Christy McKellen - After Hours...

‘Cara, I’m not going to fire you.’

How could she think that he would? Good grief, had he done such a number on her that she’d think he’d be capable of something as heartless as that?

‘You’re not?’ Her eyes shone in the reflected brightness thrown up by the white tablecloth and he looked away while she blinked back threatening tears.

‘Of course not.’ He shifted forward in his seat, closer to her. ‘You well and truly proved your worth to the business last week.’ He waited till she looked at him again. ‘I have to admit, I’m hurt that you thought I’d fire you for admitting to being bullied.’ He leaned back in his chair with a sigh. ‘God, you must think I’m a real tool if you seriously believed I’d do something like that.’

‘It’s just—you can be a bit...fierce...sometimes. And I didn’t want to show any weakness.’ She visibly cringed as she said it, and his insides plummeted.

‘Tell me more about what happened at your last job,’ he said quietly, wanting to get things completely straight between them, but not wanting to spook her further in the process.

Her gaze slid away. ‘It’s not a happy tale, or something I’m particularly proud of.’

‘No. I got that impression.’

‘Okay, I’ll tell you, but please don’t judge me too harshly. Things like this always look so simple and manageable from a distance, but when you’re in the thick of it, it’s incredibly difficult to think straight without letting your emotions get in the way.’

He held up his hands, palms forward, and affected a non-judgemental expression.

She nodded and sat up straighter. ‘I thought I’d hit the jackpot when I was offered that position. Ugh! What an idiot,’ she said, her self-conscious grimace making him want to move closer to her, to draw her towards him and smooth out the kinks of her pain. But he couldn’t do that. It wasn’t his place.

So he just nodded and waited for her to continue.

‘When I started as Executive Assistant to the CEO of LED Software I had no idea about the office politics that were going on there. But it didn’t take me long to find out. Apparently one of the other PAs had expected to be a shoo-in for my job and was very unimpressed when they gave it to me. She made it her mission from my first day to make my life miserable. As one of the longest-standing members of staff—and a very, er, strong personality—she had the allegiance of all the other PAs and a lot of the other members of staff and they ganged up on me. At first I thought I was going mad. I’d make diary appointments for my boss with other high-ranking members of staff in the company, which their PAs would claim to have no knowledge of by the time I sent him along for the meeting. Or the notes I’d print out for an important phone call with the Executive Board would go missing from his desk right before it took place and he’d have to take it unbriefed.’ She tapped her fingers on the table. ‘That did not go down well. My boss was a very proud guy and he expected things to be perfect.’

‘I can relate to that,’ Max said, forcing compassion into his smile despite the tug of disquiet in his gut. He was just as guilty when it came to perfectionism.

But, instead of admonishing him, she smiled back.

‘Lots of other little things like that happened,’ she continued, rubbing a hand across her forehead, ‘which made me look incompetent, but I couldn’t prove that someone was interfering with my work and when I mentioned it to my boss he’d wave away my concerns and suggest I was slipping up on the job and blaming others to cover my back. I let the stress of it get to me and started making real mistakes, things I never would have let slip at the last place I worked. It rattled me, to the point where I started believing I wasn’t cut out for the job. I wasn’t sleeping properly with the stress of it and I ended up breaking down one day in front of my boss. And that—’ she clicked her fingers ‘—was the end of our working relationship. He seemed to lose all respect for me after that and started giving the other PAs things that were my job to do.’

Max snorted in frustration. ‘The guy sounds like an idiot.’

She gave him a wan smile. ‘I was the idiot. I only found out what was really going on when I overheard a couple of the PAs laughing about it in the ladies’ bathroom.’

Her eyes were dark with an expression he couldn’t quite read now. Was it anger? Resentment? It certainly didn’t look like self-pity.

‘So you left,’ he prompted.

She took a sip of her drink and he did the same, grimacing at the claggy sweetness of the cocktail.

‘I had to,’ she said. ‘My professional reputation was at stake, not to mention my sanity. I couldn’t afford to be fired; it would have looked awful on my CV. Not to mention how upset my parents would have been. They’re desperate for me to have a successful career. They never had the opportunity to get a good education or well-paid job themselves so they scrimped and saved for years to put me through private school. It’s a point of pride for my dad in particular. Apparently he never shuts up to his friends about me working with “the movers and shakers in the Big Smoke”.’ She shot him an embarrassed grimace.

He smiled. ‘You’re lucky—my mother couldn’t give two hoots whether I’m successful or not. She’s not what you’d call an engaged parent.’

Her brow furrowed in sympathy. ‘And your father?’

‘I never met him.’ He leant back with a sigh. ‘My mother fell pregnant with me when she was sixteen and still maintains that she doesn’t know who he was. She was pretty wild in her youth and constantly moved us around the country. Barely a term at school would go by before she had us packing up and moving on. She couldn’t bear to stay in the same place for long. Not that she’s exactly settled now.’

Her gaze was sympathetic. ‘That must have been tough when you were young.’

He shrugged. ‘It was a bit. I never got to keep the friends I made for very long.’

He thought about how his unsettled youth had impacted on the way he liked to live now. He still didn’t like change, even all these years later; it made him tetchy and short-tempered. Which was something Cara had got to know all about recently.

Keen to pull his mind away from his own shortcomings, he leaned forward in his seat and recaptured eye contact with her. ‘So what happened when you handed in your notice?’

She started at the sudden flip in subject back to her and twisted the stem of her glass in her fingers, looking away from his gaze and focusing on the garish liquid as it swirled up towards the rim. ‘My boss didn’t even bat an eyelid, just tossed my letter of resignation onto his desk and went back to the email he was typing, which confirmed just how insignificant I was to him. I took a couple of weeks to get my head straight after that, but I needed another job. I’ve never earned enough to build up any savings and my landlord chose that moment to hoick my rent up. I sent my CV out everywhere and got a few interviews, but every one I attended was a washout. It was as if they could sense the cloud of failure that hung around me like a bad smell.’

‘And that’s when Poppy sent you to me.’

Wrinkling her nose, she gave him a rueful smile. ‘I told her a bit about what had happened before she went off to shoot her latest project and she must have thought the two of us could help each other out because she emailed me to suggest I try you for a job. She made it sound as if you were desperate for help and it seemed like fate that I should work for you.’

‘Desperate, huh?’ He leant back in his seat and raised an eyebrow, feeling amusement tug at his mouth. That was textbook Poppy. ‘Well, I have to admit it’s been good for me, having you around. It’s certainly kept me on my toes.’