Fair Game (22 page)

She knew it was Kyle, as if she now had radar where he was concerned.

“Is there something I need to know about your department?” he asked as soon as she’d identified herself.

Damn them both. She closed her door. “Lydia and Chuck are having a little spat. Nothing I can’t handle.” Right. She was handling the whole department so well. At least Ronson wasn’t there to further humiliate her. She was sure he would have gotten in his licks if he was.

“Are they sleeping together?”

She laughed. Although maybe under the circumstances, that wasn’t so laughable. “No.” She told him about the ass pinching.

“You’re kidding, right?”

“I wish I were. I think Lydia’s learned her lesson, though. She can’t get away with something just because she’s a woman.”

She wondered if she should tell him about Ronson’s reverse discrimination threat, then decided against it. She didn’t believe Ronson would do it; he was just pissed right now. By the time he returned from South America next week, he’d be fine.

“Well, it’s certainly going to be fun over there at Castle.”

“Oh yeah, we’re just a barrel of laughs.”

“Have dinner with me.”

He switched so fast, she could barely keep up. “Tonight?”

“Yes, tonight.”

“I have a date.”

He paused. A very long pause. “With whom?”

They didn’t have a relationship, but she didn’t see any reason in letting him think she had a date with another man. “My friends Faith and Trinity.”

“Is that Faith Kingston?”

“Yeah. Connor’s wife. My cousin.”

“All in the family,” he murmured. “Tomorrow night, then.”

“Tomorrow is not Friday. Our next date is on Friday.” It wasn’t really a date. It was sex. That was all. She had to keep this thing in perspective, no matter how well he fucked.

“What happened to Thursday? Our last date was a Thursday.”

“And I want Friday. I have something special planned.” Actually, she didn’t have even an inkling of a plan. But so what? He’d conned her into agreeing to a continuation of their little games despite the fact that he would soon be her boss. There was no way she could see him every day and resist. But that didn’t mean she had to roll over and let him control
everything
. “So it’s Friday or nothing.”

“All right, Friday. What are we doing?”

“That’s on a need-to-know basis only. You don’t have a need to know yet.” Then she realized she was doing this all on work time, when she should be taking Lydia to task yet again. “This is not a business call. You have to wait until after five.”

“It is a business call. I needed to know what that was all about in the meeting today.”

“We’ve passed that now and have moved into personal.”

He started to say something, and she heard the telltale silence indicating he had another call coming in. “I’ll let you go,” she said “It’s only Kisa. I’ll call her back when we’re done.”

“Ooh, Kisa,” she cooed. “You’d better take it. She might be offering herself to you now that you won’t be working at SMG anymore.”

He gave a definite snort. “You’re jealous.”

“Of course I’m not.” She liked to tease him, that was all.

“You’d freak if I really asked her out.”

“It wouldn’t bother me in the least.” Of course it wouldn’t. She and Kyle weren’t boyfriend and girlfriend. They’d never put any ties on each other. Except for the night he’d tied her up. If she had any emotions about Little Miss Snowflake, they were simply that the girl was so obvious.

“You’re trying to sidetrack me from the real issue here,” she went on. “No personal business during work hours. Those are the rules.” She could not allow him to call her up any time, especially once he was actually working at Castle. That would be a disaster. Eventually someone would overhear. “Business only during business hours. Got that?”

“Loud and clear. You’re a hard woman.”

“Actually,” she couldn’t resist, “you’re a hard man. Now go talk to Little Miss Snowflake.” She cut the call before he could say another word and set her phone on the desk. That’s when her diabolical plan started to take root. What if her next challenge wasn’t about her at all? What if it was about the naughty Little Miss Snowflake? What if she challenged him to ask the girl out?

There were two advantages to that. First, it would prove to Kyle that she wasn’t jealous. Second, it would state unequivocally that they didn’t have a relationship per se. After all, they were just . . . fuck buddies. There was a third advantage, too. If she decided she wanted to see one of her other friends, well, the stage would already be set. He couldn’t get all huffy and dictatorial with her. It was a great plan. Totally brilliant.

Except if he decided he wanted to see Little Miss Snowflake on a regular basis. Or if he fell in love with her and chose to see her exclusively.

Dammit. She’d hung up on Kyle because they weren’t talking business and here she was mooning over him and Little Miss Snowflake. Work. That’s what she needed. She opened her door. “Lydia, we need to talk.”

Lydia dragged her feet as if she had a ball and chain attached. “What now?” she whined.

She’d never noticed Lydia was such a whiner. Maybe she hadn’t been, not for Ernie. Josie herself might be the one who brought it out in her. Dammit, she was still pissed that the girl had humiliated her with such a stupid question in Kyle’s introductory meeting.

Lydia closed the office door behind her—at least she didn’t slam it—and flopped onto the chair. “If this is about Chuck, I apologized and told him I’d never do anything like it again. I didn’t even say he was a prima donna, either. So I don’t know why he had to go and bring it up in the meeting.” Lydia’s eyes were red-rimmed, as if she’d been crying. Maybe she really had learned her lesson.

About the pinching anyway. “I didn’t want to talk about that. I wanted to discuss why you were late this morning. And last week, too. That’s not like you.”

Lydia’s lip trembled, and her hands suddenly became of the utmost importance. “I . . . well . . . it’s just that . . .” She burst into tears. Horrible, great sobs. Lydia never did anything quietly.

“I’m not going to write you up again, Lydia.” Oh jeez. Josie wanted to roll her eyes, but resisted. “I just wanted to talk about it. If there’s a problem.”

The girl hiccupped, gasped, and wiped at her eyes, which only smeared her mascara all over. “I’m pregnant.”

Total paralysis. Physical and mental. If there’d been an earthquake, Josie would simply have sat on her ass right through it. It wasn’t shocking that an unmarried twenty-five-year-old woman was pregnant. It was shocking that Lydia would tell
her
, and look at Josie as if she expected her to do something about it.

Finally,
finally
, Josie found her voice. “I really don’t know what to say to that, Lydia.” Didn’t she have a best friend to tell? Or a mother? A father? Anyone? Gee, how about the boyfriend who’d knocked her up?

Josie hadn’t known Lydia was even seeing someone. For a person who didn’t mind sharing intimate details about her life, Lydia had been oddly mum on that subject.

“He’s married,” she whispered.

“Oh no.” A horrible thought occurred. “It’s not Chuck, is it?” Or, good God, Ronson?

Lydia managed a disgusted yet tear-streaked face. “Of course not.”

“It’s not someone you work with?” Please, please don’t let it be.

She shook her head. “He’s a friend of my brother’s.” She sniffed, swiped at her eyes. “Do you have any tissues?”

Josie started to shake her head, but Lydia pointed to the right side of the desk. “Ernie kept a box in the bottom drawer.”

She cried to Ernie a lot? Josie opened the drawer. Sure enough, there at the back, behind the hanging folders so that Josie had missed it, was a box of tissues. Half empty. She handed it to Lydia.

“Thanks.” She blew hard, pulled out a couple more, wiped beneath her eyes. “She treats him like total crap, won’t have sex with him, calls him a dirty rotten bastard all the time. But they’ve got two little kids, and he’s not going to get a divorce.”

Oh gee, what a story.

Lydia gauged the look. “I know you think that’s what all married men say to get a girl to sleep with him, but honestly, I know that’s what she’s like. He used to talk about it with my brother, before, you know”—she dipped her head, sniffed again—“we did it.”

Josie sighed. “So what does he say?”

Lydia’s mouth drooped. “I haven’t told him yet. I only just peed on the stick last week. And it’s been hard just getting out of bed every morning.” Hence her tardiness. “I don’t know what to do.” She glanced at Josie.

Don’t look at me.
Thank God she managed to trap
that
thought inside. She had no idea this was what being a manager was all about. People had all sorts of shit they wanted to dump on you. The box of tissues in Ernie’s desk was evidence of that. She thought of all the crap he was probably having to deal with while knowing he was dying. Her appreciation for him rose, as did her guilt. She hadn’t given the guy his due. She didn’t think Ernie would have looked at Lydia and told her to handle her own problems, don’t bring them to work, yadda yadda. Oh no, Ernie would have shown compassion.

Josie wasn’t sure she knew the meaning of the word. “Maybe you need to talk to a professional. You know, they have this program here where you can call a counselor. It’s all confidential and everything.” Josie remembered getting a flyer about it. What the hell was the program called? She could get the info from HR.

“What would
you
do?” Hope glimmered in Lydia’s eyes.

“Do?” For a moment, Josie didn’t even understand the question. Or rather, her brain simply stopped functioning.

“Yeah. Would you have the baby? Keep it? Give it up for adoption? Get an abortion?”

She felt the quagmire sucking her down. “I’m not equipped to advise you.”

“I don’t want advice, Josie. I just want to know what you’d do.”

“I . . . well . . .” She sounded like Lydia when the girl first sat down. “I wouldn’t have gotten pregnant in the first place.” It didn’t sound holier than thou. It simply sounded stupid.

“No. You’d never make a mistake.”

Was that sarcasm in there? Josie wasn’t sure. “I make lots of mistakes, Lydia.” She took a breath. “But if it did happen to me, I don’t know what I’d do. Honestly.”

Lydia lifted her chin, swallowed.

“So I really think you need to talk to someone impartial, who’s not going to judge you or tell you what
they
think you should do or want you to do. Because whatever you do has to be your decision since you’ll have to live with it the rest of your life.”

But honestly, she couldn’t offer a single ounce of advice. Even if she’d simply been Lydia’s coworker instead of her boss, she wouldn’t have known what to say.

“So would you like me to find the number for that counselor program?” she offered, knowing it wasn’t enough.

Lydia slowly shook her head. “No.” She patted the tissue beneath her eyes, managing to get most of the wayward mascara, then dabbed at her nose. After one last sniff, she went on. “I think I know exactly who to talk to.” Rising from the chair, she put the box of tissues on the desk. “Thanks.” When she disappeared through the door, she looked almost like herself again.

Josie laid her head on her desk, closed her eyes, breathed deeply. What the hell was Lydia thanking her for? She hadn’t been able to offer a single word of good advice.

God, she so sucked at being a manager.

 

 

BRIDAL shops made Josie nervous, almost as much as babies did. There was all that shocking white, the satin, silk, and lace, the gauzy material, the beadwork, frills, and flounces, everything so girlie. Not to mention the estrogen overload.

Trinity didn’t have a dressing room, she had a dressing
area
, surrounded by mirrors and lush cream carpeting. There was not one salesclerk, but two. They’d brought out the silver coffeepot and bone china cups, the tea cakes and the shortbread cookies. Everyone—except Trinity—perched on little round chairs with wrought iron backs. Verna poured. The closest thing Trinity had to a mother since her own had passed, Verna worked for Trinity’s father as his secretary. In her mid-fifties, with hair a silver-gray, Verna had been with Trinity’s family company since her twenties. She’d watched Trinity grow up and seen her through the trials and tribulations of her divorce. Now she could finally see Trinity happy.

Verna handed Faith the first cup, then poured one for Josie. Faith had left the baby with the sitter. While she loved the little guy dearly, she wasn’t one of those mothers who couldn’t let her baby out of her sight. She insisted that at least once a month she and Connor have “date night.”

Pretty, blonde, and blue-eyed, Trinity turned on the dais before the three angled mirrors and smoothed the satin dress over her butt. “Does my behind look big?”

Josie almost snorted her coffee out her nose. “Your butt could not possibly look big.” True, Trinity had stopped being such a fussy eater, but she was by no means big in any way.

The satin draped her perfect figure, falling in elegant rivulets to pool on the carpet. The form-fitting bodice gave her cleavage and showcased her tiny waist.

“It’s very elegant, Trin.” Faith’s bone china cup clinked on her saucer.

With the wedding in April, Josie still thought it was way too early for the whole shopping folderol, but Trinity was in her element. She was in Love with a capital L. Scott was a great guy, even if he was a little older than Trinity. Okay, a lot older, like fifteen years. He had two college-age daughters, for God’s sake. They’d be in the wedding party also, which meant another shopping extravaganza for the bridesmaid dresses. Jeez, getting five women to agree on something that major . . . It didn’t bear thinking about.