Page 106 of Surprise! I'm Engaged To My Boss
It was a shame that security guards arrived to stop me before I could.
Chapter Forty-Nine
MICHAEL
I could hardly believe it when my secretary called me to inform me that this man had had the courage to come to the company to speak to me.
I allowed him to come up to my office, and I stood up, standing in front of my desk, staring at the elevator and waiting for the door to open with his arrival.
I didn't intend to sit down or invite him to do the same. Whatever he wanted from me, he had to do it quickly. After all, it was almost time for Camila to finish work and, as always, the agreement was that I would wait for her at the exit so that we could leave together.
With two days to go until the hearing, the last thing I wanted to do was stress out over those people.
The elevator door opened, and the figure of Caleb Harris appeared before my eyes. My mother had been right when she called him old. It wasn't somethingdirectly related to his actual age, but to the frowning and grumpy expression he always carried on his face.
“Michael Turner. How are you?” he greeted me.
I wasn't going to waste time responding to the greeting or returning the polite question.
“What brings you here?” I asked straight away.
“Aren't you going to invite me to sit down or offer me a cup of coffee? I've been to this office a few times during your father's tenure and he's always been very polite to his visitors.”
“I'm in a hurry, Caleb. If you could get straight to the point of why you're here, I'd appreciate it.”
“All right. I came to propose a deal to you.”
It was so ridiculous that I couldn't help but laugh at such pretension. Did he really think that, at that point, I would agree to make a deal with him?
“For God's sake, Caleb, did you waste your time coming all the way here for this?”
“Let's be honest, Michael: you don't have much of a chance of winning this case. A good settlement could be very advantageous for you.”
I should just kick that son of a bitch out of my office. But I wanted to know how audacious he was.
“And what would be your proposal?”
“Weekly visits, at our home, under supervision, and perhaps we can include a few weekends a year for her to stay with you, as long as she is accompanied by a nanny and one of our security guards.”
That was ridiculous.
“I won't agree to that. I'm Alice's father and she should stay with me. Without having a security guard following me around like I'm a delinquent.”
“You know that's not going to happen, Michael. You've already shown that you're not capable of taking care of her safety. I know you're trying to create a false image of a changed man, of a family man, but you have no way of knowing if that will convince the judge.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“You may think you're fooling the press and the public, Michael, but not us. We know you didn't know that girl, Camila Collins, until the day of the company party. After my lawyers contacted yours, she magically became your fiancée.”
It was obvious that he knew. The guy Julian, who was the one who booked the room for us and who probably also put the drugs in our drinks, even talked to us... The unfortunate man was even invited to be our 'best man'. However, that was the part of the storythat Caleb and Margaret certainly didn't want to make public.
“Seriously? How can you say something like that, Caleb? Unless you were watching me. Just from the videos you had access to, it’s impossible to say something like that.”
He smiled, which was a rare occurrence. We both knew what had happened.
“You're right. I can't say something I don't know. But I can say something else with certainty: you’re trying to destroy that girl's life just as you did my daughter's.”
That bastard... how could he say such an atrocity?
