Chapter 3 - finding out

She was gone..

Sitting in the meeting, Harry still couldn't believe it. Even after having close to two hours to absorb the news, he was still not able to truly comprehend what he had been told. It was all he could think about. He was not able to even pay attention to this meeting that he had called for. He couldn't bring himself to care. His mind was still on that moment two hours ago.

When he had visited the accounts department on some pretext that he had forgotten, he knew something was wrong when he saw her desk empty. He knew what that meant, an empty desk and he had been hoping he was wrong. But his supposition was confirmed when he had casually noted the empty desk to the head of the team, Jessica. Initially, he had been confused when she told him, assured him quite effusively, that it had been done. When probed about what the "it" was, he had been faced with bafflement but she had told him. That was when his stomach had dropped to his feet.

Elena was fired?

What? Why? How? He hadn't seen any reports on her. Not in the past few days. Although the human resource department is usually in charge of everything related to the personnel, he had to be aware of the potential firing of personnel. There were steps and procedures to rectify the performance or attitude and the final step was to be endorsed by him. So he was puzzled as to why he was not aware of this.

He was also puzzled by the reason that he had been told. He had seen that Jessica was also perplexed even though she had shown a confident front. He knew she was quite close to Elena. She had recommended her for many projects although her recommendations had not always been taken into consideration but he did understand why.

He knew Elena was a hard worker. She often stayed late into the night. He had noticed that when he had looked into her file. Her computer was always switched off at nine, ten on the some occasions and eleven on some rare moment. Her other team members all left at eight, nine at the latest. And her work were good, exemplary even. He had noticed the lack of any notes or writeups in her file. Not even during her first years of working in the company as a fresh graduate. So, no, he was not able to accept the flimsy reason for dismissing her.

The more he thought about it, the more it inflamed his need to get to the bottom of this. His hands gripping the arms of the chair tightly, he had to strongly tamp the urge to go to his office and investigate the chains of events, the starting point to the processing of her dismissal. It had to be recorded somewhere and usually, it would be noted in the employee's file. But when he had last checked her file this morning, there had been nothing. The only other way this could have had any weight was if one of the upper management had initiated it. Kept it off the records. That would have made the immediate supervisors not check for his approval. And this was troubling.

His gaze boring into the table, Harry knew it had only been purely happenstance that he had even visited the office that had just dismissed one of their employees. Dismissed Elena. She must have been on the way out when she had passed him her box. But wait- Tensing slightly, his gaze went to where the inner pocket of his suit jacket was. The pocket he had slipped the photo frame when he had chased after Elena. Ater she has passed him her box. Which brought to mind the question:

Since she was leaving, why did she pass him her box?

After knowing what he knew now, he was aware that his initial conjecture was wrong. She did not recognise him and dropping the box into his arms was not a bid to get his attention. She must have been heading out, leaving without his knowledge, when he had happened to be heading her way. He would have even passed her without recognising her since he always looked out for her when he came across her office. Even though her office was at the other side of the floor, he always managed to find a reason to walk by it.

And now, she's gone.

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Heading to his office once the meeting was over, Harry was still trying to figure out why Elena had given him the box, which now that he thought about it, had contained all of her stuff. The only reason he had not made the connection had been the small amount of items in the box. For someone who had worked for more than five years with the company, she had very little personal effects. Recalling the few bits of paper and the cactus, the only, truly personal item was the photo frame in his possession.

But who was he to pass judgement? His own office was as impersonal. Even more so since there were no photos. Only his certificates and personal awards. The artworks and furniture were not even of his choice. Everything had been chosen by his interior designer and, if pressed, he would not be able to pick out his office in a line-up of photos of similar offices. He could hear Elena's derisive voice in his head, calling him on his lack of personalisation. His lips tugged up and he walked out of the elevator in a slightly better mood than he had going in.

Passing by Aksa's unoccupied table, he recalled the box. He had headed to the meeting straight after visiting Elena's former office. Since his secretary was not needed in the meeting and had been accompanying him so that he could give her some last minute instructions, he knew she must have headed back to her office when the time of the meeting had passed. His heart began to speed up and cold sweat was forming on his back as he started to look for the box. With the neatness of her desk, this one box should stand out. But he couldn't find anything. Going so far as to pull out her seat, he held in a groan when he didn't spot the box.

"Mr Reynolds?" Jumping when he heard Aksa's voice, he looked up and saw her looking at him with a disconcerted look on her face. Walking to the other side of her desk in measured steps, he acted like nothing out of the ordinary happened. He could feel her gaze on him and was hardpressed not to say anything. Only when he was halfway to his office did he stop.

"Miss Walters, I hope you have taken care of the box?" He made his tone sound like he had only then recalled the presence of the box. As if it was an afterthought when, in reality, he hadn't stop thinking about it. Feeling his shoulders starting to hunch together from waiting for her answer, he forced himself to relax. "Miss Walters?"he said again when there was no response. He turned to her, noticing the slight jolt of her shoulders. He had surprised her.

"Ah, the owner of the box took back possession of it, "she told him as she began to slide into her chair. He was surprised to observe that there was a slight smile on her face when she talked about Elena. Did she like her? "Apparently, she was overcome with nausea when we were approaching so she shoved the box in the nearest available arms."

"Nausea? Is she sick?"he asked, forcing mild concern into his voice. He still hadn't come up with a way to approach her without looking like a jerk for not contacting her for the past four months. So he didn't want his interest in her to be noted by anyone. Maybe the IT people might be aware of it since they do take care of the servers and if they were observant, they'd have noticed the number of times he had pulled up her file from the server. He hoped they weren't but his Head of IT had been looking at him weird lately. Hoping he was imagining things, he returned to the present when Aksa spoke.

"Oh, it's nothing serious. She's just pregnant. She told me she's four months along-"

Four months.

Pregnant.

He couldn't hear anything else. His mind kept replaying these three words. This was the third shock he'd had today. And this was the most explosive. The one that made his world shift. He felt like the earth had suddenly tilted on its axis and he was the only one affected.

Elena was pregnant?

She's four months along?

He knew what that meant. The fact that they had met four months ago. The fact that they had slept together four months ago. The fact that she had been a virgin before he had initiated her. All these pointed to one, only one, conclusion.

He was the father

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Harry didn't know what to do. He'd told Aksa to cancel all his meetings for the day. This was a big revelation. He couldn't just make a snap decision. The next step needed to be carefully thought out. Obviously, he would have to talk to Elena. Actually confirm that he was the person responsible for her pregnancy. Just the thought that she could possibly have slept with another man so soon after their night made him stop and glare at his burnt umber rug on which his white modern sofa set. Feeling a shot of pain radiating from his hands, he was startled out of his anger and looked down to see his fingers had curled up into fists. They were curled so tightly that his knuckles were almost white.

Forcing himself to release his fingers, he found his gaze shooting to the frame on his desk. With the lack of any other accoutrements, the photo frame was prominent even without being pink and heavily decorated with flowers and donut stickers. And despite the more conventionally beautiful and striking woman in the photo, his attention was fixed on the more subdued woman beside her. His lips curled up as his finger traced her smile.

The sight of his finger on the photo frame startled him. Blinking, he looked up and was surprised to find himself right beside his desk when he had last remembered being across the room. Stepping back from his desk, he ran his hands through his hair, his mind going to the first time he took notice of Elena.

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