“Tessa?”
I looked up, startled, and found Melinda standing in my doorway. “Yes?”
“I heard Bree quit.”
I picked up her letter of resignation and waved it in front of me before dropping it again. “Apparently so.”
“Well, that saved us the trouble of firing her.” Melinda took a closer look at me. “Are you crying?”
Up until then, I’d thought I had hidden my emotional state pretty well, but my eyes must have given me away. They always turned red when I cried, even if my eyes just watered. Steeling myself to resist her questioning, I ran my fingers under my eyes to dry them, careful to not smudge my mascara, and sniffed. Runny noses were always the worst part of crying. Feeling more in control of myself, I said, “Yes, but just over something stupid. And I’m okay now.”
Melinda’s eyebrows creased. She started to say something but stopped.
“Really. I’m fine. I promise.”
This time she nodded. “Well, you know your own business best. But if you need anything, you can come to me. You know that, right? Even though I’m your boss, I can be your friend too, if you need one.”
It was such a sweet thing to say, but it made my eyes tear up again.
One thing Logan didn’t control was Melinda’s final decision. I was fairly confident that she wouldn’t fire me based on the recommendation of some report. Not certain enough for my anxiety to go away, but it eased some. If Melinda actually fired anybody, I’d be impressed with her. But I knew I was one of her favorites. I blew out a big breath that puffed out my cheeks and forced myself to smile. “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind. For now, do you mind if I take the rest of the day off? It’s a personal thing and…”
She smiled and nodded. “Of course. Everything is just sort of…in limbo around here, you know? It’ll be good after this consultation is over and things can just get back to normal.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, even though it stung to do so. Things would never be normal again. The job that had become my refuge and greatest source of personal pride was about to change forever. Either I’d lose it or keep it, but either way, nothing would ever be the same again. No doubt Logan had made recommendations for structural, branding, and product changes as well as personnel changes.
And then, as Melinda walked out, my eyes flashed over to the empty office where Logan had been working. All at once I realized that I would likely never see him in there again. I got up and walked out of my office slowly, like someone feeling their way through a strong current in a river that might carry them away. I crossed the hall and went into the office lit only by the harsh afternoon light. As I went to the desk, I saw that the few personal odds and ends that belonged to Logan were gone. No trace remained that he’d ever been here before.
Someday soon, there’d be someone new in this office—our company’s new CEO. Even if I was here to see it, every time I looked up from my desk and saw someone there besides Logan, it would hurt. As angry as I was at him, I knew he’d haunt me in this place forever. The elevator, the little meeting room in the back, the stock room downstairs…memories of him would be everywhere.
Maybe it would be good to be fired after all. Logan had ruined Booms and Nibbles for me forever.
When at last I forced myself to leave the office, the click of the door latch behind me galvanized me into action.
In no time, I’d closed up my office and left for home. When I came into my apartment, Madi sat on the couch with a giant bowl of popcorn and yet another Korean drama playing.
“Hey, Tessa—” She broke off and jumped up, setting the bowl of popcorn down on the floor as she ran over to me. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t think I’m ready to talk about it. There are too many things I don’t know or understand.” I took a deep breath. “Can I hang out with you and just be quiet?”
From the look on her face, she was dying of curiosity and worry, but she nodded her head. “Of course. I’m on the first episode, and I’ll even start it over again.”
I kicked off my shoes. “Perfect. Let me just get comfortable.”
But when I walked into my bedroom, I realized he was there too. Taking off his tie by the armchair, breathing in the cold night air in front of the window as he fought to calm down after kissing me, and there on the bed with his head on my pillow, holding me.
I tossed my shoes toward the closet and picked up the pillow he’d slept on. I pressed my face into it. Sure enough, his scent lingered there.
Collapsing onto the bed, I held it to me and let the tears I’d been holding in so long escape at last. After a minute, I felt the mattress dip down beside me and I knew Madi had come in to sit beside me. Feeling foolish, I took several deep, shuddering breaths and wiped my face on my pillow.
When I looked up, she brushed back a strand of hair that had glued itself to my wet cheek. “I saw that Logan wrote his name on your Worth It list.”
My lip trembled so I bit it hard. “I know. The arrogant punk.”
She kept talking as if I hadn’t said anything. “He might be worth shaving for—I don’t know. But is he worth crying for?”
I didn’t ask how she knew it was Logan. I was too busy thinking about her question.
That night after he’d first come to Booms and Nibbles and I’d decided to let myself feel things for him, when I’d almost wanted to be tortured by the experience of falling for a man like him, just so I could feel something? That choice had led me here. So what could I say? I’d wanted this, hadn’t I? “Yes. I think he is.”
She pressed her lips together, then smiled sympathetically. “I thought he might be. Then go ahead. Cry him out of your system.”
“I don’t think I can. He’s everywhere. Everywhere. Except with me.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
The next morning, I woke up with the worst headache. It even beat out the ache still lingering in my chest. As if crying in my room hadn’t been enough, the stupid drama Madi had picked had made me cry like a garden sprinkler almost every episode. Of course, that might have been because I was an emotional, stressed-out wreck. But whatever it was, it took three migraine-strength painkillers, two cups of coffee, and half a can of dry shampoo to get myself to work the next day.
Sure, since I knew my job was on the line, I probably should have put in some kind of effort in the looks department, but I just didn’t have it in me to care. After seeing the three missed calls from Logan on my phone—which I’d left in my purse all night on purpose—I hadn’t had the patience to deal with things like showers or hair dryers. So, on what could possibly be my last day at Booms and Nibbles, I dragged myself into work wearing a plain black T-shirt and glasses because my eyes were too irritated to put my contacts in.
Hopefully the universe didn’t completely hate me, and I’d be able to avoid seeing Logan. I knew, rationally, that at some point we’d have to talk this all out, if only to say goodbye and have some sort of period to mark the end of this experiment gone wrong. But emotionally, that was going to be a big nope for me today.
When I got off the elevator and headed to my office, however, I was shocked to see Logan sitting in the chair behind my desk, obviously waiting for me.
I walked forward and let my bag slip off my shoulder onto one chair in front of the desk while I collapsed onto the other. “I knew it.”
His worried expression morphed into confusion. “You knew what?”
“The universe officially hates me. What do you want, Logan?”
He stood up and braced his hands on the desk as he studied me…hard. “To know what’s going on.”
That was when I remembered that he didn’t have a clue I’d seen the list from his notebook. For him, the last thing that had occurred between us had been the kiss in the stock room. No doubt my current emotional state made zero sense to him. “I know what you’re going to put in your report about me.”
“You mean what I already submitted to Melinda? She’s in her office going over it now.”
I gawked at him, amazed that he could be so calm—so blatantly unconcerned about what he’d done to me. Did he really expect things to just go forward after he’d done that to me? Maybe he really did completely disconnect business from his personal life. But for me, it was all the same. “I just don’t understand why you didn’t at least warn me ahead of time.”
He straightened and folded his arms. “I did think about it. But since I have no idea what Melinda will do with my recommendations, I thought it was best not to say anything.”
“Oh, did you? Or maybe you just didn’t have the guts to tell me to my face that you think I’m terrible at your job.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked, his brows drawn tightly together.
I was done talking so vaguely. “I’m talking about the fact that you recommended to Melinda that she replace me as Human Resources Director.” As I spoke, I moved around the desk and pulled Bree’s envelope out of the drawer where I’d left it. I unfolded the two papers and held out the photocopied page. “I don’t know how she got this, since you guard that notebook of yours so carefully, but she gave this to me with her resignation. I guess she just wanted me to know how little you really think of me—or at least of my ability to do my job.”
He looked down at it but still looked confused. Then his expression cleared. Right before his eyes narrowed. “And that’s what you think of me? That I would do that to you?”
I waved a hand at the paper. “I wouldn’t have thought so until I saw that. Maybe when you were making your list of things I like, you should have put down how much I love my job so maybe you’d think twice about trying to take it away from me.”
Logan held my gaze and crumpled the paper up, tossing it onto my desk. It clattered in the silence that stretched out between us. At last, he spoke, but his voice was grim. “I guess being consistently honest and even vulnerable with you wasn’t enough to earn your trust.”
“It was. That’s why this hurts so much.”
His jaw flexed. “This is certainly not the conversation I’d hoped to be having with you today, but I knew something was wrong when you didn’t answer any of my calls.”
“Something was wrong as soon as you thought you could do something like that to me and still have a relationship with me like you didn’t destroy my world.”
“Hmmm.” He took a step toward me. Then another.
I stepped back, not sure what was going on. He kept coming as I retreated until I hit the cold glass and couldn’t escape him. With one more step, he stood close enough that I could feel the warmth emanating from his chest. He braced one hand on the glass over my head and stared down at me with his piercing brown eyes searing my soul. “Maybe I’m just utterly selfish. If you lost your job, I could more easily convince you to move to Chicago with me.”
“But why would I do that?”
“Because you can’t resist me any more than I can you. And if it weren’t for Bree, you never would have known what I’d written in my notebook. It wouldn’t have taken much to convince you that Melinda had acted on her own. After all, we both know how sporadic her good judgement is when it comes to personnel. Yes, I’m positive I would have convinced you. “
“It’s a good thing I found out the truth.”
He lifted my chin. “Oh, but you didn’t, Tessa. And when you finally realize the mistake you made, I’ll be gone.” He bent close then, his lips hovering inches from mine.
A pathetic weakling, I ached to rise up on my toes and close the distance, no matter what he’d done—no matter the anger I sensed simmering inside him.
“But maybe,” he said, “the problem isn’t just that you don’t believe in me. Maybe you just don’t believe enough in yourself.”
And then, like he hadn’t just shattered my whole world, he pushed off the glass and left. I stared at him over my shoulder and saw him turn back to look at me for two Breef seconds before slamming his hand on the elevator button and striding onto it as soon as it opened, like he was running away from a nightmare.
Before I lost it, right there in my fishbowl office for anyone to see, a light tap on the door pulled me back from the brink. Spinning around, I found Krista, her face a perfect mask of professional blindness. “Melinda wants to see you.”
“Thank you,” I managed to say.
Krista turned and walked away so I had a chance to pull myself together before heading into Melinda’s office. As I knocked on the door, I prepared myself for how I would cope with being fired. I had pride after all, so I couldn’t bawl like a baby. No. No matter what, I wasn’t going to cry.
But all that internal reinforcement of my emotional poise made it all the more surprising when I went in and Melinda grinned at me like something exciting was about to happen.
“Come in, come in! Sit down.”
“Okay,” I said, watching her warily as I took a seat.
Melinda leaned forward over her desk, clasping her hands together. “I have to admit that hiring the consulting firm was one of the scariest things I’ve never done. It’s stressed me out so badly I’ve barely been able to face coming into the office. But it was totally worth it.”
“Oh?” She was this excited to be told she should fire me?
“Definitely. I mean, I still have pages and pages of the report to go through, but I’ve been through the personnel recommendations, and I just couldn’t believe it. He’s so smart I could hug him.”
My mouth fell open. With Logan’s assertion that I had made a mistake ringing in my mind and Melinda acting like she’d just been handed a gift from heaven, I had no idea what to think. All I could do was hold on and try to prod Melinda into spitting out whatever she had to say before I died of stress. “Why? What did he say?”
“He said I should make you the new CEO—and I couldn’t agree more.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I blinked at Melinda but didn’t hear another thing she said. All I could hear were the horrible words I’d hurled at Logan just minutes ago. He hadn’t recommended that she fire me. He’d put my position on the list of places to fill because he’d suggested that I be the Chief Executive Officer of Booms and Nibbles.
“No!” I stood up and screamed it again. “No. Oh no!”
“No?” Melinda asked, hurt and confusion deepening her voice. “I thought you’d be excited.”
I refocused on her, on what she was saying. “I am. Really. I’d love to. At least, we need to talk about it more, but it sounds great.”
She looked up at me like I’d lost my mind. “Then what on earth is wrong?”
“I just screwed something up really badly, and I need to go fix it.”
“Okay, but come see me when you’re done. We have a lot to figure out, you and me.”
“Yes, I’ll come back. Soon. Just…” I ran to the door. “I’ve got to hurry.”
I ran down the hall and hammered at the elevator button. Unlike Logan’s smooth exit earlier, the elevator wasn’t waiting on the second floor, so I had to wait for it to come up. I shifted anxiously as I waited for it, then rushed into it, praying I wouldn’t be too late.
After a mad dash through the warehouse, during which I managed to knock over a box of panties and spill them all over the concrete floor, I burst out into the parking lot and looked around frantically for Logan’s car. And I found it. Sitting in a parking spot. And he was nowhere to be found.
“Where the heck is he?” I asked out loud.
“Right where he should be,” said a familiar and achingly beloved voice behind me. “Waiting for you.”
I spun around and found Logan leaning against the brick wall with his arms folded across his chest and his foot propped up behind him on the wall. “Why did you lie about leaving?”
“I’m not a saint.” He pushed off the wall with his shoulders and put his hands in his pockets as he strolled toward me. “I was hurt enough to want a little revenge. It only took a few minutes out in the cold to cool off and regret it.”
I let out a lon
g breath that was immediately lost to the wind whipping around my face. “I don’t blame you. I don’t even know how to apologize for something like this. Saying I’m sorry doesn’t seem to cut it.”
He reached out and tucked my hair back behind my ears, but the wind immediately blew it free again. “It’s more than enough to me. We’re good at being honest. Let’s be good at apologizing and forgiving too.”
I nodded. “Deal.”
He smiled and took my hand, leading me back into the building. “Come on. You and I have one more meeting before I head to the airport.”
My heart sank. “You’re really leaving today?”
“I have to be at the airport in an hour.”
I swallowed against the tightness in my throat. Despite everything I was wrong about, I still had to say goodbye. What kind of goodbye was it going to be?
When we got to the elevator, it opened right up for him. Why did it always do exactly what he wanted?
As we stepped inside, he looked thoughtfully down at me, but didn’t say anything. His hand tightened around mine, however, and somehow it comforted me enough to follow him off the elevator and around to our favorite meeting room. As he opened the door, he motioned for me to proceed him into the room.
Krista was there, which took me by surprise. She had laid out a selection of dry erase markers on the table, but as soon as we came in, she moved to the door. “Good luck, sir,” she said to Logan as she passed by us.
“Please stay close by to ensure we aren’t interrupted.”
Krista nodded and shut the door behind her.
“What is this all about?” I asked, picking up one of the markers.
Logan took hold of my shoulders and directed me into a chair facing the big dry erase board at one end of the meeting room. “It is time for us to make a decision.” He then took his notebook out of his pocket and dropped it down on the table next to me.
“What decision?”
He took off his suit coat and draped it over the back of a chair. “What we’re going to do about us. Hey, that’s a good word. I think I’d better write that down on the board.” And he did, right at the top in his bold, masculine handwriting, with a line under it. Us.
A Man Worth Shaving For: A Sweet Romantic Comedy Page 15
