Keeping the CEO's Secret

Chapter Fifteen

Freya's story left me with a lot to think about.

She felt as if she had no choice in her own life. It was either to appease her family or never see them again and be stripped of her inheritance. Her life as she knew it would never be the same if she chose love. However, now she would spend the rest of her life regretting giving up the one person she could truly be herself with. It was heartbreaking.

It made me see what had happened with Callum in a new light. He had a lot of pressure in every aspect of his life, and it was clear that he was struggling with it. He couldn't just do what he wanted; he was a pawn in a larger chess game.

Hiring a private investigator on me was still inexcusable, however. His father didn't make him do that.

I had barely slept the last few nights. Whenever I closed my eyes, I found myself thinking about things I desperately tried to push out of my mind. The argument with Callum. Freya's guilt. Callum shirtless. It was plaguing me.

Ollie and I had settled into a pretty comfortable routine in the office; things were getting back to normal. However, when I arrived at the office that morning, Ollie looked alarmed.

"Reception just brought down an urgent document for you to review," Ollie said. "It's on your desk."

An urgent document? For me?

I was by far the less senior IT technician, so it could only be related to one thing: Callum Moore. My mind raced with the possibilities of what it could be. Would he make me sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement? Make me promise not to tell the press?

Taking a seat at my desk, I picked up the brown file gingerly. It was heavy and as I scooped it up, a sole photo fell from the folder. Fetching it from the floor, I noticed the envelope sellotaped to the front of the folder. The note inside made me frown.

The file had been put together by the same private investigator who had been hired by Callum to snoop into my background. I was half expecting it to be my own file, but it was Callum's. Callum had hired a private investigator to make a file on his own background for me to read.

It felt wrong to open it. Afterall, I had felt so violated by my own past being snooped into. However, Callum was willingly offering this to me as an apology. He was opening up. Sure, it was unconventional, but it was symbolic of him leveling the playing field.

Aware of Ollie's eyes trained on me, I tried to remain expressionless. This was, after all, not something I wanted to try and explain to him.

The photo that had fallen from the folder was an old photo of a woman with a child on her hip. Both were beaming at the camera and looked incredibly happy. The woman in the photo bore a huge resemblance to Callum and it was clear that it was his mother, making the child a younger Callum.

Opening the folder properly showed me pages of typed information, notes and photos. Picking up another stray slip, my tears welled for Callum. It was a newspaper clipping with his mother's obituary. It said she left behind a loving son and husband.

There were more photos akin to that one that I didn't wish to look at. I tucked them away at the back of the papers and picked up one of them at the beach. It was in Devon, like Callum had recalled. Noticeably, Callum's father was absent from nearly all of the photos. In one, Alastair was on the phone while Callum played with his mother in the garden.

Of course, there were also photos of an older Callum. It was obvious which ones had come from his University days as they frequently featured him passed out in streets. I was used to those photos.