Defending Hearts

by Rebecca Crowley

  Until that second her tirade had slipped over him like a satin sheet, but it snagged on her last sentence.

  “She works in private security. She gets paid on commission.” Nedda practically spat the word. “Do you really think she’s going to move to Istanbul and watch happily while you spend two glory years at Galatasaray? Or live in a flat in Gothenburg and support you through graduate school? Or has your plan changed?” she asked tartly.

  It hadn’t. Same plan he’d had for almost ten years. Kate was the only new variable.

  For a second he could only stare. He held her at arm’s length, his hands tight, his stomach tighter.

  Having sex with Kate had been an uncharacteristic choice. He’d selected the reality of today instead of the idea of tomorrow.

  He hoped it wasn’t the wrong decision.

  He refocused on Nedda with fresh impatience, even more ready to move on from her. “What does any of this have to do with you?”

  “Because it should have been me,” she informed him shakily. “I loved you for two years. I put in the work, traveled with you, met your parents, made time for God knows how many soccer games in between exams, essays, MCATs, interviews, everything. I earned your love. I deserved it. But instead, you tell me we’re on different paths, we don’t have enough holding us together. So spell it out for me. Where does Kate’s path join yours in a way that mine didn’t?”

  It doesn’t, he realized ominously, then shoved that thought aside the same way he did whenever his doubts about Kate bubbled up to the surface.

  “Look, Neds, I’m sorry it didn’t work out with…uh, with—”

  “Ryan.”

  “I know you guys got really serious and you thought he was going to be it. You and I broke up a long time ago—almost five years now—and we’ve both changed a lot since then. I get that when things aren’t going well it’s easy to look back on the past and think—”

  “Stop.” She held up a palm. “Is this the part when you get all patronizing and tiptoe around my delicate mental state to pacify me while simultaneously telling me to fuck off? Because I’d rather skip to the end.”

  He set his jaw. Apparently some things never changed. “Then I don’t know what else to tell you.”

  “I know. Which is why I’m going to tell you, instead. She’s wrong for you, Oz. You were wrong to sleep with her, and you’ll be wrong every time you do it again. It won’t last—it can’t last—and you’re setting yourself up for a world of heartbreak. You made the wrong choice and you’ll regret it. And now you can’t say no one ever warned you.”

  “Great seeing you, Nedda.” He stepped back to give her space to leave. “Let’s do it again sometime, preferably under different circumstances and without your unsolicited judgment on my life choices.”

  She took two steps away, then glanced at him over her shoulder. He could swear he saw a flash of regret in her lovely eyes, but then her posture stiffened, her face hardened, and she stalked toward the elevator bank without another word.

  He propped his forearms on the railing she’d been leaning against, tilting his face up to the ceiling. He wasn’t making a mistake with Kate. Nedda didn’t know him anymore. He wasn’t sure she’d ever known him at all. She sure as hell didn’t know him well enough to make such an unforgiving call on his relationship.

  And his uncertainty about the future, his hesitation about how Kate would fit into his plan, his inflexibility about changing that plan—he’d deal with all that later. Maybe.

  He closed his eyes and dropped his chin, exhaling in exhaustion. Then he opened his eyes, and instantly wished he hadn’t.

  Kate and Glynn sat at a table directly below where he and Nedda had stood. The two of them stared in silence at their uneaten breakfasts, both clutching empty coffee mugs like talismans.

  “Fuck my life,” he said in Swedish, pushing off the railing and starting toward the stairs into the dining room. “Fuck my fucking life.”

  * * * *

  “I’m not an expert, but I believe this is the point in most romantic comedies where it turns out you’ve misheard my conversation with my ex in a way that makes you decide to dump me. Am I right?”

  Kate smiled tightly, wrapping her hands around her third cup of coffee. Glynn had retreated to his room after the three of them had set a record for the world’s most awkward breakfast, and now it was time for her and Oz to face the huge, Nedda-shaped elephant in the room.

  “I didn’t mishear anything,” she assured him.

  “No?”

  She shook her head. “I heard every word loud and clear.”

  He cringed. She reached across the table and gripped his wrist.

  “I’m teasing. You didn’t say anything I don’t think you would’ve wanted me to hear. Nedda came off looking pretty bad, but that’s all. You’re fine.”

  “Are we fine, too?”

  “Definitely,” she lied. In truth, she’d never felt less fine than she did at that moment.

  It was a steep, hard drop from the bubbly mood she’d woken in. She’d practically floated down to breakfast, buoyant on physical fulfillment and the high of knowing Oz had chosen her, that he’d placed her above all the other women he’d been with. She felt cherished and special and elated when she sat down across from Glynn.

  Then she registered his bleak expression. And heard Nedda’s voice ringing above them, shrill and severe.

  She couldn’t fault the way Oz handled what was clearly a painful conversation, the way he defended her, or the heart-stopping pause when he didn’t object to Nedda’s accusation that he was in love with her. Far more distressing was the way Nedda managed to articulate all her own reservations about their relationship. They seemed even more insurmountable spoken aloud than in her head.

  Nedda was right. Their lives were different, maybe irreconcilably, and Nedda was by far the better choice. She couldn’t argue with any of that.

  But she was falling for Oz. She was falling for him so hard it was difficult to imagine life without him. She wanted to fight for him—for them—but she was scared. The harder she fought, the more losing would hurt. She’d never been afraid of pain before, but the stakes had never been this high, either.

  Oz sat back in his chair on the other side of the table. “This has certainly killed my good mood this morning.”

  She didn’t reply, taking a sip of coffee.

  He leaned forward again, propping his elbows on the table. “I don’t want you to worry about any of that shit Nedda came out with.”

  “I’m not worrying.”

  “You are. I can see it.”

  She bit her lower lip. “It would be hard not to after hearing that.”

  “She spoke from a place of complete ignorance and massive self-interest.”

  “She knows you, though, and—”

  He cut her off with a shake of his head. “Let’s forget about her, okay? Let’s focus on the facts we woke up to this morning. Did you have a good time last night?”

  She couldn’t stop her smile. “Of course.”

  “So did I. And did last night make you feel more or less confident about our relationship?”

  “More. Way more.”

  “Exactly.” He laced his fingers through hers. “So ignore Nedda and her opinions. Focus on what we both know.”

  “Which is?”

  “That we’re happy.” His self-assured smile faltered slightly. “Aren’t we?”

  She nodded, then looked away. She shouldn’t ask, shouldn’t give voice to this question, but she had to. She wanted to see his reaction and hear his response.

  What if Nedda is right?

  The words were perched on the tip of her tongue, ready to take flight when two boys approached their table with a man she assumed was their dad. He had one hand on each of their shoulders.

  “I’m so sorry to inter
rupt your breakfast, but I had to ask—you’re Oz Terim, aren’t you?”

  Kate sat back and finished her coffee as Oz posed for a series of photos with the two boys. By the time they finished, their interaction had drawn attention from the rest of the dining room, and more and more people were taking out their phones to snap covert, and not so covert, photos.

  “I think it’s time to go,” he muttered as the man and his kids walked away. They both stood, and he led her to the elevator with a hand on the small of her back.

  “I hate when people do that,” he said as soon as the elevator doors closed. “They blatantly don’t know who I am, just that I’m apparently famous enough for one person to recognize me. Then they go crazy filling up their phones with a thousand pictures of someone they can’t even identify. What are they going to do with those? Run a reverse image search to figure out how to tag their Tweeted photo of their big celeb spot? Pathetic.”

  “Are you getting riled? You’re so cute when you get riled.” She flattened her hands on his chest and smiled up at him, glad to have a reason to back out from asking him whether Nedda could’ve been right. She was grateful she hadn’t asked him. She didn’t want to know. Didn’t want to face the answer, not yet.

  Not yet.

  “I’m not getting riled. I’m calmly identifying a major privacy issue,” he insisted, but his eyes softened self-effacingly.

  “Gotcha. You don’t get riled.”

  “Never.”

  “So when we get back I can rearrange all the books on all your shelves and it won’t bother you.”

  “Now that’s a question of logical organization and I think it’s totally reasonable to object to any disruption of that system.” He put his hands on her waist and pulled her in tightly.

  She ground her hips against him, pleased with the erection she found. “You wouldn’t be riled if I did that.”

  “Not at all.”

  “You’d merely be objecting.”

  “Absolutely.” He slid his hands to her rear and cupped it, pushing her up onto her toes.

  “Too bad. Like I said, you’re cute when you’re riled.”

  He lowered his face to hers, trailed his lips along her jawline. “For you, maybe I’ll get riled. Just this once.”

  “Promises, promises,” she teased, and kissed him like the morning had never happened, like she’d never met stupid Nedda, like she had every confidence they would work for as long as both of them wanted.

  Chapter 19

  “Kate?” Lorraine leaned into the room housing the handful of cubicles that constituted the Peak Tactical sales department. “Rich wants to see you.”

  Kate groaned inwardly as she got up and shoved her feet into her high heels. This couldn’t be good. The month-end results had been issued the day before and she’d just hit her target, but she doubted Rich wanted to congratulate her on a job well done.

  As she followed Lorraine down the hall, the fear of failure that had always driven her to success before washed over her in a wave, and for a second she teetered where she stood. When it receded she felt stronger, firmer. Ready to face her boss.

  It probably wasn’t the healthiest form of self-motivation, but it worked. Nothing made her study harder or run faster or shoot straighter than the stress of speculating what might happen if she didn’t.

  In some ways, getting fired from this job would be worse than failing at any of those things. Her means were stretched more than ever with rent, utilities, gas, and her mom called yesterday to say her doctor switched her to a new blood pressure medication that cost a third more than the old one.

  But she also knew he had no reason to fire her. She’d hit her targets this month, despite the slow summer season. Roland was happy with her, and working for Skyline had given Peak Tactical entry into a whole new industry.

  Lorraine knocked briskly and then opened the door to Rich’s office. He wasn’t going to fire her, she told herself sharply. He was probably going to lecture her on sales tactics and make some empty threats and suggest he check in on her pipeline at the end of the week.

  “Have a seat.” Rich gestured to the chair on the opposite side of his desk. Kate dropped into it as Lorraine closed the door and left the two of them alone.

  He laced his fingers over the belly that stretched his button-down shirt. “You saw the month-end results yesterday.”

  She nodded.

  “Matt pointed out an issue with his allocation,” he said, referring to one of her sales-department colleagues. “As a result I had a second look at the figures last night and realized I needed to make some adjustments to your allocations as well.”

  She arched a brow. “Adjustments?”

  “On the Skyline account. I did a hell of a lot of work on that last month, Kate, and I think it’s only fair that we split it fifty-fifty.”

  She didn’t think that was fair at all, but she said nothing, waiting to see where this was going.

  “The revised numbers show you didn’t hit your target for July. Not even close, in fact. You’ve struggled with your sales since you got here, and unfortunately I think it’s time for us to let you go.”

  She blinked, unable to believe what she’d heard. “Excuse me?”

  “I’m sorry to have to get to this point. We’re always excited to hire veterans, especially females. But I have to put food on the table, too, and you just aren’t hitting the numbers.”

  “The numbers you decided to reallocate last night.”

  He nodded, and she could swear he almost smirked.

  She paused, waiting to feel devastation. Or disappointment. She’d failed—shouldn’t this hurt more?

  Maybe three nights in a row of hot, satisfying sex with Oz had done her more good than she realized. Or maybe she was flat-out sick and tired of self-important men telling her what to do. Because the only thing she felt was pissed off.

  “Let me stop you there.” She held up a hand. “Let’s schedule a formal meeting to discuss this, maybe tomorrow, to give me a chance to arrange for an attorney to be present. Can you send me the revised figures in the meantime so I can understand the basis for this dismissal?”

  “Now, I don’t want this to get hostile.” He leaned forward. “I know this is disappointing, but let’s finish our time together on a positive note.”

  “I don’t really care whether it’s positive. I want it to be fair and legal.”

  “Are you suggesting I’m being unfair or acting illegally?” His tone sharpened, his eyes narrowed.

  “I’m not suggesting anything. Just protecting myself.”

  They stared at each other in mutual dislike for a moment. Rich swiveled toward his computer and poked at the keyboard.

  “You want to protect yourself,” he muttered. “Have you ever heard about these Internet alerts you can set up? You get a little notification every time someone or something you’re interested gets mentioned.”

  “I’ve heard of it,” she said carefully.

  He typed, clicked, broke into a smug smile. Then he turned the screen so she could see it.

  She gritted her teeth and clutched the arm of the chair when she saw the photo.

  “I set an alert for our friend, Oz Terim. Found this nice article about him going to Boston. Apparently he was playing against his old team, and he even scored a goal. Then I scroll on down and see this.”

  He tapped the screen needlessly. As if she couldn’t see herself in the corner of the photo, waiting patiently while Oz posed for a picture with the two boys in the hotel. As if she didn’t want to find whoever had taken the photo let the air out of their tires. As if what should have been a harmless, happy moment wouldn’t be burned into her mind forever now.

  “I had my suspicions there might be something going on between the two of you, and I think I can safely say I have proof.” He full-on smirked. “Two words: gross misco
nduct.”

  “How?” She’d re-read her contract before leaving for Boston. Because Oz wasn’t the one paying the company’s fees, she knew there was no way he could get her on this except emotional blackmail.

  “Your contract says you have to act with the highest ethics. Do you think sleeping with a client is ethical?”

  “First, Skyline is our client, not Oz. Second, you have no proof that we’re sleeping together. Third, you couldn’t get me on gross misconduct if you did because the contract isn’t that explicit.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Are you a lawyer now?”

  “No. I’m a woman being told I’m losing my job due to a discretionary reallocation of my sales figures.”

  “Please don’t make this a political correctness thing.” He sighed exaggeratedly. “It has nothing to do with you being a woman. I treat all my employees the same. If you can’t meet the targets that are set the same for everyone, that’s no one’s fault but your own. Pull yourself together, take your two weeks’ notice, and start looking for a job that’s a better fit.”

  She looked away, her anger simmering into calm, lethal determination.

  She was out of the military. She was out of Saudi Arabia. She was done taking orders. She had a man in her life who respected her more than anyone else ever had, and no one was going to tell her what to do anymore.

  “You treat all your employees the same?” she echoed.

  He nodded vigorously. “Of course.”

  “You definitely don’t give preferential allocations to Matt because the two of you spend the day trading links to porn clips.”

  The color drained from Rich’s ruddy face.

  Gotcha, fucker.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said tightly.

  “Really? I’m sure I saved that e-mail somewhere. And you might want to talk to Matt about the Reply All function in his next review, by the way.”