by Tara Sue Me
She gave me a tentative smile. “Good morning, Mt. Butler, is there something I can help you with?”
“Yes, you can. Did Mia come in yesterday?”
She looked at him strangely, as if I’d asked her if she lived on Earth. “Yes, Mr. Butler,” she answered, but it sounded like she’d had to keep herself from adding, “Duh.”
“Was she sick or did she say anything about not coming in today?”
Again with the look like I’d asked the most preposterous question ever. “I have to be honest, sir. No one expected her back.”
I tilted my head trying to understand how what she said could possibly be a viable answer to my question. “What?”
“It was an assumption on our part when Mr. Worthington walked her out and she was carrying her stuff in a box.”
“He what?” My body shook as if it’d already comprehended what Sara was saying.
She looked at me in confusion. “Mr. Worthington was waiting in Mia’s office when she arrived yesterday afternoon. They stayed in there with the door closed for some time, and when they came out, she had a box of her things and he walked her out. Neither one of them have been back since then, sir. You didn’t know about this?”
Finally, I could at least understand why Sara was confused. How would it be possible in her mind for her employer, who was also the business owner, not to know his legal counsel had fired an employee? The words rang in my head and I had to clear them from my mind so I could think. Without answering Sara, I went back to my desk long enough to grab my keys and then left the office.
I had given only a fleeting thought to either calling Piers or demanding that he meet me. Neither of those would work, I realized almost instantaneously, because they would give him time to prepare and I wanted him completely off guard. Or as off guard as possible. Surely, he knew he’d have to face me eventually.
I drove to his office building, near the harbor, the overly congested roads doing nothing to soothe my temper. I pulled into the parking lot and quickly located his car, a racy little thing that would smash him like a bug if he ever got into an accident. Lucky for him I wasn’t able to park beside it. The exterior was far too perfect, I thought, and would look much better with a ding or five.
His office was on the top floor and the smile his own admin had for me quickly dissolved when she looked me over. I realized I had both hands curled into fists and I slowly released them.
“Mr. Worthington is meeting with a client, Mr. Butler,” she said, standing, but wisely not blocking me from the door.
“Then I suggest you call and let him know it’s over, because I’m going in and no one is going to stop me.” I didn’t wait for her reply, because honestly, it didn’t matter to me one way or the other what she thought about me breaking up his meeting.
When I found him, however, he wasn’t in his conference room with a client, he was standing just outside his doorway. Almost as if he was waiting for me.
“Tenor,” he said. “I’ve been expecting you. Come on in.”
We walked inside his office and he closed the door, but neither one of us sat down. It became very obvious, very quickly that he was not going to say anything before I did. That was fine with me. I had plenty of things to say to him.
“What the hell did you do, Piers?” I asked him.
He didn’t answer right away, but calmly walked over to his desk and sat down. “I took care of a problem that you refused to.”
I shoved the papers off his desk and leaned in. “What did you do to her? What did you say? Where is she?”
“I don’t know why you’re so taken by that little thief. Trust me, you and your business are so much better without her. You should be thanking me instead of storming in here like a mad man. Although,” he stopped to briefly touch his fingertip to his lips. “She never once admitted anything. In fact, she was still proclaiming her innocence when she started her car and drove away.”
I saw white spots dance before me. “Maybe because she is innocent, asshole. Did that thought ever cross your mind?”
He shook his head. “You should have seen her face when I mentioned Benjamin Douglas. She’s not innocent.”
“That wasn't guilt, you bastard, it was fear. He tried to assault her.”
“Don't call me that,” he said and I was glad to finally hear a little bit of emotion in his voice, but only because of the name I’d called him. Not because he felt bad about anything he’d done. “And I believe I already went over the consent thing.”
I wasn't going to go over semantics with him right now. There would be time for that later. “Tell me what you told her to make her leave.”
“I paid her off. Told her the loan would be forgiven if she left and didn't come back.”
Anger raged inside me. “That wasn't your deal to make.”
“And yet I did.” His tone was unapologetic, almost provoking, and his unasked question lingered in the air. And just what are you going to do about it?
“You’re fired,” I said. “As of right now, you no longer work for me and therefore, you are to have nothing to do with anything related to me or my business.”
“You can’t fire me,” he said, and his untouchable facade broke just a bit.
I kept my eyes on my best friend since forever so he’d know I meant every word I said. “And yet I did.” I walked out of his office without looking back.
18
Mia
* * *
“What are you doing here this time of day?” Wren asked when I knocked on her door late in the morning the day after Piers fired me.
“I brought your dress back.” I held up the dress I’d worn out to dinner with Tenor and tried not to think about how it felt when he took it off or what we did after. It didn’t work, my hands shook.
“Did he like it? Shouldn’t you be at work?” she asked. “And what’s wrong? Did something happen in Atlanta? You don’t look so good.” She didn’t take the dress back to her room, but hanged it in her home office. I took a seat on the couch next to her desk.
“Which question do you want me to answer first?” I asked, surprising myself with how weak my voice was.
She bit her bottom lip and shook her head, which confirmed what I’d thought this morning when I got out of bed after getting less than an hour of sleep: I looked like hell warmed over. It didn’t appear as if she was going to reply, so I took a deep breath and answered, “I thought he liked it. Yes, normally I would be at work, but Tenor’s legal guy fired me for him.”
“What?” Wren croaked.
I had planned to answer the rest of her questions, but that had been the first time I’d voiced what happened the day before and it hurt so much more than I’d thought it would to say the words. The tears started silently, but once they did start, they wouldn’t stop and within minutes, I found myself sobbing uncontrollably.
Wren, being the friend that she was, didn’t say anything, but sat beside me and let me cry. I’m not sure how long I sat there on her couch and cried, but when I finally stopped, her eyes were wet and red as well.
She squeezed my hand and I hadn’t even realized she’d been holding it. “Tell me everything,” she said. “Don’t leave anything out.”
I ended up telling her everything. From arriving in the lobby and the horrible date with Benjamin, to the great meetings the next day and the wonderful date with Tenor that followed. I didn’t tell her all the details surrounding what happened once we returned to the hotel, but enough that she knew the trip had not been platonic.
When I finished, I felt twenty pounds lighter. It felt so good to unload and lean on another person. Plus, Wren was also an investigative journalist. While I knew that as my best friend, she wouldn’t be able to be completely objective, she might be able to shed some light on potentially important details I’d overlooked or offer some insight I hadn’t considered before.
But she didn’t say anything right away and as the silence continued I began to worry. I worried that she thought le
ss of me or that she judged me. I almost got up and apologized for coming by and interrupting her own work time, but then she spoke.
“I don’t see how it was possible for Tenor to get in touch with his attorney, bring him up to speed on everything that went on in Atlanta, and have him go wait in your office so he could fire you.” She thought a little bit more and then asked, “Did he talk on the phone at any time yesterday morning or did you see him get wifi on the plane?”
“No to either of those,” I said, wondering why I didn’t take notice of the short time Tenor would have to set in motion what happened at the office yesterday. “But assuming that’s what happened, why would Piers fire me? And how and why would he do so without Tenor’s consent?"
It sounded good, but no matter how badly I wanted it to be true, I couldn’t work it out in my mind to make it so. Other than the one overwhelming truth - nothing about what had happened matched Tenor’s character.
“Ask yourself this,” Wren said. “Does the way Piers portrayed Tenor yesterday jive with any part of his personality?”
“No,” I answered, pleased she’d been thinking the same. I had to admit Tenor wasn’t afraid of doing hard or even unpopular things. And he wasn’t the sort to let others do his dirty work. In fact, in the short time I’d known him, I’d never seen or heard of him backing away from a challenge. The more I thought of it, the less and less anything that happened yesterday matched any piece of the man I knew him to be. “But why would Piers fire me so suddenly like that and how does Benjamin fit in?”
“I don’t get those parts either,” she admitted. “It doesn’t make any sense why he would do something like that out of the blue.”
“He wouldn’t do it out of the blue,” I said. “And the fact that he did, especially if he did it without Tenor’s knowledge, makes me think he believes he knows something Tenor doesn’t.”
“What could that possibly be?"
“I have no idea.” I tapped the toe of my shoe on the floor. “I can only hope that when Tenor finds out, he calls me.”
Surely he would. Wouldn’t he talk to me regardless of whether or not Piers initiated it? If he hadn’t gone by the office yesterday, like Sara said, he might not have found out until this morning when he got in. Which meant maybe he would call me today. Or maybe he would go a step further and come by my apartment.
“Mia?” Wren asked.
“I should hear from him today, don’t you think?” I stood to my feet, perhaps I’d go to him.
“If you really want my opinion, I’ll give it to you,” she said, and when I didn’t object, she continued, “If I were you, I’d have called him last night to ask what the hell was going on.”
I could see her doing exactly that. In fact, had the tables been reversed, it’s the same advice I’d have given her. I had thought about calling him last night. The only thing that kept me from doing it was the fact that he’d been behind the whole thing. But now that I’d talked it through with Wren, that seemed less and less likely.
“You’re right,” I told her, walking to the door. “I’m going to go make myself look decent and then I’m going to go see him.”
She walked with me to my car. When we reached it, she gave me a hug. “Go get him and call me when you find out what happened.”
I’m sure I broke a good number of traffic laws as I drove back to my apartment. In my head I ran through several potential conversations we could have. Would he be despondent? Angry with Piers? Would he ask me to come back to work for him and if so, how would I answer?
One of my conditions to Piers the day before was that I didn’t want Mama’s debt erased. It wasn’t right for Piers to do that to Tenor and I didn’t agree with it. I’d made that perfectly clear to Piers, but whether that information was relayed to Tenor, I wasn’t sure. Come hell or high water, and if I had to live on rice and beans for five years, so be it, but one day I would pay back every cent we owed Tenor, with interest.
Hell, if I had to put it in my will, I’d do it.
I immediately noticed the much too expensive for this neighborhood car in my apartment’s parking area, but I didn’t look to see who was in it because I feared it wasn’t Tenor and equally feared it was. What would I say to him if it was him? Even if it wasn’t, I still needed to figure it out since I would be talking with him at some point during the day.
I pulled into a free spot, glad that whoever it was had parked far enough away for me to make it inside without them catching up to me. A car door closed behind me as I unlocked the front door. I didn’t look over my shoulder to see who it was. If it was someone for me, I’d find out soon enough. If it wasn’t, it didn’t matter.
The door wasn’t closed any longer than ten seconds before someone knocked though. I didn’t have time to make it upstairs to my apartment. I repeated to myself I could do this. That I was strong enough to look him in the eye and have the necessary conversation. But then he called my name and knees threatened to give out.
“Mia!” he shouted almost desperately.
I didn’t answer because I was trying to deal with the fact that Tenor was right outside the front door. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.
“Mia!”
“Coming,” I said, but it came out in a whisper and I was positive he didn’t hear.
“I know you’re there,” he said, obviously thinking I was refusing to see him as opposed to working up the nerve to face him. “I just saw you enter.”
I had been called many things in my life and I was sure I’d be called a lot more before it was all said and done, but I’d never been called a coward and I wasn’t going to start then. It’d take more than Tenor Butler to make a stand in the foyer of my apartment building and pretend not to hear someone beating the door down and yelling my name so loud that Ms. Hopper, a first floor resident, who was deaf, could hear him.
I flung the door open and stared at wide blue eyes of Tenor Butler. “Mia,” he said.
“Yes,” I replied, finding no trace of the woman who’d cried her eyes out earlier. “And I’m not sure why you’re surprised about that. I mean, I’m assuming you knew it was me, since you appear to have driven yourself here and you were calling my name a few seconds ago.”
“I’m sorry,” he said and there was no deceit in his eyes.
“About which part?”
“May I come in?” he asked instead of answering my question.
“Only if you agree to answer any questions I have and tell me the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”
“So help me, God,” he finished with a smile, but obviously my expression showed I wasn’t anywhere near close enough to joke. “Sorry.”
He ran a hand through his hair and I moved a step over and opened the door a bit so he could walk in. We didn’t talk as I led him up the stairs to my apartment and eventually to my living area, where we sat down on a couch. He sat as far away as he could and still be on the couch himself.
All the questions I had for him ran through my mind and I summed them all up in one. “What the hell, Tenor?”
He shifted in his seat, but the look in his eyes radiated anger and not guilt. “I didn’t know until I went into the office this morning and you never showed up. I asked Sara. She told me about Piers.”
I didn’t feel as much relief as I thought I would hearing him say that. It confirmed I’d drawn the right conclusion, but I still had so many questions. “Why would Piers even think about doing something like that without your permission?”
A muscle in his jaw ticked. “Benjamin Douglas sent him an email claiming the two of you had masterminded a plan to set me up for a sexual harassment lawsuit.”
“What the hell?” I said, because there was no way he’d just said what I thought he had.
But Tenor was nodding. “He went so far as to confess that what I walked into was nothing more than a consensual, non-consent scene.”
Hot rage raced throughout my body and my throat tightened, making it difficult to spea
k. “I’ll find him and rip his dick off.” It seemed as good as a place to start as any. “I can’t believe I told you not to go after him and break his nose.”
He let his breath out in a sigh. “I thought that same thing.”
“And Piers just blindly trusted him? How is that possible?” I asked, my voice rising.
He shook his head. “Apparently, his email was quite convincing.”
I wasn’t sure what surprised me more, that Benjamin would send an email like that or that someone would actually believe it. “But not so convincing that you would believe it?”
“No,” he said. “Which is probably why he sent it to Piers and not to me.”
“Holy shit,” I said, because the more I thought about, the more pissed I became. My cheeks felt hot and I knew they were red.
“I fired him as soon as I found out what he did,” Tenor said.
“You fired Piers?” I wrinkled my eyebrows. “But you two have been friends since preschool.”
“A true friend would have never done what he did.”
While I agreed with him in principle, I didn’t like being the issue that divided two friends. Tenor would always see me as the girl he lost his best friend over. I feared that if we continued down our present path, Tenor would wind up resenting me. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but one day he would and as bad as the last twenty-four hours had been, they would pale in comparison to the day he looked at me with guilt and regret.
I didn’t say anything at first because I knew he’d argue with me. If I knew him like I thought I did, he would be totally convincing and I’d end up agreeing with him. Before Tenor decided to get on a white horse and feel compelled to rescue me, I needed to set a few things straight.
“Piers went about it all wrong,” I said, digging to find the strength to say the words that needed to be said. “But I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to work together. More to the point, I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to work for you."