Chapter 4

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I made it to the front desk just a little after nine, mostly due to the hysterical crying fit that Riley managed to throw onto me in the last few minutes before I left her pre-k class

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I made it to the front desk just a little after nine, mostly due to the hysterical crying fit that Riley managed to throw onto me in the last few minutes before I left her pre-k class.

A few parents sent me sad smiles and yet I knew inside, they were just thankful it wasn't their own child making them late for work with needless hysterics.

"Riley," I spoke sternly as I knelt down to her level, not before checking my watch again and seeing the time tick by, "Aunty Val is going to be picking you up later on and then we get to be back together again, that sound good?"

"But you're leaving me." She spoke beneath her disheartening blubbering, making me want to pull her back into my arms and keep her for longer.

"This is going to be brand new but you're a big girl now, remember that?" She nodded yet the tears still resumed to fall, "now you go in there and be that very same big girl I know in here," I pointed down at her chest, "and then before you know it, you'll be back with me again."

"I love you mommy."

Her voice had almost made me second guess sending her in before the teacher made her appearance from the classroom, nodding at me as if she'd experienced this very familiar thing time and time again, which she most definitely had. "I love you too sweetie, you be good for me today."

I gave her an embarrassingly tight hug and a kiss on the cheek before hastily making my way over to the office.

Heidi, our holier than thou front desk receptionist was sat comfortably with a smug smile attached to her features as soon as I arrived through the building doors. "You might as well have come in at ten, Savannah."

"You might as well have not come in at all, Heidi."

Our faked smiles followed each other as I rushed towards the elevators, now empty of all workers considering the fact that I was running late. Heidi was the one of only individuals I'd struggled to get along with since starting at this job. She was like a reformed type of girl I once knew in high school named Isabella, with the ability to disrupt my life enough to ensure that it was made that much more difficult.

I could still hear her fraudulent voice speaking to various workers when I finally stepped into our refined and clean elevator, a place that Heidi would never find herself given her poor reputation of climbing up the male ladder in the workplace rather than the ladder of employment. Not that I held any judgment to activities outside of work, only just that Heidi would remind us of it each and every day.

"Good morning, Mr Reece."

The name rolled off her tongue in such a sultry tone that I would imagine the individual to either be on her list or approaching it.

The doors finally began sliding closed, keeping me away from the range of her voice. However, in a typical and frustrating fashion, a black briefcase struck itself between the doors, wedging them back open again.

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