Begin Again novel Chapter 176

A half-hour trip to get to work ended up taking two hours because of a horrific car crash on the R51. By the time Eden made it to the office, she was hangry and royally pissed off from being caught in bumper-to-bumper traffic for so long.

She'd barely sat down when Clara came to deliver some much needed good news. Liam had decided to take the day off.

Eden smiled but didn't ask for details. Still fuming from his stunt with his attorneys, she didn't care and wasn't in the least curious as to why he'd suddenly decided he needed a break.

But Clara was very curious, and she made it known as she traipsed up and down in front of her desk. "I wonder what's wrong with the Dragon? Aren't you worried?"

No, she was not. So, she ignored her because she knew she's fishing and trying to sniff out the reason behind Liam's sudden absence from the office.

Out of all the women on the 36th floor, Clara's gossip radar was the strongest, and right now, her suspicion antenna was firmly trained on her as she tried one more time to get her to talk.

"Everyone says it's the first time he's ever taken time off since he took over as CEO. Do you think he's okay?"

"Why are you asking me?" Eden remained tightlipped as she shook her head even though she had a pretty good idea why Liam had suddenly decided to play hookie.

Good, she thought with some satisfaction as she fired up her laptop to get her day started. She shouldn't be the only one having a miserable day.

"—Well, you are his work wife," Clara pointed out.

"And so are you!" Eden argued, and for five minutes, she held steady, brushing off all of her friend's attempts to get her to spill the tea on Liam.

Eventually, Clara gave up and changed the subject when it became obvious she wouldn't get anything from her. "Anyway, your office is ready. You can move in any time."

Eden nodded, smiled and thanked her for the heads up as she contemplated her stationery box with all her worldly possessions.

She wasn't in the mood for another move. But being shoved in the middle of nowhere—with Liam constantly glaring at her through the glass now that things between them had gone to shit—was giving her major anxiety.

"Come on, let's go check it out," Clara cried as she pulled her from the chair and dragged her to Gibby's old office, where they spent a few minutes gushing over Eden's new space.

As happy as she was to have an office that was not the size of a broom closet, she couldn't help but be a little annoyed when she saw the Ming vase and the painting were back. "I thought he got rid of them."

"Are you insane?" Clara was horrified at her silly utterances. "Those pieces cost R750K. Why the hell would he get rid of them? They were in storage the whole time."

Eden shrugged and tested out her ergonomic chair, a cream one this time, to go with the rest of the furniture.

She still hadn't figured out what ergonomic-what-not meant. But she guessed it had a lot to do with comfort and posture because she could melt into this chair, just like her old one.

"Anyway, the daddy Dragon called before you came in and asked you drop everything and meet him at his penthouse in Green Point," Clara announced as she stood up and stretched, yawning loudly.

"Thanks," Eden murmured and made no promises.

She'd figured he wanted to meet after his hundred calls. But she was still so furious with him. And if her father was right and Liam was now trying to renegotiate the custody agreement, then she would let him stew a little.

"—Do you want to grab lunch today?" Clara asked as she headed for the door.

Eden barely heard though, her mind was already on the proposal in front of her, and for an hour, she lost herself in her marketing plan.

Her progress was halted when the group chat exploded with back to back texts from her friends, demanding to know if the cold war between her and Liam was still raging on.

She decided to call them. Sending text messages wasn't the most efficient way to give them a blow by blow account of her hellish four days.

She spent fifteen minutes updating them on her nightmare of a morning at Thomas Blaine Inc. Like she'd expected, they were outraged and properly pissed off, and they wanted Liam's blood.

No matter how hard Eden tried to convince them she was okay and didn't need reinforcement since the meeting with the attorneys was already over, they still insisted on driving over to Anderson Logistics.