He didn’t call, didn’t text. I spent the entire night curled up with a box of Kleenex. I almost thought I hated the fact that he made me cry more than what he said to me. It was the way he said it. Pure, unadulterated hate in his voice was what it was. Every time I thought about the way he looked at me when he said it my eyes would start to mist and I would sniffle.
Asshole.
That’s what he was. Who does that to someone?
I’d debated not going to work the entire morning, but I did it anyway. Because fuck him. Those numbers were perfect. What else could he be upset about? I went through my emails and reconciled a few accounts.
I had most of them on autopilot by this point and had established a system for getting my work done. The office was different since we’d started dating. There was now a low hum of voices constantly throughout the day. People would interact and chitchat, whereas before they wouldn’t dare be caught doing anything but their work outside the confines of the breakroom.
The place went eerily silent and I heard a door slam shut. It was probably in my mind, but it seemed like the temperature in the room dropped about ten degrees right along with the decibel level. Footsteps grew louder behind me and my stomach tied itself in a nice little knot. I wasn’t about to turn around to see what it was though.
“I need you in the conference room.”
He was back, the tone and everything. Office Dictator Ethan, the prick. The micromanaging asshole times a billion. “In a minute.” I shut down a few apps on my computer, just to let him know he couldn’t order me around. I didn’t give a shit what his problem was.
“Now.” His voice boomed through the silence of the room.
“Fine.”
He turned toward the room and I stood, brushing my hands down my skirt like I was straightening it. It was really to wipe the sweat from my palms.
I kept a safe distance as I followed him into the conference room.
It was like my interview all over again, except the cockiness wasn’t there. The smirk wasn’t there. He didn’t even look up at me. If I’d described his attitude in one word it’d have been disgust. He appeared disgusted with me.
He slid my folder full of figures across the table to where he apparently wanted me to sit.
“Take a seat and turn to page eight.”
Fuck him and his pointed little discussions. This is how he wanted it to go, to pin me down and lead me to some mistake, and I wasn’t playing his game. He needed to man up and talk to me. “What’s this about, Ethan?”
He pointed to the folder with a pen in his hand, still refusing to look at me. “Sit.”
“No. You can look at me and tell me what this is about.”
His hand tightened on the pen, so much so that I thought it might snap in half. He finally showed me his eyes. “If you want to keep your job, I suggest you sit. Otherwise, there is the door.” He motioned to it with his pen.
I wanted to tell him to fuck off, but the obsessive part of me wanted to know why I’d turned the guy I liked into a monster. So I sat and turned to page eight. There was nothing I hadn’t checked a million times on it.
“Yeah, these are the numbers. They’re good numbers.”
“Look closer. You know baseball better than anyone in this building. Has Salvatore ever been injured? Because that’s what your data suggests.”
“Yeah, but those are—”
“You cost him ten million dollars on his contract. I negotiated the deal with your figures, because I trusted you to give me solid information.”
“Yeah, but it’s still—”
“You’re smart, so I’m sure you can do the math on how much it cost the agency.”
Why was he doing this to me? I used the information that he gave me. Sure, I knew Salvatore hadn’t ever had a public injury, but Ethan had all kinds of connections that nobody knew about.
“You can keep your job if you still want it. But this won’t be tolerated again.”
I stood and glared. I’d gotten through his walls once, but I wasn’t sure if I even wanted to try to get through them again. I looked at the corner of the ceiling, trying to will my emotions back down inside. He wasn’t going to make me cry again, and that was all I wanted to do at the moment.
“Miss Jackson, you either need to go back to work or go home. Those are the two options.”
I had a million things that I should’ve hollered at him, but I just didn’t this time. He’d cut me deeply. I wasn’t angry. I was hurt.
I stood and went as calmly as possible to my desk, grabbed my bag, and then walked toward the front door. How I kept it together, I’ll never know. He didn’t even look up at me. Not that I could see, anyway.
Something from somewhere gave me the strength to keep my head held up high. Once I walked through the glass door of the building, I was worse than I’d been the night before. The tears flowed.
“So much for our conversation the other day.”
Kelsey wiped a tear from the corner of my eye while she sat next to me on the couch. “He’s a dickhead. I hate him.”
“Yep. The ones you like always are. So I hear anyway. The stereotypes are true it seems.” I paused. “Jesus, I’m a cliché now.” I started to tear up and my voice cracked when I said “cliché.”
Kelsey snagged me a tissue. “Aww, you’re not a cliché.” She rubbed my back.
“Can’t believe I’m crying over his ass. I never cry.”
“I know you don’t.”
I half laugh-cried at her attempts to comfort me. It wasn’t really her thing, but she was trying. We didn’t do this. Neither of us had really ever found a guy worth crying over.
“I’ve only known him for what, a month or two? Why am I even like this?” I glanced around at wadded-up tissues on the couch and a half-eaten tub of ice cream. There were even chocolate wrappers.
This was all so not me. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I did know one thing—I was never going back to work for that asshole again.