Page 18 of Vengeful Devotion
That’s an understatement.
“I’m so sorry. It won’t happen again.”
The smile leaves her face, her expression molding into an unsettled look. “What’s on the agenda today?”
“Oh, uh, give me one second.” I grab my new phone and scroll through her calendar. “You have a meeting in an hour and two this afternoon.”
“Cancel them.” She places the folder on her desk.
“Yes, ma’am.”
My stomach tightens with anxiety. I know she said not to worry about my mistake, but how can I not? The two weeks I’ve worked with her, Francine has never cancelled a meeting. Not even when she got food poisoning from trying out a new diner with Warren.
Francine is quiet behind her desk as she waits for me to finish typing out the emails. My fingers are trembling so much, making this simple task more difficult than it should be. There’s so much pressure and fear sitting on my shoulders that typing out the emails is harder than usual, but I manage.
“Okay. Your meetings are cancelled.”
“Thank you,” she says, grabbing her things and walking towards the door. “Come with me, Gemma. There’s something I want to show you.”
Those seven words make my heart stop. Seven tiny words and my mind fills with all the worst-case scenarios I can think of. I follow Francine out of her office. The house is oddly quiet for this time of morning. Declan and his henchmen are usually crawling all over this place. But today, it’s like they’ve vanished. At least most of them have. We pass by a few guards outside the front door. The guns in their hands make me queasier than normal. What if this family doesn’t fire people but kills them instead? Is that why Francine is taking me somewhere else today when we’ve only worked in her office until this point?
My mind is racing with a million and two things as I slide into the backseat of the car after Francine.
“Roland, take us to the Warrior Dove office, please.”
The driver nods, starting the car and pulling away. We make it through ten silent minutes before I speak again.
“What’s the Warrior Dove?”
Francine furrows her brows. “Have I never told you the name of my non-profit?”
I shake my head.
“I am so sorry about that. It’s been so long since we’ve had a new person around that I forgot you didn’t already know. The Warrior Dove is my non-profit.”
“Why did you name it the Warrior Dove?”
She smiles, her eyes casting a far-away look. “The non-profit was a gift from my husband. He named it and his other businesses after me. Patrick called me his dove. He said I brought him peace and happiness. He used to tell me I was the dove of his dreams.”
“That’s really sweet.”
“He was a good man. He really was. But he was wrong.”
“How so?”
“He was the one who brought me peace. Not the other way around. If anything, I only complicated his life.”
“How so?”
“When I met him, I was betrothed to someone else.”
“Like an arranged marriage?”
“Exactly like that.”
“Oh.”
“My father was a French businessman. Nothing mattered more to him than his work. Not even his children. An opportunity to purchase a large Irish company he’d been keeping an eye on came up. The thing was, the owner wouldn’t sell to a stranger, much less one from another country. My father was very traditional. So since I was the eldest daughter, I was his bargaining chip. He offered me up to the owner’s son in exchange for the company.”
