Despite everything that was happening with Isabella, I missed her a lot. Even though we had worked together, it wasn’t the same. I forgot what we had. I miss things being normal. However, every time I thought about that, I was reminded of what had happened and began to fume. For days we sat in silence. And as I sat at my desk one morning, listening to the clock tick right before Isabella’s shift began, I dreaded the day. There was nothing that I wanted less than to sit there in silence except for telling Isabella what I needed workwise. I was over it. All I wanted to do was fire her. With the PR department trying their best to diffuse our public image from catching fire, I still needed to be a good boy and keep her hired for the time being. Maybe she would eventually quit. That’s what I was hoping for most. I was hoping she would come to her senses and realize it wouldn’t work. No matter what area you looked at it from.
When her shift started, there was a knock on my door, and the stoic-faced Leo walked in. Behind him was Isabella.
“I think you need to hear this,” Leo said. He had been reticent with me since I brushed him off the other day.
“What do I need to hear?”
Isabella took out her phone, laid it on my desk, and pressed play to whatever was on the screen.
The audio started to play. It was Oliver’s voice. He has been the fricking Mr. whistle down; truth had come out. And I wasn’t any less mad than I was moments before. The only difference was that I wasn’t mad at Isabella any longer. I was mad at Oliver. Fuming.
When the recording had ended, I stood up from my desk, and Isabella held me back from leaving the office. “Go do anything crazy, please. I just wanted you to hear that so that you wouldn’t be mad at me anymore. The business is already in the news; you don’t need to make it worse.
“Get out of my way Isabella.” I kissed her. Even though Leo didn’t make a noise, I could hear his shock. “She’s, my girlfriend. Let the news say whatever the hell they want. I love this girl. I admire the fuck out of her.”
“Jack!” Isabella said with red cheeks.
I went down to Olive’s office, and no one followed me as I had hoped. When I entered the thing, it was almost as if Oliver had been expecting me. “Would you come to yell at me? Or did you come to steal something else that belonged to me?”
“Maybe if you weren’t such a dick, you wouldn’t have lost your girlfriend to me.”
Oliver stood up with a face of rage. “So that’s how you’re going to play this card? Just blame it on me and act like you didn’t do anything wrong?”
“I know I did something wrong. And I’m sorry for stealing a girlfriend after you broke up with her. But I love Isabella. And she loves me.”
Oliver sat down, knowing that everything had come out into the open and there was nothing he could do. What was done was done. “You know what, I’m sorry. I was jealous. I’ve been jealous of your position in the company. I’m jealous of many things, and when you took Isabella, that was the final straw for me. I shouldn’t have done what I did. But I can make a statement, and I can make everything right. I need to take some time after this away from the job to get my head together. If that’s all right with you.”
“Yeah, I think that would be best. You need not be jealous of me, man. Please find me a stepdad. We’re in two different worlds, and Isabella loved you. That’s the truth. It’s nothing to be jealous of me for. You had her heart, and you got rid of it. That’s on you.”
“I know.”
I took my leave from Oliver’s office, knowing I had business to take care of. That business was my girlfriend, Isabella. Just as my immature stepson could make things right, I had to do the same, and it involved more than me just kissing her and calling her my girlfriend. I had a lot to fix. And I intended to do just that.