The Girlfriend Contract 2 (10 page)

A pretty woman somewhere in her thirties, her hair up in a bun, waited at the desk. "Gwen Browning?" she said. It was the woman from the phone call. The one who'd hung up on her.

But Gwen felt much too cowed to confront her about it. The opulence of the place just overwhelmed her. And she didn't think those paintings were prints. The one behind the receptionist looked like the real thing. She could see the little ridges in the paint from where she stood.

"Yes," Gwen answered. She felt so small and insignificant. But that was probably the point, she realized. Everything Bradley Manning did was to manipulate things to his advantage.

"Mr. Manning will see you now. Please go straight inside." Another one of those orders pretending to be a request.

Gwen screwed up her courage and walked towards the doors. Before she could grab the handle, they swung in of their own accord, the motors nearly silent.

Bradley Manning's office looked surprisingly small, until the ceiling (or lack thereof) caught her attention. Glancing upward, her breath caught. There was a ceiling,
all right. It was just about thirty feet up, and all glass.

"Gwen, thank you for coming.
Take a seat, won't you?" Bradley said.

He waved at a plush chair at his desk.

"No thanks," Gwen said, her triumph at this small defiance far too much.

He also offered her his hand, and she almost took it before remembering that particular trick. The one Aiden had used on her own father. He smiled at her refusal.

"Right to business then, I take it?"

"I don't have any business with you. You need to understand something," she started, trying to breathe some heat back into the
dying embers of her anger.

"No, that's right. You're only business is with my son. But you see, his business is, quite literally, my business." He spread his arms apart, indicating Carbide Solutions, "And if he hopes to truly inherit it from me someday, he has to stop these little games. Like the one he's playing with you."

"We're not-" Gwen started.

"Just stop that. We both know the truth. Do you really think he could get a contract like that done up without me finding out about it? My son has real potential. He also just has it in his head that he needs to fix the company's image. And he's trying to do that with all this pointless charity, and with you. Yes, you. You're a part of that image he wants to project.
Nothing more."

Why did some people have to do that? Gwen wondered. They interrupt others, cutting people off mid-sentence as though their thoughts and opinions were the most important things in the world, like it was a privilege to hear them go on and on about whatever.

It was a wonder that Aiden even made it to adulthood, overshadowed by a man like Bradley.

"You don't know your son at all," she said, crossing her arms. Her feet started to hurt from just standing there, still sore from their cute-shoes torture from the previous night. She wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of seeing that, though.

But that just earned her a small, tight smile.

"I know him better than he knows himself.
And certainly better than you do. So that's why I am going to make this easy for both of you."

Bradley put his fingertips on a leather bound clipboard on his desk and slid it across, closer to her. "Inside, you'll find another contract. It nullifies the current one you have with my son. There is also a... severance package I think you'll find more than generous. Just sign it, and all this goes away."

Gwen didn't know what to say.

Bradley did, apparently. "He doesn't love you. And he certainly doesn't like you. You're just a tool to him. When he wears you out, he'll just toss you aside anyway. You are no good for him, so stop
fooling yourself. You'll be doing yourself, Aiden, and this company a favor by cutting this little act short here and now."

Gwen approached the desk. She opened the clipboard. Sure enough, there was a new contract in there.
Just like with the one Aiden gave her, this one started with a non-disclosure agreement.

Bradley Manning reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and took out an expensive pen. He removed the cap and slid it across the desk, leaving it beside the clipboard.

Gwen thought about these last few days with Aiden. About how he continually rejected her, how he seemed to show just enough affection and promise to keep her well within his grasp, about the way it hurt to not know if he felt the same way at all towards her.

"It's the right thing to do. For Aiden," Bradley said.

Gwen picked up the pen.

End of Episode 2

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Lucy Lambert

Published by Lucy Lambert

Copyright 2014 Lucy Lambert

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