recovered whatever expression I held when our eyes locked and forced it all down. I missed this woman more than I imagined.
Holy shit, she worked here? How long had she been working for me? Did she know who I was in London? There’s no fucking way. She did role play well with me, though. Maybe she knew who I was the entire time.
Then I saw something I never thought possible—on top of realizing Avery was working in my building, and I never fucking knew it. I saw the black curls of a little girl who I assumed was her daughter, Addy, and I pinched my lips together to hold back the humor of what in the hell could have transpired to make Avery bring her daughter to work in her cubicle with her.
“Mr. Mitchell,” Perry, my senior manager on the public relations floor, caught me as soon as I spied the adorable child scribbling on a magazine—ironically, the magazine that did an exclusive write up on me and Mitchell and Associates. “I assure you that we do not allow children on the floor.”
I ignored Perry and went over to Avery’s desk. Avery’s eyes were fierce, and I knew why. She made it perfectly clear that no one fucked with her daughter.
“It’s fine, Perry,” I said, moving toward where Avery was staring me down like a mother bear watching over her cub.
I looked down at the magazine, which was written about my success as a young CEO of one of the largest companies in the nation. Addy wasn’t aware of my approach, and I saw where she was intently scribbling over my face, and it was taking all I could not to laugh at how Avery must’ve loved her daughter doing so.
“Is something wrong?” Avery asked.
I didn’t know how to respond to her. Shit, who was afraid of who?
“Mr. Mitchell,” Stefanie started. I assumed Avery worked for her, given the placement of Avery’s desk. “We’re going to fix this issue of the child.”
Addy looked up at me. Her bright blue eyes blinked slowly because I must’ve looked like a giant in her presence.
“Hi,” she said. “Your face.” She looked at the magazine, then back to me.
“Avery, I need to speak with you about your daughter,” Stefanie said.
“That will not be necessary, Ms. Blythe,” I said and knelt next to Addy. “Hi, I see you must not like my face?” I smiled and pointed at the sharp lines drawn across it.
“Your face is pretty,” she said. “Why are you in my book?”
“I guess I got lucky,” I mused. “My name is James. My friends call me Jim or Mitch.”
I felt the anxiety of everyone in the room, and it was thick with fear and annoyance. All geared toward my being here and this sweet little girl.
“I like Mitch.” She giggled and popped two dimples in each of her cheeks in doing so. “I’m Addison.” She went back to coloring, “My friends call me Addy.”
“May I ask why such a sweet girl like yourself is working today? You should be playing with the kids in the children’s center, I would assume.”
“Mommy said I have to learn work before they let me play,” she said.
My eyes shifted over to Avery’s, and hers were still ablaze. Though it was a short amount of time, I’d remembered these beautiful blue eyes well. All memories of this blue-eyed beauty pushed aside; I knew something must have happened to piss her off.
“Is Addy here because you do not trust the preschool? Perhaps a sick child wasn’t sent home?”
“More like the preschool wouldn’t allow her in,” Avery shot back, eying me and everyone standing around me. “I told her that she was lucky and got to come to work with me instead.”
I rose up and glanced around to locate Alex. “Mr. Grayson,” I called out to my vice president.
“Right here,” he said, walking over from speaking to someone in an office down the hall. “Wow, hey there,” Alex said, his eyes meeting Addy’s.
“Hi,” she said, still working on dissolving my face with her colors.
“Nice to have you working in our public relations department, young lady.”
“Alex, handle the issues with that video file and the advertisements that failed to send. I need to speak with the women in the preschool facility.”
It didn’t take much for Alex to do the math at that point. Typically, I would have called down and handled matters, but I didn’t. His eyes went from me to Addison to Avery, and then his features went soft,