For Richer, For Poorer （To Have or To Hold, Book Two）

CHAPTER 7

　　Rolling my eyes, I wondered whether I could get back in the car and drive away to somewhere unknown.

　　“What do you want?” I sighed, wishing I had more energy to deal with this prick. “Have you put the house up for sale?”

　　“No, and that’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” he replied, stopping in front of me and trying to catch his breath.

　　“Well, spit it out, then. I’m at work. Talking of which, how in the world did you know I was here?”

　　“It’s easy to find these things out on the grapevine,” he answered, still mildly panting after his jog.

　　“So I gather someone at work told you?”

　　“Does it matter? I just wanted to speak to you.”

　　“It does matter, because as I say, I’m at work, and you’re going to make me late,” I huffed, wishing he would disappear.

　　“I won’t keep you long. I was wondering… where are you staying now?” he asked, looking shifty.

　　I eyed him in a quizzical fashion. “Why do you want to know? As if I’m going to tell you that.”

　　“I only wanted to know, because…” He took hold of my hand, and I could feel the bore of Monica’s eyes heat my back.

　　“Let go,” I snapped, retrieving my hand. “I’ve told you that you don’t touch me again. What would Lisa think?” I sniggered, looking him up and down with disgust.

　　“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about…”

　　“Lisa?” I voiced, still feeling that same hatred whenever I spoke her name out loud.

　　“Yes. It’s over with her. I never should’ve gone near her, I…”

　　“Hold up a second,” I interrupted, raising my hand to silence him. “What do you mean, it’s over with her?”

　　“We’ve split up. Well, even though we weren’t really together…” he squirmed.

　　“And dare I ask, why you’ve split up?” I asked, feeling intrigued by that morsel of information.

　　He sighed, looking down at the floor. “She lied about being pregnant,” he mumbled.

　　Watching him standing there looking at the floor, and hearing all about how his bit on the side, my ex-friend, had lied to him, I burst out laughing.

　　“Karma is a b***h!” I chuckled, revelling in the irony of it all.

　　“I know, and I should never, ever have gone near her!” he protested, looking more pathetic by the moment. “She was a two-faced liar, Becs, and you were right about her all along!”

　　“Excuse me?” I muttered, stepping closer to him. “As much as I despise her, I can’t believe you’re turning all of this around, and not taking any of the blame for it yourself.”

　　“What do you mean?” he wondered.

　　Before I could continue, a figure caught my eye in the backdrop – the figure of Jace entering the building – followed on by another man that I didn’t recognise. Marching straight up to me, Jace neared my side and eyed me strangely, as he could see the expression on my face.

　　“Is everything okay, Becca?” Jace asked, stopping next to me.

　　As much as I could’ve easily said something back to him about that question, I wasn’t letting Scott into any of my inside information. Standing up straight from glaring at Scott, I stood by Jace and looked at my ex in an unamused way.

　　“Mr. Morgan, this is my ex-fiancé. He isn’t welcome here.”

　　“Oh, Mr. Morgan,” Scott squirmed, realising that he was now confronted with someone who was much bigger and better than him.

　　Jace, stepping forward and slightly in front of me, loomed over Scott, and I hadn’t realised how much taller he was than my ex.

　　“Are you harassing one of my employees?” Jace asked, looking down on him.

　　“No, I was just…”

　　“Scott,” I cut in, “you better have that house on the market ASAP. I’ve warned you, and I want no more contact with you. Everything from now on will go through a solicitor. You’re not welcome here.”

　　“Oh, you think you’re all protected here, Miss. High-And-Mighty.” Scott sarcastically sniggered, realising that he wasn’t getting his own way.

　　“She is protected here,” Jace interrupted, standing further up to him.

　　“What has this got to do with you?” Scott snapped, glaring at Jace.

　　“You do realise that you are standing on my premises, harassing one of my employees, and I will have you arrested. I see that there’s an issue here that requires legal intervention, and I will make sure it is sorted. Now, I will only tell you this one time… leave.”

　　The sheer dominance of Jace could’ve bounced the biggest of men out of the doors, and the discomfort of Scott, caught off guard and being outdone by someone of fifty times his consequence, could be felt throughout the vicinity.

　　“This isn’t over. You’ll be back with me once everything is sorted,” Scott rambled on, pointing in my direction as he walked away.

　　Ugh, I could feel the repulsion at his words, and I was so thankful that I hadn’t married him. He was a weasel of a man, and watching him, even face-to-face with a man that I wasn’t on the greatest of terms with right now, made me realise that he was actually nothing compared to Jace.

　　Once Scott had left the building, Jace turned to me. “Are you okay?” he quietly asked, quickly looking over at Monica, who promptly stopped staring and got back to work.

　　“I’m fine, thank you,” I mumbled, not wanting to look at him.

　　“I see that things still aren’t sorted with the house. I’ll have my legal team get onto it.”

　　“You don’t have to do…”

　　Jace turned away from me, and ushered to the unknown man who’d been in the backdrop of the scene playing out before him, to follow him up to his office. Standing there alone, I wondered what had just happened. I’d only been in work for five minutes, and thanks to my pesky, annoying, cheat of an ex, I already felt like I had been on a spin cycle.

　　Gathering myself, it was time to get on with the day. Fixing my bag in my hands and making my way to my desk, I checked my watch - I had at least another seven and a half hours of work left.

　　I wanted to go home.

　　Mulling over the gall of Scott to turn up at my workplace, I then thought about what he’d told me about Lisa. Ha, she was never pregnant! I couldn’t believe that I’d ever been friends with that schemer.

　　How long did she think that she could carry on the pretence of being pregnant, before anyone would notice that she wasn’t growing a baby bump? She’d obviously been adamant to split me and Scott up, and that revelation of her and the ‘bump’, had been the final nail in the coffin that day for any hope of me and Scott being together, when she had announced it in front of me.

　　I wondered what I would’ve done if she hadn’t have said that – I’d actually been pretty close to caving into Scott’s manipulative ways. If anything, she’d done me a favour. Yet now he thought that he could come here and all would be well. I think he’d forgotten that he had cheated, had lied to me on more than one occasion, about more than one thing, and was also the guilty party.

　　Why did some men think that they could pass all of the blame onto women? He obviously thought he had done nothing wrong, and now that the baby dilemma was out of the way, he was free to come and get me back in his life. It wasn’t going to happen.

　　Sitting at my desk with a coffee in hand, I could hardly unscramble my brain to carry on with any work. Luckily I only had two viewings today, as I don’t think I had the energy to conduct many more than that.

　　People in the office were asking me questions in passing about certain properties that were on my workload, and it took me a moment to focus on what they were asking me. Lack of sleep obviously didn’t sit well with me, and I couldn’t wait to go home and get into bed.

　　After a day of trying to work out what planet I was on, I conducted my last viewing with a couple who wanted to buy a million pound mansion on the outskirts of London, and after successfully getting through it, headed back to the office for the last hour of the day.