Chpater 74

Chpater 74
That day, Elvie made sure she avoided Zander in the newsroom. He was business as usual, taking Matheo and a few other men to lunch and then disappearing in and out of the fifteenth floor for meetings all day. When she got back home, she was in no mood to fix something fresh. Her brother, however, had been eating a lot healthier since the experimental programme had begun. They sent him special meals to complement his treatment. Elvie untied her rain jacket and threw it on the couch after she started hot water on the stovetop. She kicked her shoes into the hallway, played with Thea for about an hour, and gave the nanny her break.

“Joey?” She called.

She checked the living room, balcony, garden, pool, and then his bedroom. He wasn’t there. Groaning in frustration, she texted him: Joey, where TF R U? When will you learn to give a girl a heads-up when you’re gone? I’m worried.

And selfishly, she inwardly bit out. Having him around was convenient. She looked after him and reported to Zander everything she knew—not that she didn't have her own doubts, but still, she believed that Joey couldn't mastermind all of it. It was not like him. But having Joey here in the mansion was better than leaving him in the facility. She could coddle him all she liked, essentially forgetting about Zander and his looming revenge plan. Elvie’s phone flashed with a text message immediately.

Joey: Sorry! At Mrs. Hawthorne’s. Please feel free to come upstairs. She made cherry pie.

Elvie shook her head, laughing to herself. Could her brother be falling in love at the same time she was falling apart?

Could his sick body experience something her healthy one couldn’t feel?

Have fun, and send her my love.

Dad: Will do, sis. Maybe she can make some more pie this weekend, and we can invite Zander?

Elvie decided that there was enough heartbreak to go around between all of them, so she kept the lie alive, though it nearly killed her.

I’d like that, Joey. A lot.



As far as Zander was concerned, crazy had a smell.

It was a flowery body lotion and Chanel No. 6. And it diminished his appetite the minute it crawled into his nostrils through the open door of her office the next day.

The day had been shitty to begin with. Elvie was working hard on giving him the best fucking leads to land on his desk in the past year while simultaneously avoiding him.

He wanted to marry Kristal again, slightly less than he wanted to fuck a fish on live television. Zander knew it would bring a lot of joy to Matheo to know he’d given up on world dominance and SBC and that his parents would be terribly disappointed—not because they wanted grandchildren, but because they’d have loved for him to become the next big thing.

Regardless, he did deserve the media mogul throne. But even he had limits.

And they were currently being tested. The unbearably sweet scent was followed by a loud thump.

“Where the hell is she?” A manic screech pierced the silence of the entire floor.

Zander looked up from his laptop and found Kristal standing atop a desk in the newsroom, clad in one of her horrendously expensive wrap mini dresses and Louboutin heels. Always red. Always black. Kristal didn’t have moods; she had obsessions with looking rich.

She grabbed a monitor and crashed it on the floor, sending Bella and the receptionist jumping backward with a shriek. Bella stood from her seat and galloped in Kristal’s direction. Zander stood and made her way to the newsroom, looking for Elvie. She wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Good. Kristal wasn’t above starting a cat fight, but if he had to put his money on a winner, it would be Elvie.

“Kristal,” Bella said with calm authority, “if you want to leave this place without a security escort and handcuffs, I’d strongly suggest you remove yourself from the desk and stop breaking things.”

“Shut up, bitch. For all I know, it’s you he’s having an affair with.” Kristal sniffed, pointing her long fake nail at Bella.

Zander’s assistant, however, just rolled her eyes.

He marched into the room and stopped at the desk Kristal stood on. The rest of his newsroom stared up at Kristal like she was Moses delivering the Ten Commandments, but she didn’t seem to notice him, perhaps because she was more occupied with having a public meltdown.

“So you think Zander is having an affair?” Bella tapped her lips, musing.

“I know he is! Someone has been coming to his building. I have eyes and ears everywhere.”

“Oh, Lordy,” Bella chirped. “I think it's surely none of your business; he isn't your husband anymore.”

“Bitch! Zander is mine!”

Coincidentally or not, the desk Kristal stood on belonged to Elvie. Zanswe didn’t know how Elvie would react if she found out her monitor had been smashed by this chick, but he was going to guess Kristal wouldn’t be the only one screaming in this room.

“Kristal, you’re embarrassing yourself, but more importantly, you’re an embarrassment to me. Get down immediately,” he commanded, snapping his fingers at her.

But as he said it, he realised that it wasn’t true. Kristal did not embarrass him. In fact, she’d stopped triggering any type of emotion in him, and world dominance just wasn’t quite enough to suffer her presence, even if only on paper.

Long before, he thought, and the media thought they were a match made in Scottish royalty heaven, but in the end, they’d put each other through hell. And at this very moment, he was done. If that meant that he was going to be a little less rich and a little less ruthless, he was willing to make that sacrifice to get rid of this pest.

Because even Kristal’s dear family wasn’t enough anymore.

“Who is she, Zander? The woman in the park? The—” She stomped her foot on Elvie’s notebook, denting the pages and creating a hole right in the middle.

His teeth slammed together, locking his jaw so a curse wouldn’t come out. “Bella is right; it's none of your business; we are over, remember?” he growled. He didn't know what sort of act Kristal was brewing now, because clearly, from the previous conversation, she knew where she stood, and if this was another ploy from Matheo, then it was not acceptable.

“Do you love her? Do you? Was it Elvie? Your wife?” she whined.

What the hell does she care about anyway?

He took his phone out, done with her games.

“You’d call security on your ex-wife? I work here, at High Fashion. Are you out of your mind?” She raised her arms in wonder, and her lack of panties showed. She was naked underneath the dress, no doubt for him.

“On the fucking pope, if he interfered with my staff’s work, Last chance before you spend the next few hours in jail,” Zander said dryly.

People behind him chuckled and whispered. He hated that they were a spectacle, but he liked that she’d played right into his hands. She’d just provided him with a golden opportunity to dump her ass with little to no social consequences, and Elvie wouldn’t think it was about her.

Because it wasn’t.

Elvie was just a fuck.

A brilliant fuck, but nonetheless a disposable one.

Kristal lowered herself with a groan, sliding her ass to the desk and scooting down. She landed on her heels with a whimper and ran towards him, throwing her arms over his neck and weeping into his shirt.

Clearly a show for everyone to see. “Why, Zander? I thought we were getting better, and now I have to hear that my ex-husband is taking a new girl places? That she visits his building?”

He sighed and whispered, “What the fuck are you doing, Kristal?” he should have been disturbed by the amount of information Kristal was privy to, but after all, her entire life consisted of sitting around in coffee shops and gossiping. For all he knew, she had socialite friends living in his building.

Zander retrieved Elvie’s notebook and pocketed it. “Apologise to Bella and get into my office.”

Bella stood behind Kristal and shook her head, telling him he shouldn’t let her get away with it.

“But she hates me.” Kristal stomped her feet, whining.

“Can’t deny that. I'm team smart, like Team ELVIE!” Bella lifted her hands in surrender, and everyone laughed.

Zander looked around the human circle that had formed around them and realised everyone in it looked at Bella with love and Kristal with sheer disgust.

As far as they were concerned, she was a spoiled little bitch. And as far as they were concerned, he endorsed that kind of behaviour. He would berate someone for days for making a grammatical error in a news report, yet he was choosing to side with someone who thought yass was a word?

“Inside my office, right now,” Zander murmured through gritted teeth.

They turned and made their way to the hallway, and that’s when he saw Elvie standing at the entrance of the newsroom, still clutching her phone to her ear. She was on a call, probably something Thailand-related. They were running a primetime special about it this weekend, and she’d been working extra hard to get all the numbers and statistics.

Her eyes ping-ponged between him and Kristal for about ten seconds before she took a step aside and let them through.

Kristal scowled at her, then barked, “What the hell are you looking at? You’re the prime suspect, bitch.”

“Huh?” Elvie’s eyebrows shot up. She ended her call and tucked her phone into her pocket. “What is she talking about?”

“I’m talking about the woman who’s been keeping Zander up all night—”

"Delusional. I'm his wife, remember? ” Elvie growled back.

“So you didn't know that your husband was dating someone? He brought her to the park, bought a new phone, and made headlines?” Kristal smirked at her.

Zander sighed, and Elvie rolled her eyes. “You are delusionally crazy if—” But she never got to finish that sentence because he pulled her into an embrace like she was an animal in captivity, slapping his hand over her mouth and dragging her into his office.

Elvie turned a nice shade of tomato red, her eyes widening in alarm.

“Back to work, Elvie!” I barked.

“Yes, sir,” she said, but her voice flatlined, delivering the news that he was in even deeper shit than he’d previously thought.

In my office, Kristal threw her body over the couch and began to sob.

“It’s the blond girl, isn’t it? She looks like a homewrecker. All sweet and pretty in her please-save-me cheap outfit. And Converse. Who wears fucking Converse with a dress?”

Elvie does, and it makes him so hard that he is pretty sure the rest of his body turns anaemic.

“What the hell is wrong with you? Elvie is my wife.”

“But you are divorcing her; the papers say that you too are on the edge of falling apart and that you are dating some new chicks—”

“Shut up,” he ordered, bracing himself against his desk and staring her down.

Zander swears the teenaged version of her he’d dated over a decade ago had been sane. Shallow, but sane. Then again, when you’re a teenager, you’re not looking for a great intellectual opponent. Her ass and agreeable nature had been enough to keep me satiated for the first decade of our relationship. He thought to himself.

“You know I can find out with little to no effort, right?” She perked up on the black leather couch, sniffing again. Her mascara ran down her cheeks in thick streaks, and it made her look like Alice Cooper, not to mention that her dress was more appropriate for a Vegas strip club than a newsroom. She unwrapped her dress, flashing me her tits and pink pussy.

“That won’t be necessary, and neither will strip teasing,” he deadpanned.

Her eyes brightened. “Does that mean you’re getting rid of her?”

“Not her. You,” he said simply.

They stared at each other for a few seconds while she digested this information, her face transforming from agonised to amused. Did she not understand English? Why was she so smug?

“You can’t break up with me. What about my family's SBC?”

“We have already broken up, Kristal. Long ago. Jesus, what the hell makes you act this way? Is this about Patrick?”

She bit her lips, and right there and then he knew it was because of Patrick. Bastard.

“What did he do, Elvie?”

“Nothing!”

“Kristal! If you won't tell me, I’ll get rid of you. Getting rid of you is a top priority. Put some clothes on.”

She stood up and shoved his chest, not moving him an inch—partly because he was braced against the desk, but also because he was quite literally twice her size. Zander wondered if she realised the right-hand wall of his office was made of glass, then remembered that she gave very little shit about who saw her naked.

“What did he do?” he repeated.

“He—I can't tell. He made me promise, um, not to tell anyone.”

He sighed. “Then I have no choice but to get—”

“You’re a bastard. We grew up together. We’re childhood sweethearts.”

“If that’s your only defence, it’s lacking. Because I can crush it to pieces by bringing up something you did a little over a year ago," Zander chuckled darkly. “Keep your husband’s ring; cancel everything else. Dont divorce him yet. There will be no wedding between you and Patrick in the future!”

And as he said that, he realised there was not even an ounce of him that was remorseful—not even for letting her know he knew what Patrick's plan is... or the missed opportunity for so-called world dominance Bella was always teasing him about.