Chapter 6 - The Beggar at the Gate
Ten minutes later, the heavy double doors of Valerie’s executive suite opened.
Two broad-shouldered Summit Crest security officers walked into the room, ushering a man between them.
Christian looked like a shadow of the man who had stood on the Buckhead porch twelve hours ago.
He was wearing a crumpled, wrinkled suit he had pulled from the back of his car, his tie was loose and stained with coffee, his dark hair was wildly unkempt, and his eyes were bloodshot, swollen, and desperate.
As he walked into the breathtaking, sixty-fifth-floor office, his feet seemed to stumble on the plush carpet.
He looked around the magnificent room—the high-tech wall monitors displaying global stock tickers, the original oil paintings, the sweeping view of the entire city—and the sheer, staggering magnitude of who Valerie actually was slammed into his soul with the force of a freight train.
He had lived with this woman for seven years. He had slept beside her every night. And he had never known that she ruled an empire from the sky.
“Valerie...” Christian choked out, his voice hoarse and broken.
Valerie did not stand up. She did not gesture for him to sit. She sat behind her black stone desk like an empress on a throne, her posture perfect, her face an unreadable mask of cool composure.
The two security guards stepped back, standing silently beside the door, their arms folded over their chests.
“You have three minutes, Christian,” Valerie said, her voice smooth and devoid of any emotion. “Say whatever you came to say.”
Christian took three hesitant steps forward, his hands shaking violently at his sides.
“Valerie... please...” Christian begged, tears instantly welling up in his bloodshot eyes. “I... I came to apologize. I came to ask for your forgiveness.”
“Forgiveness?” Valerie repeated, raising one perfectly arched eyebrow.
“I was wrong!” Christian sobbed, dropping to his knees right in the middle of her office floor, burying his face in his hands. “I was blind, arrogant, and stupid! My mother... she pushed me, she poisoned my mind, she kept telling me I needed a different kind of life! But I love you, Valerie! I’ve always loved you!”
Valerie listened to his pathetic weeping, her expression remaining entirely cold.
“You loved me so much, Christian,” Valerie said softly, “that when you thought I was just a simple employee, you replaced me with a younger woman the second her father offered you a logistics contract.”
“I didn't love Paige!” Christian yelled, looking up with a frantic, desperate expression, tears streaming down his cheeks. “She meant nothing to me! It was just business! I thought... I thought I was building an empire for us! I was insecure, Valerie! I felt so small all the time, and I wanted to prove that I could be a big man!”
“You didn't build an empire, Christian,” Valerie corrected him coldly. “You built a house of cards using my money, my influence, and my grace. And the moment you thought you didn't need me anymore, you threw my clothes into a trash bag and offered me forty thousand dollars to disappear.”
Christian crawled forward on his hands and knees across the expensive carpet, reaching out toward her desk.
“Please, Valerie! I’m begging you!” Christian wept hysterically. “They’re going to indict me! The DA is going to send me to prison! My firm is gone, my car is gone, my reputation is ruined! My mother and I have nothing left! Please... call off the lawyers! I’ll do anything! I’ll sign a full confession, I’ll work for you as a servant, I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you! Just don't send me to prison!”
Valerie looked down at the man kneeling on her carpet.
She remembered the young man she had met eight years ago in that small coffee shop—the man who had smiled at her, held her hand, and promised to protect her from the world. She realized now that that man had never existed. Christian had always been a parasite, looking for a host to feed his delicate, bloated ego.
She slowly stood up from her chair.
Her high heels clicked softly on the marble inlay as she walked around her desk, standing three feet away from his trembling, kneeling form.
“Do you know what the worst part of last night was, Christian?” Valerie asked softly, looking down at him.
Christian wiped his wet face, looking up at her with desperate, pathetic hope. “What... what, Valerie?”
“The worst part,” Valerie whispered, her eyes turning into pure, unyielding steel, “was that even after seven years of your mother’s cruelty, I still held a small piece of hope in my heart that you would defend me. I stood in the cold rain, waiting to see if my husband would stand up to his mother and say, 'No, Valerie is my wife.'”
Christian’s breath hitched in his throat.
“But you didn't,” Valerie continued, her voice echoing coldly in the vast office. “You handed me a white envelope and told me to find somewhere else to stay.”
She turned her back on him, walking over to her window to look out at the city.
“Spencer,” Valerie called out smoothly.
Spencer immediately stepped forward. “Yes, Madam President?”
“Escort Mr. Vance out of the building,” Valerie commanded. “And inform Mr. Harrison that I want the prosecution team to seek the maximum statutory penalty under the law.”
“NO! VALERIE! PLEASE!” Christian screamed as the two muscular security guards grabbed him under his armpits, dragging his kicking, weeping body backward across the floor toward the heavy double doors. “VALERIE! HAVE MERCY! PLEASE! VALERIE!”
The heavy double doors slammed shut, cutting off his desperate wailing, leaving the executive suite in absolute, peaceful silence once again.
May you like
Valerie stood by the window, took a slow, deep breath, and picked up her teacup.
The past was finally dead.
