Fair Game (34 page)

“I turned in my resignation.”

“Oh my God.” Lydia poked her head over the top of the divider. She must have been kneeling on the desk to do it. Josie flapped her hand until the girl retreated, but the silence throughout the cube area was vast. She could almost hear the collective breaths held as everyone honed in.

Why did she always get in this position with Ronson? “We should talk.”

He stopped, but he didn’t look at her, as if he couldn’t meet her eyes. “It’s done. I gave notice to your boss already.”

Huh? “To Kyle?” she asked, just to be clear, because that didn’t make sense at all. “Why?”

He resumed his packing, opening the desk drawers. “Ask him.”

She didn’t like the sound of that. What had Kyle done behind her back? That issue, though, she’d address later. “I mean why are you quitting?” With no warning, no time to catch up on his projects or reassign them before he left.

Though she should have, she really didn’t care about that.

His back to her, his shoulders tensed. Finally he turned. “You and I both know it’s not working out. I’d rather find something closer to home that doesn’t involve as much travel.” He sighed. “I’m missing my kids growing up.”

It sounded so much like the stuff that Ernie had told her, about his wife pushing him. Well, Josie couldn’t offer him less travel or more money. A part of her, a very big part, was glad. Issue resolved by voluntary termination. Was there anything in the supervisory handbook that said you shouldn’t be glad when an employee decides to quit because then you don’t have to deal with the problem at all?

However, it did piss her off that he’d gone to Kyle instead of her, as if she were nothing. Hell, what was the point, though, in making an issue of it with him?

“Good luck, Ronson.”

He stared at her a moment, as if he expected her to try talking him out of it, yet the look in his eyes was unreadable.

She watched him pack his last few items, then he handed her his badge. “You can have Payroll mail me my final check.”

“Fine.”

Feeling the entire group’s eyes on her back, she followed him out, holding the door for him. Balancing the box on his hip, he popped his trunk lid, then dumped his stuff inside. He didn’t wave as he drove away.

Josie remained in the doorway. She supposed she should have made him check out through HR. There was probably some sort of protocol to follow. But again, she didn’t care. He was gone, and it was human to say that suited her. He’d made her manager days miserable.

Why hadn’t Kyle told her what was going on instead of letting her find Ronson cleaning out his desk? The oddness of it unnerved her.

There was only one way to find out.

His office door was open, and Kyle wasn’t doing a damn thing. His chair pushed back from the desk, one ankle balanced on his knee, and his hands stacked behind his head, he was sitting there as if he’d been counting the seconds before she arrived.

“What the hell is going on with Ronson?”

“I left you a message,” he said almost conversationally. “You didn’t answer your cell phone either.”

“I was in the bathroom.” She couldn’t help the slight edge. “I actually don’t carry it in there with me.”

“I’ll try to remember that. If you don’t answer your phone, it’s because you’re in the ladies’ room.” He looked too damn chipper, a sparkle in his eyes and a snarky half smile on his lips. “Close the door.”

“Fine.” She did. If he got personal with her behind closed doors, she’d deck him.

“Now sit.”

“I’m not a dog.” She sat anyway, her anger rising.

“Josie, please, I have something to tell you.”

“Why did Ronson give his resignation to
you
?” She didn’t like that she’d been sidestepped as if she were insignificant. Though of course that was probably the exact reason Ronson had done it.

Kyle took two extra seconds to answer. “He and I had a little run-in Friday evening.”

“Friday evening? You mean before you picked me up?”

“No.” He gave her another two-second perusal. “At the club.”

“At the club?” she repeated. Stupidly. Club? What club? Oh God.

He recognized the moment it registered. “Yes,
that
club.”

“He
saw
us?” A wave of heat rose to her face. Her heart started to hammer in her chest.

“He saw
me
, not you. While I was waiting for you.”

While she was hiding in the restroom. She thought she was going to hyperventilate. “Jesus, what’s he going to do?” This was bad, really bad.

“Just what he did: resign.”

“That doesn’t make sense. You’re the exec, it would look worse for you than for him if it were to get out.” All the scenarios ran through her mind, morals clause in an executive’s contract, et cetera. This could
ruin
Kyle.

“Would you like to know what he was doing when I saw him?”

She stopped, cocked her head, her voice barely there as she asked, “What?”

“On his hand and knees getting screwed by a dildo and sucking a cock at the same time.”

“A
man’s
cock?”

He raised one eyebrow. “Is there any other kind?”

“You know what I mean,” she snapped. “Like a real one, not just a dildo.”

He laughed, an almost involuntary sound. “Oh, it was real, all right.”

“And he saw you?”

“Right at what I’d call a very auspicious moment.” He shook his head, a slight smile creasing his lips, and oh yeah, that telltale sparkle glittering in his eyes. “You should have seen the look. Like the credit card commercial says: priceless.”

“Oh my God.” It came out as a mere whisper. Then she looked at him. He’d used it to get rid of Ronson, for her. “So you told him either he resigned or you’d tell?”

All the mirth died on his face. “No. I don’t work like that, and you should know it.”

“But—”

“I don’t blackmail.” He dropped his foot to the floor, rolled his chair to the desk, and eyed her with a steely gaze.

“I didn’t mean it like that. I’m just shocked, that’s all.”

“I merely suggested that he should learn how to come to an amicable working relationship with you.”

“Or what?” It sounded like blackmail to her.

“Or nothing. I didn’t threaten him. He turned in his resignation.”

“But you must have said
something
.” Otherwise Ronson wouldn’t have had a reason.

“I didn’t say a damn thing. I told him he didn’t have to leave. He just had to work it out with you.”

“Well, I’m sorry, but that sounds like it had an ‘or else’ attached to it.”

Kyle scraped a hand down his face. “All right. Let’s put it this way. I saw him on Friday. This morning he came into my office to hand in his resignation. I took it. He’s gone.” He pulled a paper forward onto his blotter and tapped. “Now I have to take the resignation to HR.”

She remembered the badge in her jacket pocket. Laying it on the desk, she pushed it across. “He’s says they can mail his final check.”

“Good. Then it’s finished.”

She gritted her teeth. “I don’t like that you handled my problem for me.” It was the second time he’d done so.

His jaw worked. “I didn’t handle it. It was an opportunity that landed in my lap.”

“You wouldn’t have done this with any other employee.”

He leaned forward. “I wouldn’t have been at a sex club with any other employee. It’s a mitigating circumstance.”

He just didn’t get it. He treated her differently. He fixed things for her. “You should have called me up here for the meeting with him.” She drummed her fingers on the arm of the chair. “And dammit, Friday night you should have told me you saw him, not leave it until today.” Would he have told her at all if Ronson hadn’t resigned?

“I didn’t want to worry you.”

“Because you were going to take care of it.” This time she leaned forward. “When are you going to figure out that I can take care of myself? I can handle things
myself
. I don’t need you to do anything for me.”

He thought she was incapable, a screwup. The boss had to fix everything for her. It was because she was sleeping with him. He’d lost all respect for her.

Josie stood, her blood racing through her veins sounding like a freight train in her ears. “This isn’t working.”

“
What
isn’t working?” Kyle remained in his seat.

“This relationship.”

“We don’t have a
relationship
. We play games.” Now he stood, towering over her on the other side of the desk.

Despite herself she backed up one step beside the chair. “We
can’t
have a relationship because you don’t respect me at work. It was a bad idea to start with.”

“I fucking respect you.” His nostrils flared. “I wouldn’t have let you handle the sand plant in the first place if I didn’t.”

“Then why can’t you let me handle my own employee issues?” It
hurt
. “It shows you don’t respect my judgment.”

She wanted him to deny it, but he’d already done that. Yet she needed more, to know she was special to him, in bed, at work, anywhere, everywhere. That was the problem being with him. He turned her into a pitiable, needy woman.

“Your problem with Andrew is done, over”—he stabbed a finger across his desk at her—“but because I didn’t call you in and have you be part of every second of what went on, you get all bent out of shape. You can’t give a single fucking inch. Not in this, not in business, not in personal, not in anything.”

Now
that
wasn’t fair. On a work basis, their relationship was inequitable, but she knew damn well where he was going with this one. Pursing her lips, she crossed her arms. “So we’re back to the fact that I wouldn’t spend the night on Friday.”

He shook his head in a decidedly disgusted move. “No. I’m on to how you have to fight about everything. You have to come out on top, no matter what. You can’t take anyone’s help. You certainly won’t take mine. In fact, when I offer it, you shit on me.”

“That’s not true.” She felt a twinge in her belly. She had gone to Trinity and Faith, even Ernie, with her problems rather than take them to Kyle.

“You’re fucking high maintenance, you know that?”

“I am not.” She raised her chin, but what he’d said stung. “I just want respect.”

“You don’t get it by fighting me every step of the way.”

“I only fight because all you want to do is control me.” She took a step closer, pointed her finger just as he had. “I will not let you ruin my job.”

“I have no intention of doing that.”

She ignored him. He was
wrong
. “Everything we do is escalating this thing. Someone is bound to find out.”

“So let them find out. Big deal. If it’s acknowledged openly, no one will care. It’s the sneaking around that will sink us.”

“
Ronson
almost saw us.” She threw an arm out. “And look where we were.”

“I admit it was inadvisable. We’ll be more careful. But something like that would look a helluva lot better if people already knew about us.”

“And what?” She shot out a breath. “I’m supposed to tell them I’m fucking my boss?”

He narrowed his eyes, his pupils mere pinpricks. “You tell them we’re dating.”

“We’re
fucking
. Dating never works with your boss.” Look what happened with Ian. He used her, stole everything, set her graduation back a full semester. She would not let that happen again.

“So we’re
just
fucking.” Kyle pierced her with his gaze.

She drew in a deep breath, held it, then let it spill back out. “Of course that’s all we’re doing.”

He tipped his head. “You’re scared to admit it might be more than that.”

Her heart leapt to her throat. “I am not scared. I’m realistic and practical. I won’t let what happens between us get in the way of my career.”

Kyle was silent for a long, tense moment. “So you’re saying the job is more important than a relationship with me.”

She hadn’t meant it that way, but that’s what it ended up being. She couldn’t deny it. “I told you all along that my job was the most important thing in my life.”

He shook his head, grabbed a pencil from a holder, and twirled it on the blotter. “You’re right,” he said, staring at the whirling pencil. “It’s not going to work”—he finally looked at her—“because you can’t for one moment believe that I’m not trying to control you or judge you or otherwise treat you like a piece of dirt.” He glanced at his watch. “You’ve got a meeting in five minutes.”

With that, he dismissed her, closing the door behind her as she left.

Traveling the executive hallway, Josie couldn’t quite believe it. She’d told him it was over . . . and he’d accepted. He wasn’t supposed to agree so easily.

Her mom and dad always fought back and forth. That was their way, but they made up in the end. Neither of them said, “Okay, fine, you’re right, we’re done, let’s get a divorce.” They fought, they yelled, they did the silent thing, as if the battle was foreplay. Josie had hated the fighting, but she knew how it would end eventually.

“Hey, you okay?” Ryan from Quality passed her on the stairs.

Josie just waved her hand and smiled, then moved on without a word.

Kyle had let her walk out. Just like that. Over. Done. Didn’t work.
You’re too high maintenance.
High maintenance? Good God.
Her?
She was the least high maintenance of anyone she knew. Right?

Except for that one problem. She was like her parents, turning everything into combat. Right or wrong, she emulated what she’d been taught. It didn’t help that she’d gotten trashed by her first—and only—serious relationship. Okay, so maybe she was a little scared, too, of getting hurt, of having her life blow up again. All right, she needed to face it: she was her own worst enemy when it came to men. That’s why she always chose the buddy route. She didn’t have to fight. She told them how it would be and maintained control of the situation that way.