50 Shades of Drake 3 and 4

Chapter Sixty-Seven

    Meetings with the board were like being back in grade school, giving a speech in class. Most people who had to meet with a board of directors always felt on the spot, no matter how established they were in their careers. You were meeting with a good eight - twelve people in many cases. They were older, supposedly more wise, and they never hesitated to remind you of that fact.

    The minute Brian walked into the room, they were already looking down their noses at him. He was quite aware of his reputation. He had the reputation of the company playboy, the wiseass who was always sniffing up a woman's skirt. It was a reputation that he was hoping he could finally lay to rest, if his relationship with Destiny lasted.

    Thankfully, the meeting was short and sweet. Brian assured them that Aubrey was keeping in contact with him, which was...another lie. He was on a roll with the lies today. The board gave him a week. A week for Aubrey to return, a week before they initiated proceedings to turn over the control of the company to someone qualified to run it. Someone present.

    After the phone call from the private investigator, a week just might wind up being more than enough time. Once the meeting was finished, Brian returned to his office and dropped down into his desk chair, leaning back as far as it would allow. He was tempted to pour himself a drink, but it was in the middle of the day. He wasn't that far gone.

    A soft knock sounded on the door.

    "Yeah?" he called out, staring up at the ceiling.

    The door opened a crack and Destiny peered in. "Hi."

    He turned his head and looked at her. The emotions that surged to the surface at the sight of her were conflicted. Happy to see her, ecstatic even, but also guilt was there. He'd lied to her, and looking her in the face after doing so was extremely hard. "Hi."

    "Can I come in?"

    "Of course." Like I'm ever going to tell you no? He righted himself in his chair and folded his hands together on top of his desk to keep them from shaking.

    "How did it go?" she asked, entering the room and closing the door at her back.

    "They're giving Aubrey a week."

    "That's good, right?"

    Brian nodded. "It's better than I could have expected, yeah."

    She touched an index finger to her chin. "There has to be a way we can get word to Aubrey. We can text him. He's not calling us or texting us, but that doesn't mean that he can't still check his messages."

    "Yeah, we could do that," he said, returning to staring up at the ceiling.

    "Something is bothering you." She made it a statement and not a question.

    He rocked back and forth in his chair. I can't do it. I can't keep this lie up. I want her to stay with me. I want it so badly, but...not like this. "Yeah. Something is bothering me."

    She walked further into the room. "Tell me."

    He looked at her for a long moment, taking in her knee-length, white lace dress with the capped sleeves. It was a dress he'd seen on her before, one he hoped to see on her again. Her dainty feet were encased in simple white pumps. Pearl necklace looped around her neck - real pearls, not imitation. No doubt, they were a gift from Aubrey, along with the matching pearl earrings in her ears. "We can talk about it when we get home."

    "Tell me now," she told him, moving to stand in front of his desk.

    He licked his lips and lowered his gaze to the top of his desk. "The phone call that I got earlier, back at the house...it wasn't the board."

    She frowned. "Why would you say it was?"

    "To hide who the phone call was really from, and what it was really about," he said matter-of-factly.

    Her eyes narrowed into slits. "Who was the call from? What was it really about?"

    He stood up from his desk and slid his hands into the pockets of his suit pants. "The call was from someone named Vince, one of Aubrey's private investigators."

    She blinked at him. "Okay...why would you feel like you had to hide that from me?"

    "Because of what he said."

    "Which was?"

    "Aubrey missed a few meetings with him. He believes that Aubrey would never just skip out on scheduled meetings with him. So...he believes that something might have happened to Aubrey. He believes that whatever may have happened to him, Palmer is behind it."

    She shook her head slowly. "No. We saw him. We saw him at the airport. No one had a gun to his back."

    "Not a literal one that we know of," Brian said, walking around his desk. "But from what we've seen from Palmer, I wouldn't put it past him to use other methods of forcing Aubrey's hand."

    "Like..." She hesitated, searching Brian's eyes. "Like threatening the lives of the people he loves," she finished.

    "I'm sorry for lying," Brian told her. "When I heard that, all I could think was that you'd...you'd want us to go back to just being...you'd want to stop..." He stopped talking and tried to get his thoughts together. "All I could think of was what that information meant for us. But I shouldn't have lied. I hated how it felt, keeping that from you."

    Her complexion paled. "So...all this time, I've been angry with him. Blaming him for leaving me. And it's possible that all of this time, he's been..." She let the sentence trail off and turned her back to Brian.

    "We don't know anything for sure, but Vince is going to look into it."

    "I can't believe you tried to keep that from me," she hissed at him.

    "I shouldn't have kept it from you. I should have told you, I know. I'm so sorry."

    "Oh my God, and last night..." She covered her face with her hands. "I'm a horrible person."

    His heart split in half at her words, but he remained standing near her. "You're not a horrible person."

    "I am. I'm a horrible person, a selfish person. I should have known. I should have..." She turned and looked at him.

    He fought to keep the expression on his face neutral.

    She saw past it, and stepped forward. Sniffling, she raised a hand to his cheek.

    He covered her hand with his and held it there. "I lied to you, because I was afraid of losing you. Afraid that you would pull back from me. But I couldn't keep lying to you. You're too important to me. Too special to me. So...even if you pull away from me... I had to tell you."

    "I don't even know how to process this. Any of it." She caressed his cheek. "But I can understand why you would want to keep it away from me. I'm thankful and grateful that you told me as soon as you did."

    Shocked at her reaction, he blinked at her. "So...what now?"

    "I don't know. What did the investigator tell you?"

    "He's going to look into it, but I didn't want to wait to hear back from him," Brian responded. "This weekend, I'm going to conduct my own investigation."

    "And I'll be right there with you when you do," she volunteered, wrapping her arms around him and hugging him.

    There was more that he wanted to know, more questions that he had. She was still showing him affection by hugging him, but is that where the affection would end? Was he still allowed to kiss her, or did he have to hold back now? This information, what did it mean for them? Were they on hold until more information about Aubrey was discovered? So many questions plaguing his mind, but he didn't have the heart to ask them. He'd just dropped a pretty huge bomb on her, and she had already admitted to not knowing how to process it. He didn't want to pile on a ton of questions in addition to what she was already trying to deal with. So he wrapped his arms around her, returning the embrace, and held her...having absolutely no idea what was going to come next.