*Isabella's POV*
"By the way, Jacob," Gordon said, his voice shifting from victorious to casually cruel, like he was merely discussing the weather. "Did you register the invention?"
"What?" Jacob asked, his voice hollow, still reeling from the accusation and the footage.
"What is it that you don't understand?" Gordon snapped, his patience wearing thin. "Did you get a patent for your idea? Yes or no?" He leaned forward, his eyes boring into his son, enjoying this power play far too much.
"Useless fuck," Gordon spat out, the insult like a sharp, brutal slap. "We can't sue them. We can't do anything now." He said it with a finality that was chilling, before turning his cruel gaze back to me. "But what you can do is fire this whore standing in front of me."
"That's it! You get out! Or I'm gonna forget you're my father! Get out of my office now!" Damien roared, his voice shaking with a fury so absolute it felt like the room might actually explode. He was more than just defending me; he was drawing a line in the sand, a line that cut through his own family.
"No, Damien, stop," I said, my voice quiet but firm, cutting through the storm. I couldn't let them do this, not because of me. "I'll go. I have some... accounts to reconcile anyway." The lie was weak, pathetic, but it was all I had.
I forced a neutral expression, hiding the tsunami of emotions raging inside me – the hurt, the anger, the crushing disappointment. "Have a nice day," I added, my voice robotic. I turned and walked out, my head held high, my back straight, refusing to let them see me break.
I couldn't get my fucking head around anything that had happened in the past fifteen minutes. My mind was a frantic, scrambled mess, replaying every moment on a horrible loop. I know I let Owen inside, which I shouldn't have, it was a stupid, naive mistake.
But I watched him the whole time. He just retrieved the bag he'd forgotten; he didn't search for anything, didn't touch a single file. And I just had dinner with him last week. Oh, god. That would just make things look a thousand times worse. The weight of it all was pressing down on my chest, making it hard to breathe.
"Isabella, wait, please. Don't worry about it, okay?" Damien's voice came from behind me, cutting through my panicked spiral. I turned to see him striding out of the office, his face a mask of fury and concern.
"Damien, but I didn't..." I was saying, my voice trembling, when he closed the distance between us in long strides, pulling me into his arms. The embrace was so sudden, so firm, it stole the breath right out of me.
"Shhh... I know, baby," he said, his voice a low, soothing rumble against my hair.
"His father had forgotten his bag, and I let him inside your office, okay," I rushed out, the words tumbling over each other. "But I was there the whole time. He didn't take any files, he just took the bag and we left." I pulled back just enough to look up at him, searching his face for any sign of doubt.
"I know, Isabella. I believe you," he said, his eyes clear and certain.
"But if Jacob is sure that they disappeared, maybe someone must have put them there when we were in the meeting room," I said, my mind finally starting to work again, trying to piece together a logical explanation.
"That could be it," Damien said, his brow furrowed in thought.
"But if your father couldn't find anything on the cameras..." I said, my voice trailing off as a fresh wave of anxiety washed over me, cutting me short.
"We'll figure this shit out together, don't worry," he said, but the tears were already threatening to fall, a hot, stinging blur behind my eyes.
"Jacob doesn't believe me," I whispered, the words breaking my heart.
"He does," Damien said softly. "He's just in shock. I can sense how confused he is about everything, but his anger is taking over. He spent a lot of time on this project."
"Damien, I need to tell you something. It's about my date last week..." I was saying, my voice dropping to a whisper, when Jacob appeared in the hallway, looking like he'd aged in the last five minutes. He was exhausted, defeated.
"Sweetheart..." he began, his voice rough.
"Don't you fucking dare 'sweetheart' me right now," I said, pulling away from Damien to face him, my voice shaking with a fury' "You asked to see the footage again. You didn't believe me. You... you hesitated." I was fighting back the tears with everything I had, but they were winning.
"I just needed to..." He began nervously, holding his hands up as if to calm me down.
"Save it, Jacob," I said, taking a deep, shuddering breath and blinking the tears back. "I get that you're angry and you probably think I stole from you." The words tasted like poison.
"I have some... accounts to reconcile," I said, the same flimsy excuse as before. I turned and walked away, leaving the two of them standing there in the hallway, the weight of their father's malice and my broken trust hanging between them. I didn't look back.
I practically fled back to the finance department, my heart a frantic drum against my ribs. I felt like I was walking through a nightmare, my body on autopilot while my mind replayed Gordon's words and the shattered look on Jacob's face.
"Hey!" a voice chirped beside me, pulling me out of my spiral. It was Laura, her smile bright and completely oblivious to the fact that my world was currently collapsing on itself.
"Hey Laura, what are you doing here?" I said, pushing everything that had happened aside. I shoved the pain and the anger into a tight little box in my chest and forced a smile, a fragile, painful thing that I hoped looked convincing.
"I was in town for the holidays and because I had some old expense forms to bring in to finance," she said, giving a little joking eye-roll, and we both managed a weak chuckle. It felt good, almost normal.
"How's New York?" I asked, the question coming out automatically.
"New York is fine," she said, her smile tightening just a bit, a flicker of nervousness in her eyes that I would have missed if I wasn't so used to looking for cracks in people's composure.
"Isabella, I can see you're shaken," she said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "I guess you saw it."
"Saw what... The product?" I asked, my mind immediately jumping back to the disaster happening.
"What product?" she asked, looking genuinely confused.
"Nothing, forget it," I said, waving a dismissive hand. My head was already pounding; I couldn't handle another one.
"I mean Cole's post," she clarified. "I know everyone from the offices follow him, and he did some fucked up things to me too, like leaving me for that man."
"What man?" I asked, my brow furrowing. This was new. Cole never mentioned leaving anyone for a man.
"Oh Isabella?" she said, her eyes wide with a kind of dramatic, pained seriousness. "He was obsessed. It's like he's a different person when HE is involved," she sighed.
"You've lost me, Laura. Slow down," I said, my mind reeling. "So which post are you talking about?"