Page 56 of Never Bargain with the Boss
I blink. How my mood might affect them didn’t even occur to me. Usually, I don’t think of them at all, other than as a resource to complete things I want done. “Sorry.” It’s an automatic response, not an actual apology, but she dips her chin once in acknowledgement before sitting down in one of the chairs in front of my desk without invitation.
“It’s fine,” she says airily. “I told them you were the fuck-up, not them.”
I want to demand she go tell them otherwise, but it would do no good. She probably didn’t say that, anyway, but is using it as a conversational pry bar to get me to open up, expecting me to argue back with her instinctively. It’s a good thing I’m genetically averse to spilling my guts, having learned from the best—Dad.
Kayla examines her nails, seeming like she has all the time in the world to wait me out, so I lean back in my executive chair and clasp my hands in front of me on the desk. Two can play this game, and while Kayla’s good, I’m pretty damn good at it myself.
When I stare blankly at her, intentionally keeping my expression flat and unyielding, she sighs. “Fine. Speak or don’t, your call, but I’ve got a meeting in five.” She glances at her watch, a delicate gold Rolex Dad bought her when she graduated and officially joined the company. It’s remarkably similar to theone I have in a drawer at home that he gave me for the same reason. “Tick-tock.”
She probably doesn’t have a meeting, but after a long thirty seconds of silence, I pop open like a piñata since historically, she’s the only one I talk to, and I trust her to tell me the truth about how severely I’ve fucked up.
“I have a problem.”
“A problem, singularly? Cam, I could name three problems you have off the top of my head, and probably five more if you give me a minute to put some thought into it.” She smiles at the easy taunt while throwing it at me. She’s one of the very few people who would dare to speak to me that way, and more importantly, part of the select group I would allow to do so, and she has no qualms about taking advantage of that privilege.
“Do you want to hear it or not?” I snap. I’m at the end of my rope here, scrabbling to keep a grip on my sanity, and she’s joking around.
She sobers, then gives me the signature Ice Queen look that has reduced more than a handful of men to rubble at her feet. Thankfully, I’m used to it and don’t so much as tremble. “By all means, proceed.” The crisp retort comes with a regal wave of her hand, giving me the floor.
“I told Riley about Michelle.”
Five little words, but I may as well have set off a bomb in the room. I see the shockwave roll through her—she visibly recoils, her mouth drops open, and her eyes widen in shock—but just as quickly, she schools her face, hiding her astonishment at my throwing my wife’s name out so bluntly, out of nowhere. As a rule—my rule—we don’t talk about Michelle. Not to me, not to Grace, and not even to each other, though I’m sure they’ve broken that commandment when I’m not around.
“Okay, that’s… unexpected, but not exactly a problem, right?” Kayla asks, peering at me like she’s trying to piecetogether what I’ve said with the obvious anger I’m feeling. “How’d that come up?”
I rise, pacing back and forth behind my desk before coming to a stop as I stare out the floor-to-ceiling window. The cloudless blue sky is before me as the bright fall day envelopes the city. People scurry about, rushing to meetings with opened camel hair coats layered over their suits, and there’s the occasional pair of warm Ugg boots paired with a business skirt. My sister would never make that sort of fashion disaster choice, but I don’t think Riley would give a shit. She’d wear a twirly skirt over a pair of jeans, a cardigan with a too-short shirt beneath it, and pair the whole layered mess with combat boots. And those fucking bracelets. Always with those damn things. I swear I can almost hear them now, even though I know she’s not here. Fuck, I almost wish she were.
I glance over my shoulder. Kayla’s perfectly done eyebrows are halfway up her forehead at my obvious avoidance of her question. “She asked. I told her.” It sounds so simple when it’s anything but.
In the days and months after Michelle’s death, I went to therapy. Mom looked up therapists, made an appointment, drove me there, and dog-walked me into the office. She’d deemed it non-negotiable, but of course I resisted. I’d sit on the couch, glare at the therapist, and clamp my mouth shut for the entire hour. Week after week, month after month, she asked question after question and I gave her nothing beyond harsh frowns and narrowed-eyed glares.
That had been Mom’s attempt at forcing me to grieve in a healthy way, and she’d failed spectacularly. Even drunk and depressed and weaker than I’d ever been, I’d fought, sullenly, disrespectfully telling both her and the therapist to fuck off and leave me alone.
So the fact that I told Riley is a big deal and Kayla knows it. More importantly, I know it. I face the window, hiding from my too perceptive sister, but it’s too late when I’ve opened myself up so completely.
“You justtoldher?” she echoes behind me, sounding more than dubious about that fact. I nod, confirming, and she still presses, “There was no alcohol involved, or torture devices, or bribery?” Barely turning my head to glance over my shoulder, I arch a brow, and she sits back in her chair, slumping like I’ve taken the wind out of her. “Wow, okay. That’s a good thing? That you’re talking…finally.” There’s a fair amount of judgment in her assertion. Like ‘finally’ should’ve come a long time ago, but grief doesn’t follow a scheduled timeline. Mine or Kayla’s or anyone else’s. It moves in fits and starts, then stalls and reverses, and apparently, makes inconvenient, staggering leaps forward when I least expect it.
“No, it’s not,” I grit out, reasserting, “it’s a problem.”
“Because you prefer bottling up everything you feel and stuffing it all down until you’re a cold, robotic asshole? Sounds like an example you should be proud of setting,” she suggests, pulling no punches. Not that I’m surprised. Kayla’s not known for being gentle, but rather for being skilled at cutting people off at the kneecaps in ten words or less.
“Riley’s an employee,” I remind her. “She’s there for Grace, not for me.” I have to say it again, not for Kayla’s benefit, but for my own. “She’s not for me.”
Kayla knows me too well—better than any of my other siblings, though I suspect they would all say the same thing about her—so when I hear my sister’s intake of breath, I take a cue from Riley and glance at Kayla’s reflection in the window. I find her smirking like she just figured out something important. I’ve seen that expression on her face at negotiation tables when her opponent has overplayed their hand, and I harden mydefenses for whatever she’s about to come back with because it’s going to hurt.
Knowing I’m looking at her, she holds up two fingers and counts, “One, two problems.”
“Never mind.” Dismissing her, I move my eyes back to the city beyond the window, staring unseeingly.
I hear Kayla get up and come to my side. Leaning into my shoulder, she settles in to wait me out, but like her brilliance is bubbling up so quickly that she can’t contain it, she states bluntly, “You like her.” I glance down at her, the sharp disagreement on the tip of my tongue, but her eyes are fixed on the horizon the way mine were and I realize that it wasn’t a question, but rather a declaration. “You think problem one is that you talked to her, and problem two is that you like her. You’re wrong. It’s one issue—you talked to her because you like her. And that doesn’t have to be a problem, Cam.”
“Yes, it is. She’s an employee. She’s young. It’s ridiculous. It’s wrong.”
“And yet, you like her,” she restates, unswayed by my lackluster argument.
Coming to the only logical conclusion, I instantly decide, “I need to fire her. It’s the only solution to stop this madness.”
Even as I say it, my body physically reacts, rejecting the idea of Riley not being at home every day when I arrive, mourning the loss of her silly stories and unwarranted excitement over seemingly inconsequential things and yearning for the opportunity to see her, even if I can’t touch her.