The Billionaire’s Secret Empire

ChapterFour

Oh God.

Oh Krishna.

Oh Zeus.

Whatever deity was out there, it certainly didn’t have enough power to save her from the extreme trouble she was in.

“I’m still waiting for an answer, Miss Hempstead.”

“Oh…….”

“The cat got your—

“I wasn’t following it, sir!” she shouted. “In fact, I… was trying to bring you a cufflink that had fallen out of your shirt.”

A cufflink? Seriously?

It was the daftest lie she’d ever come up with, especially as there was no cufflink to back up her claims. Theo frowned deeply: “I don’t wear cufflinks.”

She swallowed hard, “Well, I… then I must have mistaken you for someone else.”

Theo’s gaze was enough to burn away every ounce of confidence she had. She was definitely going to lose her job now. “Where is this cufflink, Miss Hempstead?”

Her breath caught for a moment. The moment she’d been dreading had finally arrived. She felt a bead of sweat trickle down one side of her face as she tried to come up with the best lie possible: “We… well… well, I…”

“Well, what?” he growled aloud. “Are you refusing to speak, Miss Hempstead?”

“I left him at home, sir!!” she replied. She could already feel her tear ducts filling up, as she was physically and emotionally exhausted from standing there in front of him.

She didn’t deserve this. A man who looked and felt like someone she loved, reprimanding her without remorse and being unable to do anything about it because she had bills to pay. She didn’t deserve to put up with it, not when his mere presence was causing her further mental anguish.

Theo scoffed aloud, “What about you?”

She sobbed, “I left it at home. I apologise if you think my behaviour was inappropriate and offensive, but I did the best I could as your secretary. I understand if you don’t feel comfortable working with me and I’ll gladly accept whatever punishment I receive.”

She couldn’t look him in the eye. It was too embarrassing and terrifying, too. Unlike Xavier, Theo Gianni was the most intimidating man she’d ever met, and she’d been foolish to think he was the same man who made her insides flutter with just a glance.

All her boss conveyed to her was fear and despair.

“You don’t mind being punished,” he said at last, after a minute of unbearable silence.

She nodded: “I’ll accept whatever you give me, sir.”

*********^

The nerve of that bloody bastard. She gritted her teeth.

She’d been expecting an invitation to the HR consultation room to discuss company policy, not to shred twenty boxes of old company documents in a room that smelled of mould and expired dog food. The stench of the place made her feel sick, and the so-called shredder certainly wasn’t making her job any easier.

Theo Gianni wanted to trap her, and she deserved the full force of his wrath.

She’d followed him like an i***t, thinking he was her nemesis… well, he was, just in a different way.

It couldn’t be Xavier. He was rude, cruel in every way, and unworthy of a decent human being. Her ex-fiancé might have vanished into thin air, but he certainly wasn’t as brazen as the man ten floors up.

“Disgusting.” She felt herself retching once more as she opened another box of old documents that had been water-stained by a leaking ceiling. There was a very good reason why this part of the building was off-limits, but her boss just wanted to be nasty and force her to do an unreasonable job.

She sobbed as she went through them, for some reason she didn’t understand, until her eyes fell on a file with the name ‘GIANNI’ clearly written on it.

She leaned against the rickety shredder and leafed through the damp pages. They appeared to be background files on members of the Gianni family, clearly detailing their personal lives and so on. None of it interested her; these high-profile individuals were clearly beyond the public’s reach, and she didn’t care to know about them.

Not even his,His boss.

He spotted his name printed in bold on the pages and quickly stood up as he leafed through them. Then, his eyes widened in shock as he saw the bold text at the bottom of the page, dated exactly two years ago.

“‘Theo Andrew Gianni (the second son of the third generation of the Gianni family): DECEASED’”

He quickly rubbed his eyes to read the words, which clearly stated that he had died a year and a half ago.

Strange. Diabolical. Confusing. Disturbing.

There are no words that can clearly express the level of confusion she felt upon seeing her boss’s file. She had the impression that he simply resembled Xavier, but she had also met him exactly a year and a half ago – clearly within the same timeline in which Theo was declared deceased.

“Miss Hempstead.”

She gasped the moment she heard his voice and turned to find him standing in the doorway. She quickly pressed the file against her back.

Theo’s eyebrow arched questioningly: “What are you holding behind you?”