by Ashlee Price
“Just checking it. You’re up early. What are your plans for the day?”
“I have to go to work later. You want to go get some lunch at the café?”
I told her maybe. I wasn’t going to say that I was waiting on a call from Greg and would ditch her in a heartbeat if there was a choice. Of course I wasn’t going to say that, even though it was the gospel truth.
“Maybe. I don’t know if I’ll have to do something for work today.”
“You work weekends now?” Her eyebrows were scrunching and I knew that she was wondering what I was talking about. I was starting to get nervous that she knew. How did Fran always know everything?
“Sometimes. If they ask me to. I really like the job, so I will work this weekend if they need me.”
“If Greg needs you, you mean.”
I wasn’t going to argue. Instead of trying to hold it close to my chest, I burst out with what had happened the night before. I avoided her eyes so I wouldn’t see the judgment in them. I knew that what I had done wasn’t exactly right, but how could it feel so good if it wasn’t what was supposed to happen?
“I can’t believe you slept with him, Desiree. After everything that happened there with the rumors and you quitting. How could you do that?”
She didn’t get it, and I wondered for a moment if Fran had ever been in love. I felt like if she had, she would see the sweetness in the midst of the madness, but she sure didn’t seem to. I knew I shouldn’t have told her, and I silently admonished myself.
“He is single, I am single, and I really like him.”
“So now that you did it, are you over him?”
Fran knew the answer, but she was going to make me say it out loud. How could I be over him after last night? I was falling hard and fast, and there was no turning back for me anymore. I had to have Greg. I just had to.
***
The weekend was long, made longer by the fact that Greg never called. At the end of Saturday I was starting to get nervous, but when I hadn’t heard from him all day Sunday, I wondered if I was feeling something that he hadn’t. I couldn’t wait to have my hands on him again, but I knew that I wasn’t supposed to. If he didn’t want me, I was going to be crushed.
I dressed carefully on Monday, with Greg in mind. I was determined to have him again. Maybe even in his own office, I thought to myself. There was only one thought on my mind, and it was the handsome man with the fathomless green eyes.
As I arrived at work, there was a sinking feeling in my stomach. All I could think about was Friday night and the fact that Greg had rushed off and I hadn’t seen him since. The building looked benign as I walked up to it, but the feeling was not something that I could shake.
As I walked in, I saw that there was definitely something going on. There were several people standing around and even more were packing up their things in small white boxes. The feeling of dread followed me into the elevator. I felt a few eyes on me, but I didn’t know anyone well enough to ask anything. That meant I had to make my way up to the fourth floor still wondering what was going on. Surely all of those people hadn’t been fired? Right?
The upset followed me to the accounting floor. I felt more looks and I didn’t say much of anything. Looking for Paul, I was not relieved to see that he seemed to be one of the ones that were going out the door.
“Paul, what is going on?”
Paul had a look of anger and sadness on his face. I don’t think even he knew which feeling was the dominant one.
“Half of the staff is getting sacked. New cost-saving initiative.”
“What?” I was afraid to ask if I was one of them. I figured if Paul was getting let go, as well as most of the senior staff, there was no way that I was going to make the cut to stay.
“Donald took over on Friday. He convinced a majority of the stockholders that Greg was taking the place down. So now Donald runs the company and he’s getting rid of anyone loyal to Greg and anyone who’s been here so long they make more than he’s willing to pay.”
I didn’t know what to say. I was sad to lose my job. The realization that it was gone was immediate. There was no way that Don was going to keep me around. Of course, there was no way that I wanted to work for him, either. I felt worse for the people like Paul who’d been working there for years. I had only been there a few weeks, and although I was going to miss it, I knew deep down that I was going to have to make peace with it all.
“I am so sorry, Paul. I guess I better take after you and get my things together.”
Paul nodded his head. We both knew that I was going to be on the chopping block, but because it was Donald, I knew that it wasn’t going to be that hard for me to leave. I never wanted to work for a man like that.
“Have you seen Greg?”
He shook his head as he put another framed photo into the box. “No one has seen him. We were told this morning by email to be out by lunch and that Greg was no longer in charge. I don’t know where he is, but even Tommy has been absent. He has been here the longest, and I’m sure he was the first to go.”
I didn’t know how to react. I got my few things together and felt sadness come over me. This was the first real job I’d had, and I had certainly not thought that it was going to end like this.
Seeing Don walk in from the elevator, I made sure to avoid eye contact with him, but he came over to me anyway. “I see you’ve heard the news.”
I didn’t look up. “Yes, sir. I’m getting my things together like the email said.”
“You didn’t get an email.”
His words surprised me and I finally looked up at him. “Why wouldn’t I get an email?”
“Because I want you to stay. Greg thought he saw promise in you, and everyone agrees that your work is impeccable. Besides, you make far less than Paul does… and then we would be able to work closely together, like you did with Greg.”
The last part was not hard to figure out. I shrank from his touch on my shoulder. When I did, he gave me a surprised look.
“I have no desire to work for a man like you.”
He chuckled and told me that I would be back.
“I’m sure you’ll take the company down with you. Greg said that you were always the fuck-up between the two of you guys.”
His eyes darkened almost to black, and again I felt aggression pouring off of him. It was yet another moment where all I could think about was getting away from him. There was no way that I would work for such a man. I would rather go back to serving drinks at the bar.
Chapter 3 – Greg
I was meeting with Gary in a different spot than I had so many times before. It felt a little strange meeting him anywhere but at Bertrand’s, but it was nice to see that he had an actual office and staff.
“So what are we going to do about this, Greg?”
I set down the small tumbler of whiskey. It was too early for hard liquor, but somehow I knew that wine wasn’t going to cut it.
“There’s nothing to do, Gary. Donald did it by the book. I’ve had my lawyers looking at the paperwork, and from what they can tell he’s been planning this for some time. I always thought he was laying up in Mexico or somewhere, but the whole time he was in New York undercutting our deal and waiting for the right time.”
Gary was still confused. “But how did he convince the board?”
That question made me a little uncomfortable. I didn’t want to say why. I knew that it was my actions with Desiree that had clinched the deal. While some of the greedier board members had already been on board with Don, I knew that my lack of control with her was what had done me in with the rest of them.
He waited for my answer, and I was happy that one of his assistants came in and stopped the conversation. She was bringing in paperwork that Gary had asked for. Watching him watch her leave, I figured that he might understand after all.
“I fell for one of the interns. The rest of them got jealous, so I fired the other nine and hired Desiree. Donald and Desiree got into it, and I thi
nk that is what started the ball rolling.”
“You don’t fall for the help. That is rule number one.”
Given his own crude ways, Gary wasn’t really one to talk, and I found that I didn’t like thinking of Desiree in that way. I had fallen for before I put my hands on her, and now it was even stronger. There was no getting around it. I wanted her so badly.
“She is smart and beautiful, not the help. Desiree was perfect for the post. She even slapped Don. How could I fire her?”
Gary sat back and whistled through his teeth. “Well, we have quite a mess now, so I hope she was worth it.”
I didn’t tell him that she was, hands down, a million times over. It wouldn’t have been very considerate, because I knew that my actions had caused problem for him, too. I had really messed everything up.
“I haven’t seen her in a couple of days, but it was worth it to see her hit Don. Lord knows I’ve been wanting to since about a year into the business. There was a lot I didn’t know about him when we started working together, and it has just gone downhill over the last fifteen years.”
“Business and money change people.”
I had to agree. I took another drink of the liquid fire. It burned down my throat as I tried to get a grip on the situation. I needed a plan to get my company back and a plan to keep Desiree. The latter seemed far easier to accomplish, and she started to take over my mind. I hadn’t talked to her in a couple of days because of everything that was going on, but now it seemed like far too long to not speak to her.
“It seems like love does as well, Greg,” Gary continued. “I don’t think I have ever seen you like this. You’ve always been cool and confident, but this is the time to be freaking out. There is a lot at stake here, for both of us.”
Nodding, I sat up and tried to push her to the back of my mind. “It’s going to be okay. You have a contract with him, and Donald may be stupid, but he’s not going to break it. He’d never do that. I’m not saying he won’t try to find a way out of it, but I’ll have the company back before he can.”
“I hope you’re sure about that. If you’re just talking out of your ass, I need to know now so I can take care of damage control.”
I wasn’t sure how I was going to do it, but I knew that I wasn’t going to let Donald take over. If he did it wouldn’t be long till the company went under. That was part of the reason that I had taken over and he had bailed out in the first place.
“Don’t worry. Gary. I’ll be back at the helm in no time.”
***
The idea came to me after I had sobered up from my meeting with Gary. It seemed so simple. Donald had the votes, so he thought he could count me out. Well, maybe he could, from the company that I shared with him. But now I realized that instead of entering into a long struggle to take back control of Jefferson & Marshal, I could just start another fund. Several of my largest backers were already on my side, and with the help of Tommy and other loyal staff members, it wasn’t long before I had almost all of the major clients ready to jump ship. I didn’t need Donald anymore. I was ready to move on to bigger and better things.
I sold most of my stock, losing a lot of money in the selling frenzy that followed, but it was all going as planned. I could have been sore about the amount of money I lost, but I wasn’t. It was actually less than I had been willing to pay Don to leave, so in the end, it seemed like a small price for peace.
I spent a lot of my energy on building up the new fund and negotiating my way to a good deal. I thought about Desiree sometimes, but she was a distraction that I couldn’t afford. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see her or hear her voice, but either one would make me addle-brained again.
It was almost two months before I had the new company up and running, and it was another few weeks before I was ready to find Desiree again. I had heard about her and the rest of my staff getting laid off. When I was in a position to take them all back on while Donald ruined my old company, I knew it was time to find my accountant.
At first I had wanted to see her right away, but as time passed, I was nervous about how she would respond. The longer that went by, the less inclined I was to call her. She was surely going to be mad at me for ignoring her. I had her number, but she didn’t have mine, and even if she had, I honestly don’t know if I would have answered. Now that I was finally ready to talk to her, I was scared. What if she had moved on?
The idea of that made me angry, and that was a feeling that I could process better. It was the emotion that carried me through the time that it took to dial her number. It was on my contacts list and I had been letting it go to waste for too long. I knew that I needed to see her, and when I heard her voice, I forgot all about the reasons I hadn’t called before. How could I have denied myself such pleasure?
Chapter 4 – Desiree
“Baby, it is so good to hear your voice.”
I knew the voice instantly, but I didn’t understand the low timbre. It sounded sexy, but I wasn’t thinking about sex. I was wondering why he was calling me after so long.
“Greg?”
“Of course this is Greg.”
“What do you want?”
I could hear the harshness in my voice. It didn’t sound pleasant, but there was really no way I could keep it out. I wanted to pretend like it didn’t matter, like I hadn’t pined for the man who was talking to me so nonchalantly now. But I couldn’t act like that. I had waited for far too long for a call from Greg. After a month, maybe two, I had tried my best to accept that I was never going to hear from him again. Now that I had, after all of that time, I didn’t have much good to say.
There was a pause while the thoughts and emotions rolled through me. I didn’t know what he as thinking, but I supposed he would most likely hang up. My heart was pounding so hard that the sound in my ears drowned out everything else.
“Hello? Are you still there?” I wasn’t sure if I wanted him to be or not. But I repeated it one more time and then he answered me.
“Yes. I need to talk to you.”
“I don’t think we have much to say to each other, Greg, do you?”
“We have a lot to say to each other. I haven’t seen you since our picnic.”
The mention of the picnic made me mad. It had been the night that I had fallen for him. I had waited for him to call or come over, but he never had. I didn’t even know where he lived, and it was impossible to get a phone number for a man like Greg Jefferson. No one was going to give it away, and since he had cut ties with the company, there was nothing I could do to find him. Greg popping up again now was very unsettling, and I was instantly on guard.
“I think you should have called a little sooner, Greg. In most circles, three days is pretty customary, not ninety.”
“Has it been that long?”
I sighed out loud into the receiver and then just put the phone down. There was nothing that he could say to make it better, and I didn’t have anything to say beyond a few curse words.
The phone rang again. After a few minutes of it going through the four-ring cycle and then repeating, I turned it off. Fran came in and asked me if I was okay.
“Yeah.”
“You don’t look okay. Who was that?”
“A ghost.”
She looked at me like I was crazy. Maybe I was. I certainly hadn’t been feeling myself for a while. Now that I had just about convinced myself to move on, it was disconcerting to have him surface again. Just the sound of his voice made me realize how much I had missed him, and I damned my body for falling for it.
“So are you ready to go?”
Fran eyed me warily and said that she was. I knew that my eyes were most likely red-rimmed, but I was going to pretend that I didn’t care and that his voice on the phone hadn’t been like a punch in the stomach.
***
The news seemed to be about my luck. I hadn’t been feeling well, and Fran had pushed and prodded until I finally agreed to go the doctor to see what was going on. She took me there herself on
e night, and I quickly found out what it was that was making me feel so sick to my stomach in the mornings and then so tired throughout the day. I had thought it was the flu or some other virus that was just taking its course. I had never suspected that it would be what it was. The answer was so obvious in retrospect, yet I refused to say anything about it to anyone, not even Fran.
There were choices to be made, but the last thing I wanted to do was make a decision too quickly. I had the urge to call Greg and tell him everything, but then I remembered all of the days and nights I had waited for his call. I didn’t want to be that way again, but I knew that eventually I was going to have to talk to him. I told myself that I would be ready for him when he called again.
I wasn’t planning to see him, though. I waited the rest of the day for him to call back. I had a lot on my mind, and I decided that I was going to tell him the truth.
I just didn’t expect him to pop up at my house. It never even crossed my mind, so when I heard the doorbell, I let Fran get it. If I had thought for a moment that it was Greg, I would have rushed to the door.
Instead I got Fran coming into my room and announcing that Greg was there. “Is he in the house?”
Fran shook her head. “I am not letting him in.”
I gave her a look and she looked back with sympathy. “Just let him in, Fran, and send him back here. We need to talk.”
Fran was skeptical about that, but she was a good friend and sent Greg to me. I took a look in the mirror and then put a hand to my stomach. Would he know? Would he believe me when I told him it was his?
The second question made me nervous. Greg and I had only been together once and we hadn’t even thought of using protection. But he was rich, and he might think that I had tried to trap him on purpose. The more I thought about it, the less I actually wanted to tell him. I wouldn’t be able to handle him looking at me like I had tried to put one over on him.