A Blind Fall

chapter twenty five

Like a hawk, she watched them from the glass panel above them. As he stepped out of the car and rounded to the other side, holding the door ajar for her. For months on end she suspected their attraction for each other, she saw how he worshipped the ground she walked on like a lovesick fool. She saw him withdraw from his family's company because that woman was no longer there. She saw her chances of being with him diminish, burn down in flames.

Throughout all these, her resentment for that woman intensified profusely. Her fingers twitched with the need to throttle the woman's neck, drain her of life and make her memories perish from within him. Make her disappear so he could finally see her for the woman she was. The woman for him.

And a chance would come, that she was certain of. A golden opportunity to wipe that woman from the face of the earth. From his life. And when the opportunity provided itself, she'd grab it with both hands and be done with that wretched Gabrielle Oliver once and for all. And when that happened, Oscar would finally be hers to keep. To love forever.

Much as she tried, she couldn't comprehend what it was he saw in that fat, little woman. Was it her boring brown hair or the lifeless brown eyes? Perhaps it was her fatty behind or short arms and legs. What for God's sake did that woman have that could be described as attractive? Even her taste in fashion or lack of one thereof, made her cringe. Like that ugly lime green cashmere top and those ill-fitting pants she'd worn the first time they'd met.

But her horrid clothes and pig appetite wasn't enough to repulse Oscar and that didn't sit well with her. And if the rumour, that that pig was joining the company was anywhere near true, she simply couldn't fold her hands and watch Gabrielle rob her of his attention.

Retracting her steps from the floor-to-ceiling window, she ensured everything was perfectly in place in the office before stepping out. Just in time to catch them stepping from the elevator. Gabrielle walked fast and ahead of him but he hurried and grabbed her wrist.

"I explained, didn't I? You can't be mad anymore." He was begging, she realized. Something Oscar Sylvester had never subjected himself to in the span of six years she'd known and worked for him. Five of which she'd been nothing but the invisible receptionist until she realized being downstairs and the man she loved upstairs wouldn't and couldn't work. So she'd taken matters into her own hands like the tactical, brilliant woman she was and gotten rid of his PA. And then assumed the silly woman's place.

Gabrielle's irksome voice broke her reverie. "But I don't believe you."

Oscar groaned. "What? Do you want me to give you her number? Or take you to her? Tell me, I'll do anything." The desperation in his voice, the atonement there made her for the first time perceive Oscar Sylvester in a new light.

All these years he'd made the world believe, made her believe he was an impenetrable, unfeeling man, incapable of sparing a woman a second glance. But here, pleading like a lost boy with Gabrielle to forgive him for whatever it was he'd wronged her, she realized he was nothing but a pathetic, hopeless romantic, like any other red blooded male.

She caught up with their interaction. "You'd do that?" Was Gabrielle's dubious query.

Earnestly, he nodded. "Right now, tell the chauffeur to take you to the Ritz and my sister Debra will confirm she was the one I was talking to in the morning when you woke up."

She clenched her fists so tightly, her knuckles turned white. ...she was the one I was talking to in the morning when you woke up. Was it what she assumed it was? If they'd been together in the morning then...

"Alright, I believe you but I haven't forgiven you yet. You made me late on my first day." Gabrielle said, the stupid grin on her face saying she was teasing him. And when he grinned back, she realized they were sharing a private joke.