Chapter 312: Sidonie Hart

The knock at Kai’s office door came just after eleven.

A young woman from HR came in walking as if any sound from her shoes would get her fired.

"I sent you the file, sir."

"Thank you." Kai said, already typing away on his PC, ignoring the woman who was standing in front of him.

The HR woman shifted nervously, clearly unsure whether she was supposed to stay or go. The Chairman had barely registered her presence since she arrived.

"Is Miss Westwood back in her office? I’d like a word with her."

The woman hesitated. "She left, sir. About an hour ago. She said she was feeling unwell."

Kai nodded slowly. Of course she had. He’d felt her standing there in the restaurant, watching everything unfold, and he’d seen the expression on her face when he’d pulled Jessica into his arms.

He would need to speak to her eventually, to explain what this meant, to find some way to untangle the mess they’d both allowed to grow between them.

But not now. Later. When he had answers.

"Thank you," he said, dismissing the HR representative with a small nod. "That will be all."

The door closed with a soft click, and Kai was left alone with Dennis, who had stationed himself in the corner of the office like a watchful shadow.

Kai stared at the employee file on his monitor for nearly a full minute before touching anything.

"This doesn’t make sense," he muttered, more to himself than to Dennis. He scanned it again. "Hart. Sidonie Hart?"

The photograph in the top corner was Jessica. Not someone who resembled Jessica, or a ginger-haired woman with similar features, but Jessica.

He enlarged the image anyway.

"Well?" Dennis asked from where he was standing.

Kai ignored him and opened the verification report HR had attached during recruitment.

"National identification verified," he murmured, clicked and read what was displayed on the screen.

Sidonie Hart. Twenty-three years old. Creek Town citizen. Date of birth. Identification number. Current residential address.

Kai frowned and moved to the next record which was the Tax registration. It was valid.

Previous employment was at The Copper Lantern in Orange Grove.

He slowly sat back.

Dennis pulled up the chair opposite the desk and sat down. "What’s wrong?"

"This is ridiculous," Kai said slowly, in disbelief. "How could she be registered as Sidonie Hart?"

He turned the screen towards Dennis. Dennis stared at the photograph on the employment file.

"But that’s Miss Jessica Ashfang."

"I know," Kai said calmly. "Sidonie Hart is real, but she is not my Jessica."

He looked up at Dennis. "I need a thorough background check on her. I want to know if this identity was invented three years ago. I need to know what exactly I’m dealing with here."

Dennis nodded curtly. "Yes, Alpha."

Even though Kai knew Jessica, the doubts were already clamouring in the back of his mind, too loud to ignore. Because there were other things about this that didn’t fit. Things the file couldn’t explain.

Why couldn’t he smell her? Why couldn’t Phantom, his beast feel Ginger around? Why didn’t he feel that bond pulsing between them?

He shook his head. "Something is wrong. Something is very wrong."

And he needed to find out what had gone wrong.

***

By lunchtime, Jessica had worked out that she was now famous.

She could tell because the restaurant had filled up considerably earlier than usual, and because a fair number of the people in it were not looking at the menu boards.

They came in and queued and leaned into each other, and the whispering went round the room like a draught.

"That’s her. Behind the counter. Ginger one."

"That’s the one who threw coffee at him?"

"She poured it all down the front. I heard his suit’s ruined."

"And he hugged her?"

"Someone from IT saw it all."

Jessica kept serving.

She scooped rice, ladled sauce, and asked people if they wanted the chicken or the fish, and the whispering carried on only inches from her face as though she were a display item that had been mistakenly wired for sound.

"Well, she’s got ginger hair, hasn’t she. That’s all it’ll be. He’s seen the hair and lost his head."

"Poor man."

"What if she truly is the one?"

"Don’t be stupid. The Chairman would never have dated a low-life like that. She probably just reminds him of his dead girlfriend."

"I pity Miss Westwood."

The words landed like barbs, but Jessica had spent three years at The Copper Lantern absorbing worse than whispered gossip. She knew how to wear a smile like armour, how to keep her hands steady while her insides churned.

She raised her chin, looked directly at the nearest cluster of gossiping staff, and gave one woman the biggest, brightest, most dazzling smile she had in stock, held it for a full three seconds, and said, "Chicken or fish?"

The woman blinked. "Sorry?"

"Chicken. Or fish."

"Oh. Chicken, please."

"Lovely," Jessica said warmly, and gave her an enormous portion, because Jessica was not the sort of person who took it out on somebody’s lunch.

The employee looked startled, the way people do when they realise they’ve been caught talking behind someone’s back. She muttered something that only she could make out, and Jessica handed her the tray cheerfully.

"If you’d like extra dressing, just let me know," she added, still smiling. "We aim to please."

Say what you like, she thought, moving to the next tray. She had survived worse than office gossip. And honestly, they were not wrong about the important part. The man had lost his mind.

Just then, the doors to the restaurant swung open, and every head in the room turned towards the entrance.

The chattering stopped as if someone had flicked a switch. Jessica felt the atmosphere shift before her eyes even found the source.

Kai stood in the doorway.

Her heart gave one hard, ridiculous kick against her ribs, which infuriated her, because there was no reason for it whatsoever.

He was no longer wearing the coffee-stained suit from that morning. Someone had found him a fresh navy blazer and matching trousers, and he wore them with the easy confidence of a man who had been born to fill a room.

His eyes swept across the restaurant, across that entire crowded room and landed on hers immediately, as though he had known exactly where she would be standing before he walked in.

His lips curled into a mischievous smirk.

It made her heart rate spike so dangerously that she nearly dropped the serving spoon.

She looked away immediately, fixing her gaze on the tray in front of her, but she could still feel the weight of his eyes. She could feel it like a hand on the back of her neck.

Around her, the whispers started again, this time lower and more urgent.

"Why is he here?"

"Is he here for lunch?"

"He doesn’t eat down here."

"He’s never eaten here. Everyone knows that."

"Well," somebody murmured. "He’s here now, isn’t he."