Love, Utley (Love Letters #1)

She always gets here before me.

She —

A terrible feeling hits me in the gut.

What if something happened to her on her drive in?

I almost sprint back down to my car, my hand already pulling my phone out of my pocket, but then I see it.

The blank door.

The little piece of plastic with her name etched into it is gone.

“What…?”

I take the final stride and grip the door handle.

Shoving it open, I step into Hannah’s office and freeze.

It’s empty.

Not just empty, as in no one is in here. Empty, as in the shelves are empty.

The calendar on the wall is gone. The pen cup, the thin blanket that’s always on the back of her chair, the coaster she always set her coffee mug on that must’ve been made by Chelsea years ago… it’s all gone.

“What the fuck?”

I spin around and nearly crash into someone as I stride out of her office.

I don’t bother recalling his name; I just point at the office behind me. “Where is she?”

The man’s eyes widen.

I jab the air again. “Where. Is. She?”

He looks anywhere but at me. “Hannah was, uh, let go.”

Let. Go.

Hannah was let go.

My girl. My Bunny, was fucking fired. From my own fucking company.

“When?” I hardly recognize my voice.

“F-Friday.”

The man jumps back, and I let my long strides lead me to the corporate offices.

There’s a light on in Brenda’s office, and I turn toward it.

She’s the head of HR. She would’ve been the one to do this.

I don’t knock. I just step directly into her office.

She startles, coffee sloshing over the rim of her mug onto her desk. “Oh, um, M-Mr. Lovelace.”

So it’s Mr. Lovelace and not Maddox today. How telling.