Chapter 3 - Cornered in the Service Hall|
The kitchen fell into absolute, stunned silence.
Even the hiss of the gas burners seemed to fade into insignificance before Diego’s towering presence.
Kevin, the shift manager, hurried out from the walk-in cooler with a clipboard in his hands.
“Sir, you can’t be back here! This is an employees-only—”
Diego didn’t even turn his head.
He simply raised one hand, and two large men in dark charcoal suits entered behind him, blocking the entrance completely.
Kevin’s mouth snapped shut, the clipboard trembling against his chest as the color drained from his face.
Nelia backed away until her spine met the cold steel of the industrial refrigerator.
She instinctively wrapped both arms protectively over her swollen belly.
“Diego, please,” she begged in a ragged whisper.
“Don’t do this here.”
Diego closed the distance between them with slow, deliberate steps that echoed like a death march.
He stopped barely two feet away from her.
The familiar scent of his expensive cologne—sandalwood, leather, and smoke—filled her senses and nearly brought her to tears.
It was the scent of the man who had promised to love her forever before tearing her world apart.
“Seven months, Nelia,” Diego said, his deep voice vibrating with barely controlled anger.
“You disappeared into thin air for seven whole months.”
“I had to leave,” she choked out, blinking back the hot tears burning behind her eyelids.
“You left me without a note, without a word, and without a trace,” he said, stepping closer until she could feel the heat radiating from his chest.
His gaze dropped downward again, resting on the rounded curve beneath her stained apron.
His hand trembled slightly as he reached out toward her stomach, but he hesitated before touching her.
“Is it mine?” he asked, the vulnerability in his voice so raw that it felt like a knife wound.
Nelia swallowed hard, her heart aching with every beat.
“Does it even matter now, Diego?”
“Answer me!” he demanded, the velvet tone vanishing beneath a roar that rattled the pots hanging above them.
Everyone in the kitchen flinched, but Nelia didn’t back down.
“You made your choice the day you chose your empire over our marriage!” she cried out, her voice cracking with pure emotion.
“You gave up the right to ask questions when you let me walk away!”
Before Diego could respond, the kitchen door swung open once again.
Julianna stood in the doorway, her diamond necklace flashing under the harsh fluorescent lights.
Her face was flushed with humiliated rage.
“Diego, what is the meaning of this circus?” Julianna screamed, ignoring the grease on the floor as she marched forward.
“You abandon me at the table to chase an illiterate pregnant servant into a kitchen?”
Diego didn’t turn around, but his shoulders tightened beneath his tailored suit.
“Watch your tongue, Julianna,” Diego said in a chilling whisper.
“I don’t care who she is!” Julianna shrieked, pointing an accusatory finger at Nelia.
“She is a nobody, and she is ruining my night!”
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Then Julianna turned to Kevin, who was still cowering near the sink.
“Manager, fire this miserable girl right now, or my father will shut this filthy health hazard down before midnight!”
