Stolen:The Billionaire Deception(3)

He didn't even seem to notice me as he somewhat rudely brushed past me   and barged his way into his son's office unannounced. He was just as   ill-mannered as I would have suspected a thief to be.









CHAPTER THREE









I walked out of Hunter Corp. with my head held high, smiling at everyone   I saw and if anyone didn't know better they would think I had just   landed a job in the executive suite I came out of. Once I made it to the   parking garage and got into my car I just sat there for a long time,   allowing my body to tremble and shake the way it had wanted to do all   day. It was taking every bit of brain power I had to keep myself steady   during the interview. It actually felt good to allow them to do what   they needed to do.



When my hands were steadier I reached into my bag and took out the   bottle of water I'd put in there this morning. I took a healthy drink   and then I had to sit there a while longer while my irritable stomach   settled. The nerves I'd been tamping down all morning finally wanted   their just dues and they were turning into seeds of self-doubt that   planted themselves inside my head. I was suddenly afraid that the anger I   felt when Seth mentioned his father had shown through my facade. At  the  time, I thought that I was hiding it well, but now I had to ask  myself  whether or not I really had. I was not a good liar. I hadn't  practiced  it much in my lifetime. What if he saw through me? What if he  saw the  angry look in my eyes when he mentioned his father? For  starters I  wouldn't get the job. Could they damage my career beyond  that if they  wanted to?



I consciously slowed down my breathing and took another sip of my water.   I leaned my head back into the seat and closed my eyes, allowing  myself  only positive talk in my head. The interview had gone great,  better  than most of the ones where I'd gotten the job. I was fine,  everything  was going to be just fine. My nerves were coming down  slowly. I  concentrated on the fact that I needed to stop  second-guessing myself;  it wasn't going to do anything but agitate me,  right? I thought about  passing James Hunter in the hall and I had to  wonder if I would be able  to do that every day without ever letting him  see the anger and the hate  that I had felt for him for so long. That  anger was what motivated me  most days. Taking back what was mine from  James Hunter had become so  important that my entire life was designed  around it at this point. I'd  put my life on the back burner. It was one  of the things Grant used when  he was in lecture mode about what I was  doing. At twenty-four years old  everything I did was with one end goal  in sight …  to get back what that  man took from me when I was too young  and too innocent to fight for it. I  rarely dated and a relationship  would just take precious time away from  my plan as far as I was  concerned. I would have time for all that later  when I was running my  own company.         

     



 



I took one last drink of water and another deep breath and I started the   car. I was still practicing the self-talk as I drove home. I was   intelligent and capable; I graduated from my MBA program at the top of   my class. I'd excelled at practically everything I've ever done in my   life. When I put my mind to it, I can do anything; I will excel at this   as well. I talked to myself like that from the parking garage at Hunter   Corp into the parking stall in front of my apartment just outside of  the  city.



I walked into my apartment with a great feeling and my head once again   held high. I'd taken some time off that I had coming from Lyon's. I felt   bad about job shopping, or even thinking about it when I was on the   clock there so I'd cashed in on two weeks of vacation. It was only a   portion of what I had coming. I didn't take sick days, I didn't take   days off, and since I was thirteen years old, I hadn't been on a   vacation. I'd thought it was a good idea at the time, but after being   home for five minutes the wheels in my head were turning again and I   realized that I probably would have been much better off if I had   something more productive to keep my mind on while I waited for Seth's   call. Seth Hunter, the man who sat in the chair that I should be sitting   in and looked so comfortable doing it. That thought caused another   surge of anger to boil its way to the surface. As I walked around the   apartment fluffing pillows and straightening pictures on the walls I   could actually feel my blood pressure rising at the thought.



I was suddenly that little girl again. I could see my thirteen year old   self. I was privileged, raised by two loving parents in a wealthy home   in a part of upstate New York that was completely untouched by the   grime, pollution and crime of the city. I was over-indulged at times,   but not spoiled rotten. My parents taught me the value of hard work,   honesty and integrity. I was happy …  and I was naïve. I had no idea how   fast a person's life could change. In the blink of an eye that day, I   had gone from someone's much-loved child to an orphan.



Louisa Romano was my mother's housekeeper. She was an amazing, fun,   vivacious, loud Italian lady in her fifties and I loved her. She was at   our home more than my parents were sometimes because of their hectic   schedules. She had morphed from a housekeeper into a cook and a   babysitter and a best friend. It was poor Louisa, who was saddled with   the task of telling me that there had been an accident that day,



"Honey … " She was late and I had been worried she wasn't coming that day.



"Louisa!" I ran into her arms and after a few seconds I realized that   she wasn't letting me go. Louisa wasn't a small woman and she was   holding me too tight. When I wriggled free at last, I realized that her   pretty red cheeks were covered with tears. "Louisa, what's wrong? Why   are you crying?"



She took my face in her hands and said something in Italian. It was something I since learned meant, "Poor baby girl."



"You're scaring me," I told her.



"I'm sorry, baby. It's terrible news …  Your parents, they were in an accident."



"Oh my God! Where are they, Louisa? Will you take me to them?"



She collapsed in a torrent of tears then and I knew before she pulled up   her tear-stained face and looked at me again that I was never going to   see them again. The next few weeks were the worst of my life. First   there were the funerals and the wakes. My parents knew a lot of people,   so the house was never empty. Then came the trip to the lawyer's   offices. Louisa would go with me and I was so numb at the time I didn't   realize that they were searching for other relatives as far away as   Ireland. They finally found some cousins of my mother's in Belfast who   said they would take me.



"Louisa no! Please don't let them take me!" I begged her, clutching onto her dress and refusing to be torn away.



Louisa ran her hand soothingly along my long curls and said, "Don't cry   baby. No one is taking you." She filed a petition for custody and   because I was a teenager and Louisa had a sterling reputation in her own   neighborhood, it was approved. In my thirteen year old mind, Louisa   would live in the big house with me until I was old enough to make it on   my own …



Two weeks after that we were called back to see the lawyers. They were   different ones this time and Louisa told me that it was about my   inheritance. I sat and listened as they talked about my father's   business and how he supposedly owed so much money against it that even   selling the house and all the furnishings wouldn't save it. That was the   first time I heard James Hunter's name. His lawyer was there, and he   said that James could pay the debt and in doing so, the company would   revert to him. They talked in a lot of big terms that my young mind   didn't understand, but when the day was over I understood two things: I   was losing the only home I had ever known, and I was losing my father's   legacy.         

     



 



"Erin!" I jumped about two feet off the ground. Turning around, I saw   Grant and his latest girlfriend Bethany, a professional artist's model,   standing inside the apartment doorway looking at me like I was crazy.



"What? Why are you yelling at me?"



"We said hello, and we didn't sneak in, you know how noisy the lock on   this door can be. What the heck were you thinking about?" Grant loosened   his tie and pulled off his sport coat.