One Weekend with the Billionaire novel Chapter 47

I sit in my office, staring out the window at everyone else who is working, while I do nothing. For a very long time. Normally, by 10:00, I have already done more work than most people will do all day long. But not today. Today, I can’t help but think about Julia, how she has arrived back in the apartment she lives in with Jeff. And Jeff himself--sitting over there in his office, right across from mine, where I can see him.

He looks… bothered. He doesn’t look like his old cocky self. He certainly isn’t staring at his phone, the way he does most days. Instead, he is staring at his computer. But not in that excited way he does when he is watching pornography at work. Instead, he is staring at his computer blankly, the same way that I am staring at him. If he has noticed me staring at him, he hasn’t given me any indication of such. He simply sits there, a disheartened look on his face,

I want to speak to him. I will speak to him. It’s difficult to get my thoughts together because I want to both yell at him and also negotiate with him. I want him to say he’s willing to step aside, to begin divorce filings today, but I have a feeling he won’t be willing to do that. Jeff strikes me as the sort of possessive asshole who may have not taken any interest in his wife whatsoever for the last two years but will not want anyone else to have her either. He will want to keep what is his, his possession, even if it’s not in her best interest, like a child who has trapped a dozen fireflies in a jar and knows they will die if he doesn’t release them, he will put them on a shelf in his bedroom and forget they are there until the twinkling stops.

That is Jeff Thompson. And I hate him. Yet, there’s very little I can do about my current problems because even though he’s rubbish as an employee, we have an agreement. I can’t fire him, not now, anyway. Not unless or until he makes another mistake, one outside the perimeter of the agreement we’ve already signed. I am sure this will happen eventually, but it may take some time, and when it comes to Julia, I am impatient. For most things, I am willing to wait. Now that I know what it is like to be with her, I cannot be patient any longer.

Mr. Stringer knocks on my door. I know that it is him because he has a distinct knock. "Come in," I beckon him, pulling my eyes from the window and pretending to look at the papers in front of me on the desk.

He clears his throat and gestures at the chair in front of him. Of course, I nod for him to sit. He smiles in appreciation. He’s already called me from right outside of Julia’s apartment building to let me know that he dropped her off. I am wondering what it is now that he’d like to say to me. He seems to be having difficulty, so I wait.

"She… was morose," he says, settling one shoe on top of the other knee. "I felt that perhaps she didn’t want to go."