Tangled: Contemporary Romance Trilogy

by Dee Bridgnorth

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Kevin

  “Are you sure this is what you want to do?” Damion Alvarez leaned back in his overstuffed, oversized, and probably overpriced leather executive chair.

  “I’m sure,” I replied.

  I had come to the home office of Gateway IT Staffing this morning with every intention of taking Damion up on his offer of employment and a return to Kansas City. I had only been a little bit certain before coming up here. Now that I was actually inside the office, I was dead certain. Absolutely certain? Totally sure of what I was doing? How many more ways could I tell myself that this was the right choice.

  This space, this office, culture, whatever you wanted to call it. It was exactly the sort of organization that I wanted to belong to. We were on the top floor of the building. The windows all around commanded a view of the vibrant shopping, dining, and commercial area known as the Chesterfield Valley. Traffic sped by on a major four-lane highway just a few yards from the edge of the parking lot. On the other side I could see equally new and impressive corporate buildings squatting on the bluffs overlooking the Missouri River.

  The interior of the office was well appointed, but not sectioned off into anything that would divide people from each other or their joint ideas. It was a place for conglomeration and probably friendly competition where I could actually see groups of five or six employees clustered around tables stacked with files and laptops. The conversations that you could hear were all about maximizing profits and finding the best candidates for the jobs available. They were talking new technology and innovation and the best way to make sure they could corner the markets as even newer technologies and software became available.

  It was the sort of place where the boss had an office tucked into the back that was unassuming. His door was probably always open and even since I’d been here we’d been unintentionally interrupted a dozen times or more by other employees who wanted to ask an opinion or get a signature because they had something big going down right now.

  If I compared this place to the sleepy little joke of an office where I was currently trying to pull my ass and that of every other recruiter out of the fire, it would make me cry. Lawrence Moss had been running St. Louis Software Staffing Solutions using a business model that should have died at the end of the last decade. The man still hadn’t come back from Florida and I doubted he would. I was starting to believe that his secretaries had run the entire operation and that he hadn’t really cared. Not that Todd or Dan Hopper cared at the moment either. They wanted me to quit. So, here I was. Quitting.

  “I really appreciate the opportunity that you’re giving me,” I told Damion as I leaned back in my chair and folded my hands over my middle. “I just need to make sure that you understand what could happen.”

  Damion was an ass. I wasn’t sure that I minded. In fact, I really sort of liked the guy. Good looking, self-man man with tons of money who had taken his time finding the right woman and marrying her. What wasn’t to like?

  Now Damion tilted his head to one side and gazed at me with no small amount of amusement in his dark eyes. “Are you talking about the possible response of your former—or soon-to-be former—bosses?”

  “Sure.” I shrugged. “If you want, I’ll call them right now.”

  Damion was actually laughing now. “I’m not entirely sure that’s ethical.”

  “Why not?” I growled. I was so done with Todd and Dan Hopper’s attempts to push me out of the company. “I’m just giving them what they want. Right?”

  Damion spread his hands. “Go ahead then. See what happens.”

  I pulled out my phone and dialed Todd’s office. It was the Friday before Thanksgiving week. There was no way that the man wouldn’t be in his office. If I were lucky, he would be there with Dan and I wouldn’t need to make another call. I put the call on speaker.

  After six rings, someone finally picked up. “Todd Hopper’s office.”

  “Hello Renee, this is Kevin Landau. Can I talk to Todd?”

  There was a very pregnant pause.

  “Or Dan,” I said quickly. “Doesn’t matter. Both is good too. And if you’re considering telling me they’re not in because neither of them really want to talk to me, don’t. I’m trying to quit, so I’m sure they’ll be thrilled to take my call.”

  “Quit?” Renee’s voice sounded a bit hollow. “Oh. I—uh—just hold on for a second.”

  The line cut to horrible elevator music as I had to hold for a few moments. Damion started laughing. He shook his dark head and chuckled to himself and I wondered if he approved or disapproved and I realized that I honestly didn’t care all that much either way. I wasn’t doing anything wrong. It just wasn’t necessarily the done thing.

  “Hey there, Kevin!” Dan Hopper’s oily voice came on the line and I gave into the urge to roll my eyes. “So what’s this Renee tells us? I’ve got Todd here in the office with me. You’re quitting?”

  It was Todd’s office that I had called, but I wasn’t about to say a word about that. There was simply no point. So I purposefully said the words guaranteed to take this whole conversation to the next level. “That’s right. Since company policy is that I go ahead and stop working immediately when I take another offer, I thought I would call you in person instead of just sending the official email.”

  “Oh?” Dan’s voice was full of what I like to call forced nonchalance. Like he was desperately trying to act like this did not intrigue him. “You say you’re taking another offer?”

  “Yes.”

  “There in St. Louis?” Dan pressed. “I thought you wanted to come back to Kansas City.”

  “Eventually,” I told him cryptically. I had absolutely no obligation to tell him squat and he knew it. “But since Midwest IT doesn’t seem very interested in making the St. Louis office successful, I feel like I’ll be better off with another company no matter where I’m living.”

  “Is that right?” I could hear Todd in the background, but Dan’s voice sounded as though he could barely contain his glee at this news. “And so you’re quitting effective today?”

  “Sure.” I kept it blasé because let’s face it, that was more likely to piss the guy off. “I’ll turn in my keys and passcode to Eleanor Schulte as soon as I swing by there on my way home.”

  “Home from where?” Dan said casually.

  Damion was now struggling to cover his mouth in order to prevent himself from laughing out loud. Dan was really trying to work this without being obvious. I sighed. This was probably going to be a total pain in the ass for Eleanor. That was the first thought in my head.

  “So,” I said with an equal amount of totally fake casualness. “Who are you going to have running the office here in St. Louis now? Mr. Moss has absconded to Florida. The administrative staff quit. And most of the recruiters are unmotivated bums who can’t even get their numbers as high as your last string of personnel in Kansas City.”

  “Oh, I’m sure that Eleanor will be just fine without you,” Dan told me breezily. Todd was still muttering in the background. I couldn’t quite tell what he was saying. “She’s got contacts in that city that you can’t even dream of.”

  I pointed at Damion and mouthed the words he’s totally talking about you! Damion snorted and shook his head. Had this been Dan and Todd’s plan all along? Were they honestly going to try and get Eleanor to what? To steal candidates off her future brother-in-law’s plate?

  “We’ve been very impressed with Eleanor,” Dan continued. I could actually see the supercilious expression on his face. The little weasel. “You should see it. She came up with this whole new twist on the five percent bonus we added to the salary offerings that will totally change the market.”

  “Is that right?” Did the ass really believe I had no clue what was going on? It was almost like Dan and Todd not only had no idea that I was a hands-on kind of executive who had sat there and brainstormed that idea with Eleanor. “Sounds like she’s really changing the way you do things. Huh?
”

  “Oh, she’s going to be a heavy hitter in St. Louis. That’s for sure,” Dan boasted.

  Todd was still whispering. Why? What was going on with these two? I had a very difficult time believing they were honestly this oblivious. Then I realized that they were probably going to be making a few changes now that they’d gotten rid of me. They wanted to know where I had accepted an offer. But I bet they were now officially going to pump about as much money into this St. Louis market as they possibly could.

  “So,” I began thoughtfully. “The two of you haven’t done much to make yourselves competitive here yet. You’ve been spinning your wheels over the last two weeks instead of hitting it hard like I would have done if I had been the one trying to start up a new office in this really clique-infested market.”

  Dan gave a boisterous laugh, but it was also brittle. “Well, we all know that you and I don’t do things the same way, Kevin.”

  “I’m not arguing with you there,” I snorted. “But I’m figuring that you’ve got what you wanted.”

  “Excuse me?” I could actually hear the smile sliding off Dan Hopper’s face.

  “I quit. You wanted to get rid of me. I’m not really sure why. I made your company a shit ton of money. And yet you were never shy about the fact that you hated me from the get-go. Why?”

  Dan finally dropped all pretenses of a façade. “Why? Because you think you’re above the rules, Kevin Landau! You honestly believe that as long as you’re making money for the company, it doesn’t matter what you do or whose toes you step on!”

  Damion was staring at me as though he were trying to decide what was going on too. It was like hearing someone throw a temper tantrum. “Dan, I’m stumped here. What did I do? What rules did I break? Are you talking about sniping candidates from other recruiters? Because I can tell you that I never took a candidate from anyone who was actively pursuing them. When an HR director calls me and says that they’re considering going with another recruiting firm because the candidate they want has been waiting so long for a phone call and an offer letter from us, then yeah, I step in and get the job done.”

  “I’m not talking about that, you moron,” Dan snapped. “I’m talking about my brother and his problem.”

  Problem. There was only one answer to that, but I could not decide why this was relevant to our discussion now. “Are you talking about Todd and his drinking problem?”

  “Yes! You blabbed!”

  Okay. That was bullshit. Total and complete bullshit. I could still hear Todd in the background of the call. He sounded upset. I wasn’t about to just stand here and let them tar and feather me like that. Not going to happen.

  “I never told anyone about Todd’s drinking problem,” I said firmly. Well. Not until this moment when Damion Alvarez now knew because he was sitting in the office with me listening to this bullshit phone call. “I can’t even imagine why you’d think I would do that. Todd! I didn’t tell anyone anything, dammit. I wouldn’t do that. It’s your problem and your choice how to deal with it!”

  “You’re lying!” Dan shouted. He was getting more and more agitated. “I spoke to someone in the company who said that you said that Todd has a drinking problem.”

  I could not believe Dan had just used that convoluted logic on me. “Are you hearing yourself? Listen to what you’re saying, Dan. You hate me. I’m a convenient scapegoat. Plus, I used to be one of your brother’s friends. It’s possible that he might have told me things that you would not approve of. Yeah. It happens, dude. You don’t get to control everything.”

  “Shut up! You little ass!” Dan sounded as though he were frothing at the mouth now. What was wrong with the man? He sounded crazy! “You don’t get to tell me what to think!”

  “No, but I should get to tell you what I did,” I argued. “And I never would have done that. I respect Todd. He’s got an issue, but he was doing fine. Then you stepped in, took over, started bullying people that you don’t like. I think I might actually know the source of your brother’s alcoholism. If I had a brother like you, I’d drink too!”

  “You—You—You can’t say that!” Dan wheezed. He was so upset that he was starting to be out of breath as though he had run miles and miles without stopping. “You don’t get to say that! You don’t!”

  “Fine. I won’t say that.” I paused for a moment. “But that doesn’t mean it’s not true. And let me tell you something else that’s true. It’s not going to matter how much time or money or personnel you throw at your office here in St. Louis. It will fail. You didn’t think far enough ahead. You let your personal biases get the better of you. And you have no idea what it takes to get by in this city. You don’t. You’re arrogant and you’re pigheaded and it’s going to bite you in the ass. But by all means. You go ahead and you try. And Todd”—I hoped he was actually listening—“I never ratted you out. I never said a thing. I wouldn’t do that. We were friends. And then you let your brother sell me down the river. Now I hope he’ll be enough support for you if you really want to make a change. But I have better things to do than to let Dan yell at me for no good reason so I’m out.”

  And that was that. I hung up the phone and stared at Damion. He was staring back at me as though we had both heard far more than we needed to. I decided then and there that I was really going to like working for Damion Alvarez. It would be a welcome deviation from all the drama and the bullshit.

  “Well,” I drawled. “You get the idea I’m sure.”

  “Yup,” Damion agreed. “I get the idea.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Eleanor

  The email from corporate didn’t surprise me. Not really. Within seconds of it hitting my inbox, Charlie Cummins was hanging half out of my office with an expression of irritation on his face. I don’t know why he cared. He had already made his deal with another company. I believe he was going into the medical recruiting field. Doctors and nurses and such. So why was he now glowering at me as though he had a bone to pick.

  “So sleeping with the boss gets you some real clout around here, huh?” Charlie folded his arms over his chest and glared so fiercely I was afraid he was going to give himself a stroke. “I see you finally got what you wanted.”

  “Excuse me?” I shook my head at him. Was he honestly that stupid? I was afraid the answer was likely to be yes. “You’re out of your mind! I didn’t want this! And sleeping with the boss? Who? Do you see anyone around here to sleep with?”

  Charlie waved his hand. “That Kevin Landau guy! Everyone in the office can see the two of you are hot and heavy.”

  I raised an eyebrow. They could? Everyone in the office could see what exactly? I exhaled a shaky breath and wondered if I was about to really stick my foot in it. Although, I wasn’t sure I cared at this point. I had only been marginally aware that Kevin was likely to take the offer from Damion Alvarez. He hadn’t exactly discussed it with me this morning as we were trying to get our clothes untangled from the floor so that he could jog the rest of his way home and we could both at least pretend to make it to work on time. I was here. Kevin was not. Obviously, he had stopped elsewhere on his way in. Like the Gateway IT building.

  “Charlie,” I began in a very clear, concise voice. “Let me tell you exactly how I know Kevin Landau.”

  “You do that,” Charlie snorted, his voice pitched to carry to the far corners of the room.

  I didn’t care who heard what I had to say at this point. Did it matter? “Fifteen years ago I was at my wedding when I had a sudden attack of nerves and changed my mind.”

  This was obviously not where Charlie had guessed this conversation to be going. He looked around at a few of the other recruiters present. I spotted Owen Phillipson as well. What was that about? But that didn’t matter right now. I was in the middle of airing my most embarrassing moment in front of an entire company full of people I was then supposed to lead to victory—thank you, Dan Hopper.

  “Let’s just say that I ran away from the church and never spoke to the groom a
gain,” I said roughly. “Until two weeks ago when he showed up here to organize the polite and yet totally hostile takeover of my company. So if you think that I somehow have a leg up on the rest of you with Kevin Landau, you should think again. I left the man at the altar! At the altar!”

  “And yet he forgives you.”

  I spun around so quickly that I nearly fell over. Kevin was standing there at the bottom of the stairs that would have taken him up to his office. It looked as though he had come into the building and been on his way up when he heard the commotion. Gee. Can’t imagine why.

  My cheeks flared red hot. I hadn’t wanted to tell that story at all. The idea that Kevin had been standing there when I belted it all out was even more horrible. I gave him a little wave. “Hey. I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “Obviously,” he said drily. Then he looked at Charlie. “You already turned in a resignation letter. Why are you still here?”

  “You officially resigned?” I demanded of Charlie. “Why are you unescorted in the office? You can’t be in here after you quit! It’s against policy.”

  “I needed my files,” Charlie said with a careless shrug.

  I was already shaking my head. “No way, you arrogant prick! You don’t get to empty your desk and take your laptop. That’s not how this works. You have to leave all of that stuff. It was in your employment contract!”

  “Was it in his?” Charlie jerked his chin toward Kevin. “Because he’s here and he just quit.”

  “Yeah, but I wasn’t going up stairs to steal company contacts,” Kevin informed us. He winked at me. “I was looking for the new boss. I needed her to escort me up to the office to get my personal laptop.”

  “You can’t keep my files.” Charlie looked almost scared. How odd. “You have to give them to me. They’re mine.”