Conflict of Interest (Employee Relations Book 1)

by Teresa Michaels

  At the end of a song Gabby tugs on my hand. “My feet are killing me. Can we sit for a few minutes?”

  I press my hand to the small of her back, leading her to the bar. Bending down I press my mouth to her ear and tell her, “There are so many places I’m going to take you.”

  She wraps her arms around my neck and smiles. “And why’s that?”

  I don’t get the chance to answer.

  “Gabby DiVergilio? I thought I saw you on the dance floor.”

  A forty-something woman with red hair pulls Gabriella into a hug. When the woman releases her Gabriella’s face is white as a sheet.

  “It’s so good to see you. And who is this?” the woman asks eying me suggestively.

  “I’m Luc—”

  Gabriella steps on my foot, not so subtly telling me to keep quiet.

  “Luke. This is my friend Luke.”

  Friend? What in bloody hell?

  “Nice to meet you, Luke. I’m Sandra.”

  I glance at Sandra, trying to figure out the connection between the two.

  “I’ve been meaning to email you,” Sandra tells Gabriella. “I owe you an apology for how I behaved the last time I saw you.”

  Gabriella offers the woman a weak smile. “It was an unfortunate situation. You look great though. Are you living in New York now?”

  “Just moved here last month, though I still go back to Boston frequently to see Jacob. I have to say, getting fired was the best thing for me. I’ve always wanted to live in Manhattan and I got a bigger role out of it. Let me buy you a drink.”

  Politely dismissing her, Gabriella tells her, “That’s not necessary but it was great seeing you. I’m glad everything worked out.”

  “Alright, well it was good seeing you.” Then she turns to me. “Nice meeting you, Luke. Take care.”

  Gabriella nervously watches Sandra walk away.

  “Shit,” she exhales.

  “What was that about?”

  Gabriella closes her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose. “That was your predecessor.”

  “You fired her?”

  “Yes,” Gabriella confirms.

  Rumors circulated about her departure when I arrived—office affair, embezzlement, incompetence—I didn’t give them much attention. But thinking back to that initial conversation with Jack the pieces fall into place. He didn’t specifically say my predecessor had violated the non-fraternization policy but it was certainly implied.

  I place my hands on her shoulders and dip my head down to hers. “Was she sleeping with another employee?”

  “I can’t discuss that.”

  Whether or not she gives me the details her reaction tells me all I need to know. Sandra got caught screwing another employee. Now Gabriella’s doing the same thing she’s fired other people for. Including the person who previously had my job.

  What are the chances of that?

  “Talk to me, love.” I wrap my arm around her and pull her against my chest.

  Gabriella shakes her head and maneuvers out of my hold.

  My stomach twisted in knots. Wanting clarity on how we’d stay together without screwing up our careers or sacrificing the wellbeing of her mother and grandmother was easy to dismiss minutes ago. Consequences were only a possibility. Now they’re a reality and Gabriella isn’t going to let it go.

  Just like I can’t let her go.

  Attempting to reassure her, I downplay the situation.

  “It’s natural to feel uneasy about this but trust me when I tell you we’re fine. Sandra lives in the New York. She has no idea who I am.”

  Gabriella straightens and unnerves me with an unreadable expression. I have no idea what she’s thinking, but I’m positive it’s not good.

  When she finally speaks I cringe because I’m right.

  “I wish I could believe that.” She steps back from me and fidgets with her hands. “I want to go back to Ki’s.”

  The next morning I wake to gray clouds, or perhaps it’s the sour mood lingering from last night. It doesn’t help that sitting at the end of the bed is a fully dressed Gabriella, clutching a large mug of coffee and looking lost.

  “Hey,” I groan while stretching, my voice raspy from sleep. “You should have woken me when you got up.”

  “Did I tell you that my grandmother gave me my first cup of coffee when I was six years old?”

  I shake my head, unsure if she’s looking for a response or not. “No. I didn’t know that.”

  “She did. Filled it with mounds of sugar and a ton of milk. I was so hyper it was hours before I calmed down and when I did I passed out.”

  Unsure of where this is going, I cautiously sit up.

  “My parents were busy carting my brothers around to sports practice and running the restaurant so I spent a lot of time with both of my grandparents. Grandma never learned how to drive, which was probably a blessing given her temper. That meant where us girls wanted to go my grandfather would take us.” She pauses to look at me over her shoulder. “You would have liked my grandfather. Sometimes you actually remind me of him. Good mannered and serious…he was the only person besides you that always called me by my full name.”

  I laugh awkwardly. “You think I’m serious?”

  “And he had a dry sense of humor,” she continues as if she hadn’t heard me. “He was the kind of guy who’d wait on his front porch and watch until your car was out of sight and demand a phone call when you made it home. He didn’t dish out ‘I love yous’ very often and sometimes he seemed cold, but his family came first and everyone knew it. It’s why no one was surprised when he neglected his own health issues in order to care for my grandma.”

  “He must have loved her a lot.”

  “She was his world,” Gabriella agrees. “When I was young and stayed the night at their house I’d sneak downstairs and watch them dance. Every night without fail he’d put on the record player even if they’d been in a fight, and dance. I think that’s why nights are especially hard for her,” she looks at me with a weak smile. “Most of the time she doesn’t remember that she had a husband or know who she is but it’s there somewhere in the back of her mind. There marriage wasn’t perfect but it was filled with passion. Someday I want that.”

  Thoroughly confused, I lean forward. “Love, tell me what’s wrong?”

  She stills and when I reach for her she stands.

  Not a good sign.

  “Does it matter? You won’t talk about it anyway.”

  Anxiously, I search her face. “Look, I understand that you’re shaken up by our run in with Sandra, but—”

  “That’s not it. Or at least it’s only part of it.” She sets down her mug and pulls her hair into a messy bun on the top of her head. “All morning I’ve been trying to justify what we’re doing, Lucas and I can’t. I want what my grandparents had, what my parents have. I want something real.”

  Throwing the covers back I push out of bed and dig through my bag for clothes. “Give me a minute to get dressed and we’ll go to breakfast. We’ll talk.”

  “Why does it take something monumental to get a reaction from you?”

  I pause and turn to look at her.

  “Is that what you want? To get a rise out of me?” I question a bit defensive.

  “What I want is to talk about our relationship without feeling like I’m forcing you into a conversation. We’re never going to move forward this way and I’m not going to constantly watch over my shoulder, afraid of who might catch us. This isn’t a relationship, Lucas. It’s an affair.”

  “It might feel that way -”

  “I love you,” she blurts out.

  Her words hit with a slamming force, knocking the wind out of me.

  Gabriella loves me.

  Not a complete shock but hearing it floors me all the same.

  Say it back, dipshit.

  For whatever reason I can’t.

  “Gabriella, I…”

  The silence between us grows so heavy it’s as if another p
erson is with us. I open my mouth to say something, anything, but nothing comes out.

  She shakes her head. “Kyra and I are going to take the train back to Boston.”

  “You can’t drop something like that on me and then leave me?”

  “Not leaving. Giving us both time to figure things out.”

  I thread my fingers through my hair, pulling at the roots. “Running into her was a fluke. We’re not confined to Boston and New York.”

  “See that’s the thing. Your idea of dealing with this is to change location. I get that you saw this weekend as an opportunity, but here’s what I see going forward. Company functions we can’t attend together. Having people believe we’re single when we’re not. Moving in together but having to get my mail delivered to my parents house because I can’t list your place as mine.” She sucks in a lungful of air. “Excuses ready just in case because we could get caught at any time. That’s not the life I want.”

  “So you’re not just leaving now. You’re leaving me.”

  She shakes her head. “No. At least that’s not what I want. I need to think, to process everything. I need time.”

  Time. The same request I’ve made on countless occasions parroted back to me is like a slap across the face. I’m suddenly nauseous.

  I could argue with her and press to have the conversation now, or admit to her that I love her too but she’ll see it as an attempt to manipulate her into giving me more time. More importantly, if it’s that hard to voice my feelings how can I trust that what I feel truly is love? I’m clueless and overwhelmingly desperate.

  Reluctantly I walk to her, stopping when we’re a foot apart. “I don’t want to lose you.”

  “And I don’t want to pretend.”

  She presses up on her toes and lightly touches her soft lips to my cheek. She picks up her bags and before I have the chance to respond, she’s gone.

  Chapter 22

  Lucas

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  “Sooooo, the elephant on the train. Are we talking about it?” Kyra asks, flipping through a magazine.

  Ignoring my friend, I slump further into my seat, willing it to transport me to an alternate universe where the existence of my love life doesn’t depend on my employer, one where my boyfriend communicates and can see that acting like everything’s fine is just that…acting.

  I’m not one of those women who enjoy drama. Actually, until recently there hasn’t been much in my personal life and that’s exactly how I prefer it. But the simple fact remains—if we keep going like we have been the drama is only going to get worse.

  Beside me, Kyra clears her throat.

  “So we’re not talking about it?”

  “I’d rather hear about how you’re Bee Bim Bopping Ki behind our backs.”

  Whack!

  She smacks my arm with the rolled up magazine. Damn that hurts.

  We glare at each other for seconds longer than I would have given us credit for and then erupt into a fit of laughter.

  “Come on, tell me. I didn’t get my ass out of bed and on a train for the hell of it. Is it about that woman last night or did you fight about something else?”

  “Both, I think.”

  “Thanks for clearing that up.”

  I take a deep breath and slowly exhale, attempting to release all the pent up frustration I have in one gigantic sigh.

  “Running into Sandra scares me…getting caught in general scares me. What worries me more is that Lucas prefers to solve issues on his own and he’s perfectly content to keep our relationship how it is. That’s not the kind of relationship I want.”

  Tilting her head to the side she assesses me. “Then why do you look so unsure?”

  “Because I’m not sure.”

  I turn and look out the window. As soon as Kyra and me boarded the train at Grand Central Station I couldn’t shake the twisting knot in my stomach telling me that I might have made a mistake. I still have that feeling. The more towns we pass the stronger it becomes. “What if I’m overreacting?”

  “Is that what you really think?”

  I shake my head. “I don’t know. I’m sure of my feelings for him but I’m positive that I don’t want to keep pretending that sneaking around is okay. The longer this goes on, the more likely we’ll get caught and the stronger our resentment towards each other will be if and when that happens.” I shift in my seat. “I love him, Kyra. I even told him that and he just stood there staring at me. I don’t want to force him to choose me over his job and feel trapped but isn’t that what I’m really asking him to do without saying it?”

  My head drops into my hands just in time to catch my warm tears. “I don’t want to lose him.”

  I sink my fingers into my hair and massage my temples with my thumbs, like getting rid of the pulsating thud will magically dull the pain in my heart.

  Kyra rubs my back. “It’s not like you broke up right?”

  “No, I told him I was giving him time to think. But if he won’t open up to me than that certainly could be an option.”

  Lucas is an introvert by nature and already has a tendency to over analyze every nuance of a situation, putting off making decisions until he feels he has all the data. But what is he waiting for? New scenarios aren’t going to emerge. The long and short of it is that one of us has to choose.

  She puts her hand on mine. “He may not have said the words but I’m positive he’s in love with you too.”

  Hearing that should be reassuring but it’s not and it won’t be until the words come from him.

  But that may never happen.

  “You mentioned he didn’t have the best childhood. Maybe he’s scared too. Making huge changes like confessing your feelings or changing jobs when you have no way of knowing whether or not it’s going to work out is a huge leap of faith.”

  “You’re right.”

  “Look, I’m not going to tell you I told you so and I’m not going to tell you that you should be the one to sacrifice your career…”

  “But…”

  “But if you had been honest with your parents about the Elder Care Program from the beginning you might not feel so trapped.”

  Again she’s right. “I know. I just wish I had some control over this situation.”

  “You do.” She smiles at me, the kind of smile that says I adore you and you’re an idiot at the same time. “Listen, if being with Lucas is what you want and you’re not willing to force him to quit or see things from your perspective, what are your options?”

  My options—I’ve thought about them so much I know them by heart.

  We could end it now, go our separate ways personally, and professionally find a way to work together. Slightly more appealing, but still not feasible, is to continue operating as we have been. I could ask him to leave the company, to choose me—money isn’t an issue for him; he said so himself. Somehow though, I can’t bring myself to do that either and that’s not what Kyra’s asking.

  There’s really only one option if I want to be with Lucas.

  Warily I look at Kyra. “To choose him.”

  Sitting in the parking lot of Recollections on my lunch break Monday afternoon I rehearse the speech I’m about to deliver to my mom for the millionth time. After successfully dodging Lucas all morning I have my fingers crossed that this will go just as smoothly.

  “It’s now or never,” I tell myself as I grab the to-go bags containing food from our restaurant and then stroll into the building.

  I greet my mom and grandmother with a hug and kiss before setting out the food on a small table near the window in her room. We eat and laugh, listening to my grandmother animatedly talk about her friend down the hall. Today she thinks she’s
in college and that this is her dorm. I’m not sure who she thinks we are but she’s happy. Genuinely happy.

  I clean up while my mom tucks my grandmother in for a nap and gather my courage.

  “She looks great,” I say and take a seat at the table while my mom unpacks my grandmother’s clean clothes.

  “She does,” my mom replies with a smile. “This place has been amazing for her.”

  Perfect segway.

  “We should have looked into doing this a long time ago,” I say, testing the waters. “You look amazing too.”

  My mother looks at me lovingly. “You're right. We should've done this a long time ago. I guess I didn't realize how bad things had gotten with her, and I also didn't realize how bad I felt. The important thing is that now we’re both better off. I have more energy than I can remember, Gabby. Makes time with her more enjoyable.”

  My mom walks over to me, a sweatshirt draped over her arm when she bends down to kiss my forehead. “Thank you for this.”

  “This isn’t the only place that would be good for her.”

  My mom straightens and looks at me with questions in her eyes.

  “No, I suppose you're right. Though being down the street from our house and the restaurant has been very convenient. And we can’t beat the price.”

  I bite the bullet. “Mom, I need to tell you something.”

  She looks at me concerned.

  “What is it?”

  “I'm in love.”

  My mother’s mouth splits into the most genuinely happy grin. “Gabby that's wonderful!”

  “It is,” I agree. “Except I have a problem.”

  Her expression falls. “What is it?”

  “Lucas and I work together, so technically we’re not supposed to be dating.”

  “Go on.”

  “Over a month ago I was thinking of leaving the company, but then the Elder Care Program was approved and grandma was accepted into the program. When you agreed to put her in Recollections I knew I couldn’t leave. The program requirements changed where employees have to remain at the company in order for their dependents to remain eligible.”