I Was The Favor He Refused To See Chapter 11
“Everyone leave,” he said.
No one moved.
“I said get out!”
The others fled like startled rabbits.
Cole stood, looked at him, and seemed like he wanted to say something. In the end, he turned and left too.
Ethan took a dark-blue velvet box out of his pocket.
After staring at it for a long time, he suddenly thought he had figured something out.
That man named Whitmore was wealthy and from Newport Beach. There was no reason for someone like him to agree to a family-arranged introduction with someone of Ivy’s ordinary background.
Even if he truly admired her talent, he must have been lowering his standards.
They had only known each other for three days. What kind of emotional foundation could they possibly have?
Ethan and Ivy had grown up together. They had twenty years of history.
How could that lose to a stranger?
Early the next morning, Ethan went straight to the employee housing.
He knew which floor Ivy lived on now.
He had asked the building manager directly for the housing registration form.
She was on the fifth floor, in Unit 503.
There was no elevator, and the hallway light was still broken.
He climbed for a long time, then knocked on the door. No one answered.
The door next door opened a crack, and a female employee peeked out. “Mr. Langford? No one lives in 503 anymore. Ivy moved out a while ago.”
“Where did she go?”
“I don’t know… I think she said she was going to Newport Beach.”
Newport Beach?
Ethan’s fingers clenched.
He returned to the company and went straight to Finance.
“Notify Ivy to come back and complete her resignation paperwork.”
“Pay her standard severance plus three extra months. Also transfer one hundred thousand dollars to her from my personal account.”
The finance employee froze. “Mr. Langford, Ivy’s resignation paperwork was completed a long time ago, and her final paycheck has already been settled. As for the one hundred thousand dollars… what should we list it as?”
“Who told you to process it?” Ethan’s voice rose sharply. “When did I ever say her resignation paperwork could be finalized?”
The finance employee shrank back in fear. “Mr. Langford, you said it yourself… You told her to take it to HR and finish whatever handoff needed to be done.”
“HR followed the normal process. Everything has already been closed out.”
Ethan opened his mouth, but the words lodged in his throat.
He remembered now.
He hadn’t even looked up at her then.
Later in the hallway, when he told her she would execute the Newport Beach project, he had thought that was enough of a signal.
He had thought it meant he wanted her to stay.
But he had never actually said the words, “Stay.”
With her, he was always strictly professional.
His own sister only held a title at the company, yet he could give her a salary everyone envied.
There had been no need to avoid any appearance of favoritism there.
But Ivy had gone five years without a raise, and he had told her, in that same professional tone, that the company’s finances were tight.
Even when she resigned, he had told her in that same professional tone to go to HR.
He had thought that no matter what he did, she would never leave, because she was his own person.
“One hundred thousand dollars.” He closed his eyes, his voice carrying a vicious edge born of wounded pride. “List it as this: tell her not to go chasing some rich man. I can give her whatever she thinks he can.”
The finance employee didn’t dare ask more and did as told.
That afternoon, Ethan received a bank notice saying the transfer had been returned because the recipient’s account had been closed.
The one hundred thousand dollars came back the same way it had gone out.