Allison Leigh - Beyond Business - Falling for the Boss / Her Best-Kept Secret / Mergers & Matrimony

But they always had been, hadn’t they? As it turned out, Evan had never been the person she’d thought he was.

But, darn it, he still looked so much the same. When she’d first laid eyes on him today, her heart had tripped with excitement. Not anger, not sadness, but excitement. Her first impulse was to reach out to him. Then, only after those first split seconds, she remembered why she shouldn’t.

Fragmented thoughts of Evan’s disappearance, George Hanson’s sabotage of her own father’s business and her father’s subsequent heart attack and death ran through her head. And through it all, Evan had never contacted her. He hadn’t even sent a card to say he was sorry to hear about her father, and she knew he must have known since it was his father who had had such a strong hand in discrediting her own father’s small local newspaper so Hanson’s knockoff could take over.

George Hanson had systematically dismantled her father’s life. It was child’s play for him—just a way to get what he wanted. If Terence Waters wouldn’t sell the Lakeside Gazette to Hanson—at a greatly undervalued price—then it was the easiest thing in the world for the great George Hanson to force him out of business by creating his own competition.

The Lake Michigan Gazette.

The whole business had left her shell-shocked. If Evan had contacted her, said something— anything —compassionate, it would have gone a long way toward soothing her shattered nerves.

But he hadn’t.

And she’d eventually gotten over him, comfortable in the knowledge that she’d never see him again.

So now that she had, she was paralyzed with a strange combination of resentment and longing.

Gradually the ticking of the wall clock cut into her consciousness, and she managed to stand up and walk to the water cooler. The icy water chilled a path down her throat, returning her senses.

She had to talk to Helen.

She had to tell Helen the truth before this went any further.

Meredith was running on high when she got to Helen’s office. She stopped at the desk of Sonia Townsley, Helen’s assistant. Sonia was tall, thin, midforties, with striking gray hair cut in a fashionable style that stopped just short of being geometric. But the thing that struck Meredith most about Sonia was that she was always— always —calm and cool as a cucumber.

“Is Helen available?” Meredith asked.

“Yes, she is,” Sonia said, lowering her perfectly shaped eyebrows. “Are you okay, Meredith?”

Meredith nodded. “I’m fine, really. I just need to talk to Helen for a moment.”

“What’s going on?” Helen asked from the doorway to her office. She walked out and exchanged concerned looks with Sonia.

“It’s just. I.” Meredith stumbled. This was not the professional image she sought to project.

“I’ll go get some ice water for you,” Sonia said, tactfully removing herself from what was clearly an awkward moment.

“I’m sorry,” Meredith said to Helen when Sonia had gone. “I didn’t mean to drive her away.”

“Not at all. Come on in. Tell me what’s on your mind.” Helen gestured for Meredith to follow her. She sat behind her desk. “Is everything okay?”

Meredith perched uncomfortably on the chair opposite Helen’s. “I’m not sure. There’s something I think you should know about me. I should have told you before, but I just didn’t want to be the sort of person who couldn’t separate their personal life from business.”

Helen frowned. “But now you find you are?”

“Sort of.” Meredith nodded. “I find I could be.”

Helen leaned forward. “What is it, Meredith? Tell me what’s concerning you and we’ll work it out.”

“Evan and I have … a past together,” Meredith began. She could feel her palms growing clammy and cold.

Helen raised her eyebrows. “Evan?”

“Yes, we knew each other in high school.” Understatement. “We knew each other pretty well in high school.”

Helen looked over at Meredith with a curious eye. “You’re saying you dated?”

Meredith swallowed a lump in her throat. Dated. That sounded so impersonal. So milk-shakes-and-a-movie. So innocent. “It was actually a pretty serious relationship. At least it was to me.”

“Ah.” Helen nodded slowly and leaned back in her chair. “And this is the first time you’ve seen him since that time?”

“The last time I saw him it was the afternoon of our senior prom. He said he’d see me in a few hours.” She gave a dry laugh. “It’s been quite a few hours.”

“I’m sorry, Meredith. It must have been a shock to learn you’d be working with him.”

“It was a surprise,” Meredith agreed. But, mindful that she didn’t want to sound like a whiner who couldn’t get over her past, she said, “I’m not saying I can’t do what you need me to here—far from it. But my experience with Evan today made me think that, in the interest of full disclosure, I ought to let you know. If you’re uncomfortable with me continuing under the circumstances, I’ll understand.”

Helen smiled. “The circumstances sound like they might lend themselves quite well to your success here. If you already know Evan, already have something of a rapport with him, that might make things easier, don’t you think?”

There wasn’t going to be anything easy about working with Evan, but Meredith nodded. “It could. But it could also make him uncomfortable. If he’s reluctant to work with me, I’m not going to be of much use to you.”

Helen glanced out the window for a moment with a faraway look in her eyes. Then she turned her attention back to Meredith. “Is he reluctant to work with you?”

“I honestly don’t know.” Meredith gave a self-effacing smile. It would have been too weak for her to admit that she didn’t want to work with him. That she was afraid to even be around him. “He didn’t seem as rattled by our interaction as I was.”

“Are you able to work with him, despite feeling rattled by it?”

This was a moment of truth. Meredith prided herself on her reliability, and this was a turning point in which she could either give in to her weakness and do something she’d probably be ashamed of for the rest of her life or stand tall and work through her discomfort, knowing eventually she’d come out on the other side of it.

Intellectually, it was an easy choice.

“Yes,” she said, more comfortable following her intellect than her heart.

“Then let’s leave things as they are,” Helen said, locking eyes with Meredith. “You came highly recommended, and with everything the company has been through recently we need the best people we can get so that Hanson Media Group recovers its once stellar reputation.”

“I’ll do my best.” Meredith stood to go. She was feeling a little bit better now and was embarrassed about the alarmist manner in which she’d come to Helen at first. “I’m just glad you know the truth now.”

“I am, too,” Helen said. “Thank you.”

Meredith left the office, then stopped outside the closed door and took a deep breath. She couldn’t tell Helen everything , of course, but she’d at least told her what she needed to know about Meredith’s past. Hopefully now that wouldn’t come back to bite her.

Meredith set off down the hall, looking for David, when she ran straight into Evan.

He looked at her, then looked behind her at Helen’s office door.

“Meeting with the boss?”

She swallowed. “One of them.”

“Anything I should know about?”

She took a short breath. “No. Nothing important.”

He looked at her for one long, hard moment. Then, without a word, he turned and walked away.