigation?" she spat, blinking rapidly.
Eliza could have guessed why the body language was so out-of-scope for the woman; anyone with eyes could see that Blackwell would take the first opportunity to jump on Troy if she could. It had been a recurring joke amongst Troy's peers that always left him feeling uncomfortable about.
Eliza blinked slowly, "May I leave? I do have a report to get back to you within the next three hours."
Blackwell twisted her face, grumbling, "I know he's not the father to that baby."
"May I leave?!" Eliza snapped.
"Get out of my office!" Blackwell suddenly howled.
Eliza didn't waste another second, not catching the full slur that was cut off by a closing door. Instead of distancing herself in her own office space, she tapped the down button of the elevator. The shaft slowly dropped her to the lobby, and the freedom of revolving doors was merely yards away.
She wasn't going to break again within the walls of that building. There was too much to take care of, and she wasn't going to be able to do anything she needed to do for her little girl if she couldn't find a way to keep her wits about her. So, she walked down the congested sidewalks, embracing the unfriendly pedestrians that didn't make a point to steer clear of her presence. Elbows and shoulders clashed, and acts of passive-aggression were bringing back the tough skin.
Lips were pressed tight and red eyes wanted to stay focused on the ground, but one more hit pulled her head up. She needed something to hurt more than what wanted to take over her heart.
It wasn't working. But her desire to stay pieced together did. As she walked back to Bluestar Technologies, she acknowledged that Eliza Kelly was full of cracks. She had been shattered so many times before but somehow, she always managed to put herself together piece by piece.
This time she wasn't alone to help keep her fragments firmly in place. She wasn't the orphan sister giving her all to take care of her baby brother with no help anymore. Emmy, Troy, Peter and his family were all shoulders. But most of all the primary person for her to count on was Lulu.
A little baby girl from her womb was someone she could ask for reassurance whenever she needed to. When her heart was hurting, all Lulu had to do was smile or call her name.
Love had never been so simple.
There was a baby under the watch of an adoptive mother to Eliza. There in that apartment she was being taken care of and she was where she needed to be. And Eliza put herself where she was required of as well.
Vigorously typing and researching, Kelly had the report in Blackwell's inbox in forty-five minutes. With her CFO's prompt turnaround times, Eliza had whipped together the report for her next session for the following day. Then, she had lunch with a worrisome Troy, who– for once– couldn't get her to confess what happened in Blackwell's office during business hours. Time flew by, and Eliza stared down the face of the clock without worry. Once it hit 6:30PM, she was going home.
"You gonna go home on time, Liza?" Troy asked, throwing caution to the wind and inching behind Eliza's chair to feel her shoulders.
"I plan on it," she smirked, staring at the top right corner reading "6:05".
Troy let his fingers steal a few seconds across the softness of her neck, "Alright, I have to go drop off some things for Helen before I come by to see you and the family."
Eliza shifted her head to the right, a sweet little smile on her face. Turning her head up to him, she saw the slight red across his cheekbones but focused on the lop-sided smile. She took both his hands from her shoulders and pulled them close to her lips.
He was quiet about his request, "Darlin'? May I have one kiss before I go?"
Troy didn't expect more than a peck, but Eliza kept his feet planted for almost a minute. When their lips lightly tore apart, his thumb slowly ran across the bottom of her wet lips.
Troy tried once more, staring at her mouth that left him feeling like a lush, "Promise to tell me what happened earlier?"
Finally, he heard what he wanted in a smooth tone that curled around his ears, "I promise."
He was seconds away from calling his sister and rescheduling. The honey in her eyes were so sweet, he couldn't turn away.
"Liza, tell me to go, or I'll never leave," he urged.
Her arms were still around his neck, and she commanded, "Troy. Go."
But he had no time to let go of her when she relentlessly locked their lips again. Troy held his tongue once again, kissing her on the forehead after their second exchange instead of speaking his mind.
Again, Eliza saw it. He was so close, but held back. There was no need to rush it, but she would be lying if she couldn't admit to herself that she was ready to hear it from him.
Troy had gone and the time read 6:25PM. It was time to wrap up the last of her emails and save her working files. She was minutes away from starting her journey back to Emmy and Lulu, until her office door opened.
Unannounced, Andrew had entered into her office. Her eyes converted the calm into the puzzled.
"Are you absolutely out of your mind?" Eliza spat.
Andrew and his pride strutted to her desk, "Why were you glaring at me like that this morning?"
She scoffed, "Still so upset after how many hours?"
"Stop derailing and answer the question, Liza," Andrew mocked.
"How dare you show your face in my office demanding to talk of anything personal," she growled.
He scoffed with a grin, reiterating, "This is precisely why I'm taking you to court over my daughter."
"And this is precisely why you're such a little bitch," Eliza spouted, not withholding her first thoughts thus surprising the man now gawking at her.
But Andrew was quick to rebound, "This doesn't make the case any easier for you. Aggressive engagement from the mother of my child? I thought you were smarter than that Eliza. But then again, it did take you no time to start fucking another one of your employee's, did it?"
With faux innocence, she angled her head and asked, "And what is the name of the man you are accusing me of entertaining?"
She could hear the growl vibrating from his throat while he stared back at her in fury, "That pussy, bitch."
"You sound mad," Eliza smiled.
Andrew clenched his fists and spat, "Mad about fucking and impregnating a desperate whore? Yeah! That's why I want goddamn custody of my kid."
His words were of no surprise, but his intuition to act alongside his verbal abuse was the reality of being one of the few employees left on the office floor.
"Remove yourself from my office," Eliza firmly demanded.
She had already alluded to dismissing him, turning away from the living mayhem and focusing on her computer screen.
"Look at me!" he barked, but Eliza tried to let the noise from her keyboard take priority.
Violently, his hands slammed onto wooden surface and ripped away at all the documents and stationaries on her desk. Folders and pages fluttered around and her pens flipped around the floor near a newly mangled landline.
Paralyzed in silent panic, she didn't turn or move a muscle. Her eyes shifted around her frozen hands, her first thoughts immediately on hoping that she would make it back to Emmy and Lulu unscathed. But her wishes to be untouched had come true. At least from the outside.
Andrew's voice had dropped into a menacing undertone, "I said... look... at... me."
People cared for her, so she cranked her head to the right.
His eye twitched and his voice quaked from the overwhelming rage, "I'm going to fucking run you into the ground you fat, pathetic slut. You're not going to take anything from me, do you understand?"
She didn't answer and he lunged out for her. Swift on her feet, Eliza's jacket escaped his brief grasp and she magnetized herself against the nearest wall. Her phone was in her hand and with shaking hands she held it high as a warning.
Andrew believed he was a man that left no stone unturned, and he made sure to assert his belief, slapping the back of her gift from Troy, leaving the picture of Eliza and Lulu face down and cracked.
The father of her child made his flurry of an exit, yanking open her door and letting it hit the back of her wall.
It was 6:30PM, but Eliza wasn't on her way home. She was still glued to the wall, thinking about the summons. There was no way that he didn't have friends in places of the law that granted him the privileges of an accelerated time to bring her into court, in less than thirty days. If Andrew had that much of the law on his side, then it was absolutely possible for Lulu to be in the hands of a vicious father.