Page 18 of The Boss
“Okay?”
He put his hands in his pockets, an expression of nonchalance on his face. As if he hadn’t just been kissing me. “I still want you to go with me on Friday.”
I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “I’m not too proud to admit that I’m confused.”
He turned away from me as he began talking. “I had to know that you weren’t going to read too much into my invitation.”
My head was spinning. “I still don’t understand.”
“I kissed you to see if you’d think that my inviting you on Friday and then having dinner with you just now meant that I expected more, or if you thought it entitled you to more.” His tone was even, business-like. “I needed to make sure that you could keep things professional, no matter what.”
“And kissing me was the way to do it?”
“Better that than you assuming there’s more to showing up at an event on my arm than looking pretty and keeping me from having to deal with gold diggers all night.” He turned back toward me. “I could’ve asked you, but you could’ve lied. When you want the truth, catching someone off-guard is a good way to get it.”
The concept made sense. Still… “Isn’t it risky? Kissing an employee without knowing how she’ll react? I could go to HR with a complaint.”
“But you won’t,” he said with the voice of someone who knew what he was talking about.
“How sure are you about that?”
“You didn’t go to them when I first asked you to come with me,” he pointed out.
“Kissing me is a little different than taking me to a company event.”
One side of his mouth tipped up in that half-smile again, but his eyes were guarded. “I’m not the most patient man. I could have waited to see how things played out, but I prefer knowing ahead of time. Kissing you was the best way to figure that out.”
If I’d had any sort of attraction or romantic notions toward Nate, I might’ve been hurt by his matter-of-fact way of looking at things, but I didn’t want anything from him that I hadn’t earned.
“Now that we’re both clear on what we want, there shouldn’t be anything else keeping you from accompanying me on Friday.”
He was right. Technically.
And if he was looking at this as a business thing, then I could too. I could make a lot of contacts. See how things worked at events like this.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll go.”
Twelve
Nate
I hadn’t spokenwith Ashlee since she left my office Monday evening. Once she’d agreed to go with me Friday, we’d said goodnight, and she’d gone on her way. I’d called up the security cameras to watch her through the building and wished that I had the ability to follow her all the way to the subway. She claimed to have some self-defense training, and she was a native New Yorker, but if she’d been my woman, she wouldn’t have been taking the subway alone at night. I didn’t even like it as the employer.
There wasn’t really anything I could do to prevent her from getting around the way she wanted to, but I could do something about the rumors at work. People would talk, that wasn’t going to change. I could send out a company-wide email using Flora’s suspension as an example of what would happen to people caught gossiping about their co-workers – or their bosses – but I knew that would only make matters worse.
What I could do was find out the source of the rumors and handle it on that end of things. After all, every employee signed a contract that contained certain clauses about acceptable and unacceptable behavior. I hadn’t been talking out of my ass when I’d suspended Flora Watts. I had legal grounds to take action against any employee who violated the terms of their contract.
“I understand that there have been some rumors going around about one of your co-workers engaging in less-than-ethical behavior.” I leaned back in my chair and leveled my gaze at Myron Leavenworth.
Myron worked in the mailroom and did deliveries, which meant he went to each floor and each employee. If anyone was going to hear rumors and have an idea of where they started, it’d be people in the mailroom.
“I don’t gossip.” Myron held up his hands, his eyes wide. “Seriously, most people don’t even talk to me unless they need something.”
“You’re not in trouble,” I said. “I just need your ears. I want to know what you’ve heard regarding a young woman in the A&R department.”
“Flora?” The tips of his ears went pink.
“What did you hear about her?” I asked. He looked down at his hands. “Myron, I need to know what’s going on in my company. What have you heard?”
