Betrayed by Trust (21 page)

“While you were playing with Chris, Nikki told me she was planning a huge birthday party for his fourth birthday,” Caitlyn said, as she curled her legs under while sitting on their couch.

“It’s a little early to be doing that, don’t you think?”
Blake asked, as he reached for a slice of pizza.

“His birthday is a few months away, but you have to look at it like this. At least she’s including us in the planning phase.”

“So what do you think about Chris,” Blake asked.

“I think he’s a bright little boy, who is as cute as his daddy,”
Caitlyn responded.

“I thought he wasn’t going to take to me for a minute.”

“Give him some time.”

“It went better than I thought. He did call me daddy.”

“No, he said da-da,” Caitlyn teased.

“I’m proud of how you kept your cool with Byron and Nikki.”

“Byron and I are history. You and Christopher are my future.”

“True.”
Blake yawned. “I don’t know about you, but I’m sleepy.”

“Go on up. I’ll clean up down here,”
Caitlyn said.

Blake
kissed her on the lips and left her downstairs.

The end of the month came fast. Blake called Caitlyn into his office. “I just got word from Overton and it’s official. All parties have signed. We have joint custody.”

Caitlyn
sat in Blake’s lap, “Congrats Daddy.”

“That’s Big Daddy to you,”
Blake said, as he kissed her.

Joan entered the office and alerted them to her arrival by clearing her throat. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

Caitlyn jumped up. She smoothed out the wrinkles in her skirt. “I have a conference call I’m late for. Blake, see you at home. Bye Joan,” she said, as she passed the smiling secretary.

“Mrs. Banks can I see you for a moment,” one of the IT employees said, as she exited on to her floor.

“What can I help you with?”

“It’s something I need to show you. But in private.” She looked at the nametag and it read Victor Hagon.

She led him to her office. “Victor, can it wait? I have a conference call.”

“It’ll only take a few minutes of your time.”

Once they were in her office, he handed her a folder with the words “vendor discrepancy report” displayed on the label. Victor said, “I have you down as the point of contact if we found any discrepancies.”

“Yes.”
Caitlyn wasn’t sure if she was ready to hear more.

“We found several entries where it appeared a hacker m
ade transactions on accounts under your login.”

Caitlyn
’s past transgressions were now haunting her. She played it off. “Give me some time to look through this and I’ll get back with you.”

“
I wasn’t sure if you wanted to handle it directly or give it to someone else.”

Caitlyn
said, “I’ll look these over and if need be, I’ll talk to Mr. Banks.”

As soon as Victor left her office, she closed her door. She decided to not call into the conference. She had more immediate things to take care of—like figuring out how to make sure
Blake never saw the information that could prove she was behind several projects failing. She threw the folders in her laptop case. She sent out a message to her staff to let them know she was leaving early, logged off from her computer and unhooked her laptop.

Tasha
exited the elevator as she was getting on. “Girl, you look like someone’s after you.”

“I’m not feeling well, so I’m on my way home.”

“Do you need me to drive you?”

Caitlyn
held up her hand. “No. I just need to a nap and I’ll be fine.”

She hit the closed button on the elevator and didn’t wait for
Tasha to respond. She paced the floor of the elevator. She walked briskly past the security desk without saying a word. It didn’t seem like she released her breath until she was sitting on the highway, far away from Banks Telecom.

“Bridget, my past has caught up with me,” she said, as soon as she answered the door.

“Come on in.”

Caitlyn
showed her the folders. Bridget skimmed them. “Tell Blake.”

“He wouldn’t understand. It took us months to get to this point.”

“I’m the first to admit, Blake hasn’t been my favorite person; but he makes you happy.”

“It’s not meant for me to be happy. I’m convinced of that now,”
Caitlyn said, accepting defeat.

“This happened at a different time in your life. You gave up your quest for revenge months ago.”

“But Blake’s not going to see that. He’s going to blame me for his company’s previous hardships.”

“We all make mistakes,” Bridget said.

“Some mistakes are easier to forgive than others.”

Spending time with his son over the past few weeks had Blake in a jovial mood, but something was amiss concerning Caitlyn. When she didn’t think he was paying attention, she would sometimes have a faraway look in her eyes. Blake ignored it as long as he could.

“
Cat, I want to know what’s going on with you and I want to know now,” he demanded, when he burst into her office.

Caitlyn
wasn’t there. He sat down behind her desk to wait for her. While sitting and waiting, he decided to write her a note. He didn’t see a pen so he attempted to open up the desk drawer. It was locked. He looked in her laptop bag for a key. The file in the bag caught his attention. He pulled it out. He recalled the argument that resulted from the last time he got caught snooping. He pushed the thought to the side and looked in the folder.

His eyes couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The accounts listed in the folder were the same ones that led to him losing money. He forgot about leaving her a note. He took the folder with him and headed to his office.  “Joan, do me a favor and cancel all of my meetings for the rest of the day.”

Blake locked his door and took the time going through the details in the folder thoroughly. Each one of the accounts showed Caitlyn had been the one to enter in the figures. He had one question.
Why?
Why did Caitlyn try to sabotage his company? All this time, he had been sleeping with the enemy.

Blake
left the office and spent the afternoon figuring out how he would confront Caitlyn. It took all the restraints he had not to go to her office again. This was something he needed to handle in private. If his temper flared, Blake didn’t want it to happen around his employees.

Caitlyn
turned the lock on the door and yelled out, “Sorry, I’m late. I stopped at the store to pick up a few things for Chris’s room.”

Blake
didn’t respond. Caitlyn called out his name a few times. “Blake, are you downstairs? You must be upstairs.”

Blake
yelled, “No, I’m down stairs. I’m in the living room.”

“See what I got.”
Caitlyn stopped talking when she saw the anger on Blake’s face. “What’s wrong? Are Nikki and Byron tripping about Chris?”

Blake
threw the folder at her and papers started flying everywhere. “What the hell is your problem?” Caitlyn asked as she stooped down to retrieve the papers. She stopped, when she realized what they were. “Blake I can explain,” she stuttered.

“I trusted you. I trusted you with my life. With my child and you betrayed me.”

“It’s not what you think.” Caitlyn walked up to him. “This all happened before I knew you.”

“You were working at my company. You knew me quite well.”

“No. It was before we really got to know each other. You just don’t understand the pressure I was under.”

Caitlyn
reached out to him, but he blocked her efforts by folding his arms. “Pressure. Let me explain to you about pressure. What you did put my whole company at risk? Do you know what would have happened if my uncle hadn’t left me the money? Do you? People would have been out of jobs. Whole families would have been affected for something that you set in motion.”

“I didn’t think about that when I set out to get revenge.”

“Cat, what did I ever do to you? My company offered you a job. Grant it, our relationship wasn’t conventional, but I showed you love and I thought you loved me.”

“I do love you
Blake. The revenge was set in motion when my dad died.”

“What does your dad have to do with me?”

“Your uncle turned down my dad for a loan. When he did, it set off a chain of events that led my father into a deep depression. He never fully recovered from it and when he died, something inside of me died along with him. Getting revenge on your uncle was how I got the strength to go on. Please understand.”

“I understand one thing
Cat. You’re not the woman I thought you were.”

“
Blake, we can work through this. We got through the Lisa thing. We got through the Christopher thing.”

“Don’t you say another thing about my son. If he wasn’t so taken in with you, I would ban you from seeing him.”

“Blake, I never meant to hurt you. I wanted to hurt your uncle Jack.” Caitlyn said.

“When Uncle Jack died, your quest for revenge should have died right along with it, but it didn’t.”

Caitlyn said, “I did let it go.”

“
But not soon enough. I suggest you sleep in the guest room. Your stuff’s already been moved to it.”

Blake
’s heart ached as she watched Caitlyn leave the room. Her betrayal pierced a hole in his heart. Blake would find a way to ride out the next few months until the year was up. Caitlyn would be his wife in name only—as far as he was concerned she would be invisible.

Blake and Caitlyn’s one year anniversary was approaching. Blake made a phone call to Overton to discuss his uncle’s will. Overton confirmed whether his marriage worked or not, the remainder of the funds would be relinquished to him without any other stipulations once the one year had passed.

A few hours later, a courier brought over some documents
from Overton. Blake didn’t have any other appointments scheduled, so he locked his office door so he could review the documents in private. Included in the documents was a letter from his uncle Jack as well as other papers he would need to review before approaching Caitlyn to discuss their divorce.

Divorce. He never thought he would be affected by it. Actually, he never thought he would say the words “I do” either but he did. He still loved
Caitlyn, but since their blow up after he found out about her misdeeds, they both kept their distance. He had forgiven her but he couldn’t forget what she had done.

They were cordial to each other over the past few months.
She had also attended events with him when he needed an escort, but he barely saw her dimples. It seemed like he took the life out of her when he was around. He missed the Caitlyn that put up a fight whenever he challenged her; he wasn’t used to the Caitlyn who seemed compliant. The only time she seemed happy is when Christopher was around. He didn’t look forward to the day Caitlyn would be out of their lives.

“Let’s see what dear old Uncle Jack had to say,”
Blake said out loud.

“
Blake, if you’re reading this, it means I’ve gone on to glory. I love you. It hurt me you had to grow up without your parents, but the Lord saw fit to bring you into our lives. Me and your aunt loved you and couldn’t have asked for a better nephew or I should say son. I want you to know I’m so proud of you. I wanted you to go into banking, but we’re too much alike. You wanted to be your own man. To build a company from scratch is hard, but by golly you got those strong Banks genes and you did it. My son, Blake Banks, the CEO of his own company.  By now, you’ve probably said a few unkind words about me, but I forgive you.

There are two versions of this letter. The other version says the same thing but congratulates you. If you’re reading this letter, it means you and
Caitlyn couldn’t make things work during this past year. I’m sorry it didn’t work out. I hope it’s not because you were reunited with your son. I regret I never got a chance to meet Christopher. I’ve set aside money to be given to him on his twenty-first birthday.

Caitlyn
has the same passion as your aunt. Son, you need a help mate—one who will love you for you and not what you can do for her. Caitlyn is that woman so whatever it is you have to work through—don’t let her get away.

She and her siblings have every right to blame me—and that they did. I forgave the
ir father. You forgive them. If you love her, go after her. Go after her the same way you went after her to save your business. You didn’t hesitate to approach her when it came to saving your business, so save your heart and go after the woman you love. I don’t want you to be alone. You need someone to love you and care for you because I’m no longer there.  I love you son.”

The letter fell out of his hands as he wiped the tears from his eyes. Here he was a grown man crying. He had to pull himself together. His Uncle dropped several tidbits of information he would have to check out. He thought about the hostility
Caitlyn sometimes showed towards him for no apparent reason. It became crystal clear that Caitlyn knew his Uncle was behind her father not getting his loan. Blake leaned his head back as he thought about how to proceed further. Caitlyn. The Crenshaws. Uncle Jack. So many questions ran through his mind. Love tugged at his heart.