“No.” Wendy shakes her head.
“Let me do this, please. Just today, if you don’t want me to drive you every day.”
“But people will see us come in together.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “Do you not want our co-workers to know we’re dating?” I don’t like that idea at all.
She sighs and avoids my eyes, and I’m glad I haven’t eaten anything yet, because I’m suddenly feeling nauseous. Is she ashamed of me?
“Wendy?”
“I don’t want people to not take me seriously at work.”
My stomach starts roiling. “And you think datingmewill make people not take you seriously?”
“No! No, it’s not because it’s you. It’s …”
“It’s what?” I say it a little more harshly than I intended, but I don’t apologize.
She finally looks at me again. “It’s hard for me to be taken seriously in the professional world. I’m a woman, and I’m short, and I’m curvy, and most men want to either pat me on the head or make inappropriate advances toward me, not view me as the kick-butt PR rep I really am.”
My nausea turns to fury in a heartbeat, and my hands ball up. “Who’s making inappropriate advances toward you?”
“That’s the thing you’re going to focus on here?”
“Tell me who it was, so I can have a nice little chat with them.”
She takes another step away from me. “Randall, I don’t need you to defend me at work. I don’t want you to. That’s exactly what I’m talking about. I need to be seen as a woman who can stand up for herself and whose work speaks for itself—not as someone who needs her boyfriend to fight for her.”
I take a few deep breaths, because I know I need to calm down before I say something else wrong without realizing it.
“People automatically respect you,” she continues, “because you’re a Hamilton, because you stood up to your powerful dad, because you’re kind and smart and funny, and, frankly, because you’re a good-looking man.”
Oddly, even though she complimented me in almost every way possible, I also feel like she punched me in the gut. “That’s not true.”
“It’salltrue, as well as the fact that handsome white men don’t need to do one stinking thing to earn anyone’s respect. You don’t have any idea what it’s like to be a woman in this industry—especially a woman who looks like me. I don’t think you’ve forgotten the dress debacle from yesterday. You weren’t the only man who was distracted by it.”
We stare at each other for several long seconds.
I lean back against her kitchen counter and fold my arms over my chest. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“I don’t know either. But it’s not up to me to tell you what to say anyway. You want to start being the real you—not who I want you to be—so you’re going to need to figure that out for yourself. I don’t want you to tell me what I want to hear. I don’t want you to agree to keep our relationship under wraps at work simply because that’s what I want. Tell me what you truly think.”
“I think—no, IknowI don’t want to hide our relationship. I want the entire world to know we’re together, to know that for some unfathomable reason, a woman as incredible as you actually choseme.”
She starts to speak, but I raise a hand to stop her.
“As for the rest of what you said, I didn’t realize that’s what work is like for you—for women. But that helps me understand why you don’t love the idea of everyone at work knowing about us. Let’s talk about this again later when we’re not so worked up about it. We won’t tell anyone about us today. We’ll treat each other like we normally do in public. Okay?”
Wendy nods and opens the door for me.
ten
Much to my dismay, I can’t talk to Leslie about Randall at work this morning because she’s at a TV interview with her primary client, Diego Sanchez. He’s the Chicago Cubs’ newest acquisition, who also happens to be one of the best pitchers in all of baseball. Not that I’d know that if he wasn’t her client. I know almost nothing about sports, but I do know a lot about Diego, and I like him. Last month, Leslie, Ash, Randall, and I came up with a plan for him to start a foundation to help immigrants with legal issues, and a few weeks ago he hired Ash to launch and lead the Diego Sanchez Foundation.
Though I try to focus on work, I can’t stop thinking about my conversation with Randall before he left my apartment. I don’t think he was upset when he left, but I can’t be sure. On a normal day, I see him multiple times in the break room, at meetings, or even passing in the hallway. But when I haven’t caught sight of him by early afternoon, I start to get antsy.
Considering the location of his office in relation to mine, there’s rarely a good reason for me to walk by it, but I decide I’m going to make a pass by there anyway. I can’t handle not knowing if he’s avoiding me.
