Series: Paige Michaels
Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 44612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 223(@200wpm)___ 178(@250wpm)___ 149(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 44612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 223(@200wpm)___ 178(@250wpm)___ 149(@300wpm)
Cameron held his breath. No way in hell should the woman let him into Aria’s apartment, but if she would please do so…
The woman turned around, disappeared into her own home, and returned a minute later. She held out the ID and the key. “Just have her slide the key back under my door later if she still wants me to have a copy. I assume you’re the reason I haven’t seen her around lately. She must be staying with you.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m hoping to convince her to move in with me permanently.”
The older woman smiled and nearly swooned. “Young love…” She stepped back inside and closed the door.
Cameron thanked the heavens, spun around, and quickly unlocked the door. He shut it behind him. No lights were on, which made him wonder if maybe she wasn’t here after all, but then he heard sniffling.
He ran toward her bedroom. The faint light from the evening sun illuminated the room enough for him to see the lump under the covers. “Aria?”
She bolted upright, gasping. The moment she did so, she grabbed the covers and pulled them up over her obviously naked body. “How did you get in?”
“Your neighbor across the hall gave me the key,” he admitted.
Her eyes went wider.
“I know it was dangerous, but I was very convincing. I even gave her my ID.”
Aria jerked the covers over her head and slunk back down into a ball under them. “Go away. I don’t want to talk to you,” she mumbled.
Cameron came to her side and sat on the edge of the bed. “It’s okay if you don’t want to talk. I’ll do the talking. All you have to do is listen.”
“I don’t want to listen either,” she grumbled, her voice muffled by the covers.
“Well, you’re going to listen anyway, Little girl.” He lifted a hand but decided against setting it on her hip like he wanted. Instead, he started talking. “When you didn’t show up at my office to ride home, I went looking for you and found Mr. Lambert. He told me what happened.”
She sniffled and curled into a tighter ball. “Go away,” she muttered again.
Cameron ignored her. “Aria, I did not sign those papers. I’ve never seen them in my life. I swear. In fact, that handwriting is not even mine. Once I realized who’d forged the documents, I turned the problem over to Mr. Lambert and rushed out of the office to find you.”
She didn’t move.
He waited for her to process what he’d told her.
Finally she responded. “It doesn’t even matter who signed them. Three people made false complaints about me. I’m so humiliated. I can’t go back there.”
“Little girl, no one made a single complaint against you. It was all fabricated. It didn’t happen. Everyone who works with you adores you. You have a stellar reputation, and Mr. Lambert is going to apologize profusely tomorrow for entertaining the possibility that people had spoken negatively about you. He realizes he should have thought twice before putting you on probation.”
Cameron set a hand on her hip finally. “Will you look at me, Little one?” He gave the cover a slight tug. When she didn’t protest, he pulled some more until her head was exposed.
She had her eyes squeezed shut, she was hugging a pillow, and her body was in the smallest ball possible. On top of that, her face was covered in tears. Mascara had run down her cheeks and dried. Her hair was in complete disarray all around her head.
He wanted to scoop her up and pull her into his arms, but first he needed to make sure she was receptive to him touching her. “I’m so sorry you were scared, Giggles. It was unconscionable for someone to do this to you.”
She sniffled again, still holding firm. Finally, she whispered, “I thought so many mean things about you.”
“I bet you did.” He rubbed her hip over the covers. “I spent the last hour running through everything you were probably thinking in my head. I bet you’ve been lying here waffling back and forth between being certain I betrayed you and knowing it wasn’t possible because I love you.”
A quiet sob slipped out as she finally unraveled her body slightly and looked at him. “It really wasn’t you? You didn’t even know about the complaints?”
“Little girl, there were no complaints,” he reiterated.
“Then who put those in my file?”
He winced. “Carol. The HR receptionist. I recognized her handwriting.”
Aria’s eyes went wide. “Carol? That mean woman who thinks she’s the gatekeeper for everyone entering the hallway?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
“But why?”
“I assume she was jealous that you kept slipping by her to get to me, and she didn’t like not being totally in charge of everyone who passed.”
“But she put those notes in my file months ago,” Aria pointed out.
Cameron shook his head. “I bet she put all of them in there in the past week and simply dated them for months ago. No one had ever seen them, including Stephen Lambert.”