Instead, I kind-of wanted to throw up on the carpet.
“I see.” Neil nodded, an outwardly calm gesture, but his eyes flicked around the room. I’d seen him like this before, lost in thought so completely that his intensity frightened me. Living with him every day, I sometimes forgot how intelligent he was, and how fast his mind worked.
He picked up the phone. “Brent, I need you to do the following.”
I glanced to the doors nervously, my heart fluttering like a moth trapped in my throat.
While Neil spoke, he tapped something out on his keyboard. “I need someone to take Ms. Scaife to conference room B. Discreetly. Then I need you to send up someone from HR, preferably Leah, and bring Ms. Stern here immediately. Tell her it’s high priority, she’ll need to reschedule. And track down Rudy Ainsworth. He isn’t to let Deja Williams out of his sight, and they both need to be on a call with us in… no later than fifteen minutes. Please get all of this accomplished as quickly as you can.”
“Why do I have to go to conference room B?”
HR. He asked for HR and Valerie. He was going to actually fire her.
Of course he is, you idiot. What had I expected? He’d fired me, and we’d been in the blissful new-relationship stage. Deja was my friend, but it wouldn’t be enough to save her job.
Neil regarded me with his hands in the pockets of his trousers as he answered my question. “Because you look quite upset, and I don’t want you leaving alone in the state you’re in.” He was matter-of-fact, but gentle. “And I know that you want to stay, but you can’t be here for this.”
Busted.
“Stay until after this situation is…resolved, I’ll duck out early, and we’ll go home together.” He tried a small smile of encouragement, but didn’t quite manage it. “I couldn’t bear the thought of you crying in the back of the car all the way home. You’re going to be hopelessly keyed up until everything is settled.”
He was right, and I wouldn’t argue with him.
Alice returned, sent by Brent, and hustled me to the conference room. She brought me coffee and a bagel that I hadn’t asked for, and apologized several times for “all this.”
I am the cause of “all this.”
The sunlight that lit the room washed over me as I stared out at the buildings across the street and the narrow sliver of the harbor I could still see from the other side of the office. My phone dinged and I checked it, my stomach clenching up.
Hey bish don’t 4get dresses at 5.
Oh god. Holli. I was supposed to give my input on bridesmaids’ dresses. She didn’t know what was about to happen.
If it happened… A ray of hope—nonsensical though it was—pierced my dread. Maybe it was all a misunderstanding. Maybe she’d been sent on some errand by Valerie.
My hope faded like the popularity of Uggs. As much as I relished thinking the worst of her most of the time, it was too big a leap of denial to think she would engage in spying or sabotage. She’d had a low opinion of me before she’d met me because of the ethically convoluted way I’d exited Porteras. She wouldn’t pull something like that.
Why had Deja been with Gabriella? Was she interviewing for a job at the new magazine? If so, who had approached whom? Maybe it was something about Holli. She’d appeared in Porteras before. Damn it, why hadn’t I thought of that? I doubted Deja was handling her bookings, though.
No matter what her reason, she’d broken a company policy that had been implemented specifically because of the mole situation Gabriella had caused.
Why did you tell? Scaife, you are such a fuck up.
I berated myself for a little over an hour, ignoring repeated texts from Holli until I could only reply, I’ll be there.
Though I was bored out of my skull waiting, Neil had been right; I had to know how everything turned out. As much as he could tell me, anyway. Neil wasn’t the kind of boss who’d break privacy rules to gossip. But I had to know what I’d done.
I was tired of all of this. Of running, of fucking up, of lying or trying to figure out who to trust. Doing the right thing sucked just as much as doing the wrong thing. And I was definitely tired of trying to do the right thing and just fucking up more.
It seemed like forever before the door opened and Neil stepped inside. He shut the door softly behind him, and the look on his face told me everything I needed to know.
“You didn’t have to fire her.” My voice quaked. “I know Deja. She wouldn’t have done anything—”
“It wasn’t up to me.” He stayed at the door, his hands behind his back. “We listened to her explanation, and I thought it sounded feasible… I can’t really go into details. But I promise you, Sophie, if there had been any other way—”
“The only other way was me just not telling you, and that has never gone well in the past.” Defeat and disappointment pulled at me like an invisible puppet string, sinking my chest and hunching my shoulders. “We should have picked a better restaurant.”
Neil held out his arm. “Come on. Let’s get you home.”
I followed him morosely back to his office, keenly aware that the eyes of most of the office were upon me. It wasn’t that they knew what had happened, they were merely curious about their boss’s fiancée. I wondered if there were any rumors about me.
“Come in, have a seat while I get my things,” Neil said gently.
It seemed like there should be something out of the norm, some sign that a momentous event had occurred. But it was just an office.
I sat in his desk chair and leaned my head on my folded arms like a tired kindergartener. I could have gone to sleep right there, I was so emotionally exhausted.
“What you need is a nice, relaxing night in,” Neil said, probably because he thought it was the right thing to say. It seemed like he had no idea how to make things better, so he was resigned to make them worse.
He didn’t have a clue how bad things really were. “I’m supposed to be picking out bridesmaids dresses with Holli in…forty minutes.”
“Oh dear.” It was the single most English expression he’d ever uttered in front of me, and I would have laughed if things hadn’t seemed so bleak. “Are you going to go?”
“If it’s still happening. I’m sure Deja has called her by now.” I was doomed to an awkward conversation in the very near future. “Although I’m pretty sure I’m off the bridesmaid list now.”
“Sophie… Deja doesn’t know it was you.” Neil’s eye contact never wavered. He was willing me to finish his thought, so he wouldn’t have to. “I told her that she’d been seen with Gabriella Winters at the restaurant, and she didn’t deny that they had discussed Deja’s job at Porteras. You needn’t ever tell Deja or Holli it was you who reported this.”
“You’re saying I could lie to Holli and Deja.” I’d come too far to fall back on old bad habits. “I couldn’t. It would eat me up inside, and then some day, it would blow up in my face.”
“That’s exactly what would happen, you’re right.” He grimaced in sympathy and came to my side. His hand fell on my shoulder. “The right choice is not always the easiest.”
I covered his hand with mine. “You’re very wise sometimes. I assume that comes with your advanced age.”
Holli’s ringtone cut me short, and I abandoned my half-hearted teasing to answer it. “Hello?”
“Sophie… Deja’s been…” Holli was, understandably, upset.
This was the moment I could pretend I didn’t know what had happened, and start living a lie.
Instead, I said, “She was fired. I know. And I need to talk to you about that. Can we meet somewhere other than a bridal shop?”
“Um, y-yeah?” Her voice quavered. “What’s going on?”
“I would rather talk to you in person.” She had to know by now that something was up. “Let’s meet at Dinicio’s, okay?”
“Yeah. Fine.” But it was clear that she wasn’t fine. I couldn’t stand the thought of her sitting around, chewing her nails, ruining her manicure over the su
spense created by a situation I caused. I hoped traffic would be light.
* * * *
The car pulled up outside Dinicio’s, the small Greek restaurant a few blocks away from the apartment Holli and I used to share. I’d thought it was a good idea to meet her here, but when I caught sight of her sitting behind the stenciled plate glass, my heart plummeted to my stomach.
“Just go on ahead home,” I told Neil, but inwardly, I was begging him to stay. Stay, and give me the dignity of not having to ask.
“The hell I will.” The words were forceful, but not the tone behind them. “I’ll be right here, Sophie.”
I hated him for firing Deja. I hated myself for telling him about the whole situation. I hated Deja for being out with Gabriella, though knowing that Neil accepted her explanation for the why of it lessened the sting.
The short walk from the curb to the restaurant was bitter cold in a way that seemed much harsher than even the worst Michigan winter I could remember. The bells over the door jingled as I came in, and Holli looked up, her hands cupped around a steaming mug. A few tendrils of hair escaped her messy, growing-out up-do to frame her worried face. She slid from the booth—our booth—and met me halfway with a huge hug.
“I’m so glad you’re here. Deja is freaking out. Please, please tell me you either have good news or that you read your asshole boyfriend the riot act.”
I was glad that we were hugging, so I had time to compose my face. I should have expected she would be angry with Neil, but I was so focused on how angry she would be with me that I hadn’t entertained the notion. Now I felt like an even bigger jerk, because it had never crossed my mind that I could have been more demonstratively angry with Neil.
Then again, Neil wasn’t the one who’d broken company policy.
“Neither,” I said apologetically, stepping back. I went to the booth and slid into my seat, knowing without a doubt that this would be the last time we would do this together.
Holli didn’t question my admission. “I can’t believe he fired her. And that bitch! I can’t believe she weighed in on this. She has never even met Deja.”
That was true; Valerie hadn’t crossed paths with Deja at Neil’s pre-transplant party. She’d even expressed disappointment that she hadn’t gotten a chance to meet her.
“And Neil. Sophie, I am sorry, but who the fuck fires his girlfriend’s best friend’s girlfriend?” Holli fumed. “All over some silly allegation.”
I shifted in my seat and drew a little swirl on the tabletop with my finger. “You know…Deja was having lunch with Gabriella Winters. I’m not saying this isn’t shit—”
“How did you know what she got fired for?” Holli squinted at me.
There was no sense in tiptoeing around it. “I know because…I’m the person who saw her.”
“What?” She smiled, but it was an expression of total nervous incomprehension, not joy. “What are you talking about?”
“I saw Deja at the restaurant. I was having lunch with Emma, and Deja and Gabriella Winters walked out and… I couldn’t not tell him.”
“How could you do this to us?” Holli’s perfect forehead creased in a bewildered frown. “Sophie, we’re about to get married! We have this wedding to pay for. We have a mortgage. You can’t still seriously be playing this stupid fashion magazine intrigue bullshit?”
“It’s not bullshit! I’ve been working really hard to change some bad patterns, and I’m not going to go back to—”
“Stop it with your psychology crap. You’re crazier now than you were when you started going to that stupid doctor.”
It’s nice to finally know what you think of me. I set my jaw against the sick feeling crawling up my throat. “I had to tell him. Look, I know it’s a shitty time—”
“Do you?” Holli demanded. “Do you really know it’s a shitty time? Your fiancé has eighty bazillion dollars in the bank, but yeah, you really know why I’m stressing out about my girlfriend losing her entire fucking career!”
I tried, and I tried hard, to keep from letting myself go where I always wanted to go in fights. I liked to pick out the things that had always annoyed me about a person and magnify them by a thousand. Then, when the fight faded away, those things stuck out in my memory, and I couldn’t shake them. So, instead of focusing on the fact that Holli could be astoundingly self-centered at times, I decided to take a different approach.
“Look, I know you’re angry, but I’m not the person who created this situation. Deja knew she was putting her job at risk when she started hanging around Gabriella.”
“She didn’t do anything wrong! She’s ruined, professionally. Do you know what your super great boyfriend said to her?” Holli demanded, and inwardly, I cringed. Neil was a nice guy who could be ruthless when it came to his business. “He told her she was never going to work in New York again. Do you have any idea what this is going to do to us?” A mascara-tinted tear rolled down her cheek, and she wiped it away with a curse. “Why couldn’t you just leave it alone?”
She wasn’t going to the like the answer. I didn’t like the answer, myself. But she was going to figure it out, either way, because it was obvious. “I had to make a choice. I could keep it a secret and have it blow up later and hurt Neil, or I could go to him and tell him. As much as I love you, Holli… I love Neil more. And I chose him.”
“Great. I should have expected this.” She folded her arms, her wide, hurt eyes narrowing to a bitter scowl.
My brain scrolled over all the possible ways I could interpret that statement. None of them were complimentary. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, come on. Your entire life revolves around Neil and his fucking money. How many zeroes are you wearing right now?”
That blow struck me hard.
She saw it, and I thought I saw a flare of regret in her eyes. It vanished, though, when she continued, “I knew it was just a matter of time, and you’d cash in your life for his. You always talked a good game about how independent you were, but you’ve never made your own decisions about anything. You always had to have someone holding your hand.”
She was angry, and she knew how to hurt me. I pushed out of the booth, startling the server who approached with a laminated menu for me. I glared down at Holli, wondering how it was possible to hate someone and miss them so much already. “I made my own decision about this. And it’s been very illuminating.”
I was about three feet from the door when she called after me, “It wasn’t your decision. It’s what you’re getting paid for.”
The glacial cold outside helped freeze my sob in my throat until I made it into the car.
CHAPTER TWELVE
I couldn’t pull it together to go through our building’s lobby—and the last thing I wanted was to become gossip fodder for our apparently weird neighbors—so we rode to the alley with Tony and went up in the service elevator.
Neil had said damned little in the car, something I was both grateful for and resentful of. Was he giving me my space? Did he think I was overreacting? What the fuck was going through his mind?
“You can’t distance yourself from this, you know. You’re a part of it,” I snapped at him as we stepped into the back hall of our apartment.
“I-I’m, um…I’m aware of that.” He looked so confused, and that broke through my misplaced anger.
Whatever I was feeling now, I had to remember that he hadn’t fired Deja to spite me. “I’m sorry. I just don’t know who to be mad at right now.”
“There’s no reason to be mad at anyone.” He didn’t meet my gaze, choosing instead to stare at his shoes. “It’s just a genuinely shit situation. In more ways than one.”
“You liked Deja.” I hadn’t considered how it would affect him. “You’re probably feeling kind of…”
“Betrayed?” He shrugged and gave me a gentle smile. “But there is one bright spot to all of this.”
“That it’s the first time I didn’t try to hide something important from you?” I tr
ied to laugh, but I just started crying again.
Neil took me into his arms and pulled me close.
“What am I going to do?” I bleated into the lapel of his wool trench coat. “She’s my best friend. She’s my only friend.”
At this point in the conversation, I would have expected anyone else to say something like, “I’m your friend,” or “you’re a nice person, you’ll make more friends,” words to insulate themselves from my discomfort. Any other romantic partner might have taken my grief as an indication that I would have rather chosen my friend’s side. All Neil said was, “I know,” and that was all I needed.
We went into the kitchen and I kicked off my shoes and dropped my coat on the table. I wasn’t usually messy while Sue was still on duty, but I was exhausted and beaten down. I headed to the bedroom, shedding my clothes on the way to the master bath, where I pulled my hair into a ponytail and scrubbed my face clean of makeup and tear tracks. When I emerged in my baby blue yoga pants and an oversized sweatshirt, I found Neil on the edge of the bed, unbuttoning his sleeves. His jacket was tossed across the duvet His tie dangled around his neck. He looked up and offered me an encouraging grimace. “Why don’t you take a bath? That always makes you feel better.”
“No, I don’t feel like it.” I sat on the end of the bed and listened to the rustle of his shirt as he undressed. It was a calming counterpoint to the turmoil in my brain.
There is a small, fractured piece of me that is always waiting for me to fuck everything up. The only area of my life I never doubted, for one moment, was my friendship with Holli. Was that why it had all shattered around me?
“You know…” In times of crisis, I’m awesome at saying the most hurtful things possible to myself. I framed this one as an observation, so I could talk about myself behind my own back. “I don’t have any other friends. Isn’t that pathetic?”
“I wouldn’t say you don’t have any other friends,” Neil said quietly. “I know I don’t count, because I’m your partner, but I consider you my friend. And you have other friends.”
The Bride (The Boss) Page 20
