Avalon and Maddock

Chapter 5: Avalon

Sitting in my car in the lawyer's parking lot, I tried to think of things that I would like to do even less than I wanted to walk through those doors. Maybe have a tooth pulled without anesthetic, but other than that, there wasn't much I could think of. 

Maddock's SUV was already here; I pictured him pacing inside, rehearsing what he was going to say to me today. The man always had a plan. I was to discover that to my detriment today.

With two minutes left before our meeting, I walked into Jeanne's office and her receptionist greeted me and waved me toward the conference room, asking if I'd like some coffee or tea. I declined, afraid I couldn't keep anything down with my nerves strung so tight. As expected, Maddock was already on his feet and walking toward me.

"Hi, sweetheart," he said, pulling out a chair for me.

No matter the circumstances, Maddock was always a gentleman. It was one of the things that had attracted me to him when we'd first met.

You know, you could let me open the door for you sometimes.

Never gonna happen, Avalon. My job is to treat you like a lady deserves to be treated.

What had happened to that man who was so attentive to me? Let's see...he'd disappeared for seven months to be with another woman. I ignored the chair he held for me and pulled out my own. Childish? Yes. Satisfying when I heard him huff out a breath of frustration? Double yes.

Jeanne sat next to me and Maddock took the seat across from us so he could look right at me. Even with my eyes focused on the fascinating wood table, I could feel his eyes on me.  

Jeanne began. "Mr. Hughes, I need to ask again if you would like to have your lawyer present."

"No, thank you," he refused. 

"OK, then, would you like to tell us why you wanted this meeting?"

"I want to talk with my wife. I think this can be cleared up if we could just talk it out." My eyes shot to his at that bold statement.

"Mrs. Hughes has requested that I remain for any discussion."

Maddock's eyes flashed, with pain, with hurt, I wasn't sure -- I just knew he didn't like my lawyer's presence. "That's fine," he lied, irritated.

"Avalon, first of all, I love you. It may not seem like it for the last seven months, but I do. I've never stopped, not for one second. What you're thinking, that I left you for another woman, that I found myself a girlfriend, isn't true."

"So that kiss you told me about? You go around kissing women and it doesn't mean anything?"

"It meant nothing. It was a caught-up-in-the-moment thing. I can explain the circumstances because they damn sure aren't what you're thinking."

"All I'm thinking is you kissed another woman and our marriage is done."

"I refuse to accept that." He raked a hand through his dark hair and his cowlick stood up, just like our boys' cowlicks. "Ten months ago, the company started slowly losing contracts. At first it was one, then two, and this went on for three months...until seven months ago, we lost six critical contracts in one month. I was investigating why, the COO was investigating why, the VP of Sales was investigating why -- basically every executive in the company was scrambling to figure out what was going on, twenty-four/seven. That's when shit started to get intense for me and why I was never home. After about a month, we discovered we were the victims of a whisper campaign. You remember when I had to fire the chief technology officer for sexual harassment?"

He waited for me to nod before continuing.

"Jared was behind the whisper campaign. He was hacking into our computer system -- he'd left an ingenious back door -- and he was targeting the companies we were working with. He was taking our bids and changing numbers after we'd checked them and before we sent them out so we were being outbid left and right. He was sending false information to existing clients so they were canceling contracts -- basically fucking us over every way he could. And he was planting rumors of corruption, cutting corners -- you name it. We lost millions and millions of dollars, and for a long time, we didn't even know who we were fighting. So while the lawyers and private investigators were working on finding and nailing this asshole, my executive team and I were starting damage control."