I Chased My Brother’s Friend for a Month, Then Walked Into Work and Found Out He Owns the Company Chapter 05

I Chased My Brother’s Friend for a Month, Then Walked Into Work and Found Out He Owns the Company Chapter 05

After the meeting, I bolted straight to the fifteenth floor.

My brother wasn’t at his desk.

A colleague said he was in the break room.

I pushed open the break room door. My brother was leaning against the windowsill, drinking water. When he

saw me, he nearly dropped his cup.

“What are you doing up here?”

I shut the door.

“He’s the VP?”

My brother didn’t say anything.

“You call him Mr. Sterling?”

My brother put down his cup, his fingers tracing the rim.

“I wanted to tell you before.”

“Did you? Did you say a single word?”

“I told you I couldn’t.”

“What do you mean you couldn’t? Just because he’s your boss means you can’t tell your own sister?”

“Erin, can you keep your voice down?”

My brother glanced at the door, then pulled me into the corner.

“You think I didn’t want to? He told me not to. He told me not to tell you anything about his position at the

company.”

“He told you?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“The day you added him on iMessage.”

I took a step back.

“He told you that the day he accepted my friend request?”

My brother nodded.

“He told you not to tell me who he really is?”

He nodded again.

“And at the wedding, him being a best man, was that set up too?”

“That wasn’t set up. A friend of mine asked him to be there. But after that, he did talk to me about it.”

“What did he say?”

My brother took a deep breath. “He said he was somewhat interested in you. He told me to stay out of it and not reveal his identity. He wanted to see what you were really like.”

I stood there in the break room, the window open, wind blowing in.

“So for that whole month I was chasing him, he knew exactly what he was doing.”

“Yeah.”

“All that money I spent, all those gifts, to him it was just a game.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You don’t have to. I have a brain.”

I turned and walked out.

My brother called after me. “Erin, where are you going?”

“To find him.”

“Calm down.”

“I can’t.”

I got on the elevator and pressed eighteen.

At the end of the eighteenth-floor hallway was a private office with a nameplate. Declan Sterling, Vice President.

The door was slightly ajar.

I pushed it open.

Declan was sitting behind his desk, looking at his computer.

When he heard the noise, he looked up, saw it was me, and leaned back in his chair.

“You’re here?”

“Were you messing with me?”

He didn’t answer, just picked up his coffee and took a sip.

“A whole month. Two thousand dollars. Was it fun for you?”

“You think I was playing with you?”

“What else was it? You’re the VP. I’m an intern. What chance did I really have? What was my two thousand dollars even good for?”

He set his coffee down and looked at me.

“You seemed pretty happy when you were chasing me.”

“That was before I knew who you were.”

“So now that you know, you’re not happy?”

“You lied to me the whole time.”

“Name one time I lied.”

I opened my mouth, trying to find one lie.

I couldn’t.

He never said he was a regular employee.

He said he worked “in management.”

He never said he was broke.

He said. “Next time, don’t order so much expensive stuff. No need.”

He never lied.

He just didn’t tell me.

But what’s the difference between not telling and lying?

“You let me go a whole month without knowing who you really are, let me make a fool of myself in front of

you, and you don’t think that’s a lie?”

Declan stood up.

He walked around the desk and stopped in front of me.

Close enough that I could smell the coffee on him.

“Erin, when you were chasing me, were you happy?”

“Don’t change the subject.”

“I’m not. Answer me.”

“Happy. Of course I was happy.”

“Were you happy when I said yes?”

“Happy.”

“So if you’re not happy now, is it because I lied to you? Or because you realized you’re beneath me?”

That sentence hit like a knife.

I didn’t even feel the pain at first.

It took two seconds to sink in.

Because he was right.

I wasn’t angry because he’d lied.

I was angry because I’d realized I wasn’t good enough for him.

I stood there in front of him, my lips moving but no words coming out.

He watched me, his tone softening a little.

“When you were chasing me, I was happy too. When you took me out to dinner, I thought that photo of your burned egg was more interesting than anything else. And when you stood outside the office for two hours, your nose red from the cold, I saw you from up there.”

“You saw me?”

“My office is on the eighteenth floor. The window faces the main entrance.”

I froze.

“I watched you for two hours.”

His voice was very soft when he said that.

“And then I went down.”

Something stirred in the middle of all my anger.

But it wasn’t enough to make me forgive him.

“Then why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you what? That I’m the VP of this company? And then what? Would you still have sent me that photo of your burnt egg? Would you still have waited two hours in the cold?”

I stayed quiet.

“You wouldn’t have.” He said. “You would’ve been polite, nervous, calculating every word. That month you were chasing me was the most relaxed I’d felt in years.”

“So you kept me in the dark just so you could relax?”

“You can see it that way.”

He stepped back and leaned against the edge of his desk.

“If you can’t handle it, I won’t stop you.”

I looked at him.

His face showed nothing, but his fingers were tapping lightly on the desk edge.

That same gesture I’d seen at the sushi place.

He’d done that while waiting for me to order.

Back then I thought it was impatience.

Now it looked like nervousness.

I turned and walked out.

Outside the office, the hallway was silent.

I didn’t go back to my desk. I went straight to the ground floor and walked out the front door.

I stood at the entrance, my hands shaking.

I didn’t know if it was anger or something else.

I pulled out my phone and scrolled through my chat history with Declan.

From the first “Got it” to the most recent “I know.”

I read every single message again.

The timing of his replies was consistent.

Not the kind of random replies you send when you’re free.

They were carefully timed.

Every single one came fifteen to twenty minutes after I sent mine.

Not too fast, that would seem eager.

Not too slow, that would make me overthink.

A VP in charge of dozens of people, controlling the timing of his replies to the minute.

How much thought had he actually put into this?

I shoved my phone back in my pocket.

I didn’t go back to the office.

I called a cab and went home.