Chapter Eighteen

Dana was served with an eviction notice the very next day. Fortunately for her, she still had a friend in her pocket.

“Stay as long as you want,” Kathryn said warmly as she hugged her. “I’ve taken care of your furniture, and it’ll be in storage for you. The guest house is yours.”

“I don’t even know how you can help me after what I told you,” Dana said dully as she stepped back. “How come you don’t hate me?”

“You didn’t know,” Kathryn said simply. “We haven’t been friends for very long, but there isn’t a mean bone in your body, Dana. You’d never deliberately hurt someone. You just thought that you were helping Cole’s reputation.”

Exhausted, Dana leaned against the wall and tried not to cry. She hadn’t slept all night. All the crap in her life was crumbling down on her at once. “He gave me some jewelry. I was going to give it back, but I think I’ll sell it instead, so I’ll be able to pay you some rent soon. I’ve got a job interview set up for tomorrow at Chester Partners Bank, so hopefully that’ll turn into something.”

“Dana, I think it’s great that you’re making plans for your future, but I think it’s also a good idea if you took a few days off to just process. I know that you’re angry at Cole, and raging against him is a great way to move on, but eventually you’re going to remember that you have feelings for him.”

Too late, Dana remembered that she’d told her new friend that she’d been an idiot and had fallen in love with Cole. “Had,” she reminded her abruptly. “I had feelings for him. How could I love him now that he’s shown his true colors?”

Kathryn reached over and squeezed her hand. “I’m just saying that when the anger subsides, you’re going to feel a little drained, and I don’t know if starting a new job right now is the best thing for you. Besides, a bank teller? You? Really?”

“Are you saying that I couldn’t be a bank teller?”

“You could be a bank teller, but I think you’d make a better writer for stories like diamond-thieving robot romances.”

She smiled, and Dana could not help but chuckle. It was true that standing at a counter all day was a horrifying thought, but Dana was not going to mooch off her friend, especially not when she was almost instrumental in another devastating time in her life. Just thinking about what Cole was going to do to her made her want to weep all over again. How could she have been so wrong?

“Okay, so I have all the breakup rituals here. Sad music. Bubble bath soap. Ice cream. Wine—although I didn’t see you drink anything?”

“I’ll take the wine,” Dana said dryly. She’d already lost her temper, cussed, and ripped up a check for fifty thousand dollars. What was a glass or two of wine to top it all off?

The next morning, as she tried to get ready for her interview, she regretted the bottle of wine. It felt like a little man pounding a hammer in her head, and every sound was making it worse.

There was nothing professional in her new wardrobe, so she pulled on the shapeless suit that she’d worn at Parker Industries and tried her best to hide the fact that she’d been crying all night. Lots of concealer. Lots of foundation and powder. Some eye drops. Braiding her hair, she stepped back and looked at herself in the mirror.

She looked like the same woman who, less than a month ago, was trying so desperately to please a boss who hated her. It was almost as if nothing in her life had changed.

If only she felt the same.

Chester Partners Bank was a large nationwide banking company. Their headquarters were only a few blocks away from where she used to live, and while she thought about applying for an office position, she knew she needed some social interaction. To her surprise, she’d gotten a callback for an interview within a few hours of submitting the application.

The name Parker Industries carried.

A dull, blank-faced woman in a gray suit that matched Dana’s led her into the office of the branch manager, Thomas Wheeler. The imposing man frowned when she walked in. “Ms. Coulson,” he said as he got up and shook her hand. “I was actually just about to call you.”

“Do you need to reschedule?” She smoothed a hand over her blouse as she sat down. The butterflies were fluttering in her stomach. Or maybe that was just last night’s wine.

“I’m afraid not. I spoke to your previous supervisor at Parker Industries early this morning. She disclosed the real reason that you were let go, and I’m afraid that public display of temper just won’t do here.”

Great. She could only imagine how gleeful Paula had been as she outlined all the reasons that Chester Partners shouldn’t hire her. “Mr. Wheeler, if you’d give me a chance, I’d like to explain that incident. You see, my supervisor was trying to pin her mistake on me and…”

Thomas held up his hand. “Ms. Coulson, I’m not concerned about why it happened. Whether you were in the wrong or not isn’t the issue. The fact is that you were still unable to handle it in a private setting, and I’m just not sure this is the right place for you.”

Dana’s heart sank. It wasn’t just that she was interviewing badly. She wasn’t even given the chance to interview at all. Before the manager could dismiss her, the dour-faced woman stuck her head in. “Mr. Wheeler, there’s someone on the phone for you. I think you need to take it.”

He glanced at the caller ID and frowned. Picking it up, he cast her a strange look. “Thomas Wheeler speaking.”

Dana shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Not only was the manager silent during the five-minute long conversation, but he continued to stare at her. Finally, he nodded. “I understand. Thank you. It was a pleasure speaking with you.”

As he hung up, she blew out her breath and stood. “Thank you for at least agreeing to see me,” she muttered as she stuck out her hand.

“Just a minute, Ms. Coulson. It would appear that maybe I jumped the gun, and for that I apologize. If you’re available next Monday, I can schedule you for orientation. Training will take two weeks, and then you’ll go on a ninety-day probation period.”

Dumbstruck, Dana stared at him. Hope welled inside her immediately followed by suspicion. “Wait a minute, five minutes ago you didn’t even want to interview me, and now you want to hire me without interviewing me? Who was on the phone?”

“That doesn’t matter,” Thomas choked out, but Dana needed to see for herself. Grabbing his phone, she held it up and scrolled through the caller ID. Sure enough, Cole’s private line showed up.

“Are you kidding me?”

“Ms. Coulson, I’m not sure why you’re upset. Mr. Parker had nothing but wonderful things to say to me. He insisted that I hire you!”

“Insisted?” She balled her fists. “Let me guess. You hold some of Parker Industries accounts, and he threatened to pull them out if you didn’t? Unbelievable. This is not how I wanted to get a job. I’m a good person, you know? I’m a good worker. I’m a damn good worker! I catch on quickly, I’m smart and independent, and I’ve got good work ethics. I don’t need him to get me a job, and I sure as hell don’t want one through blackmail. You can call Mr. Parker back right now and tell him that I said to go to hell!”

“Oh, Ms. Coulson,” Thomas wailed as he stood up. “I’m not going to do that!”

“Then tell your assistant to do it,” Dana hissed. Stalking out of the bank, she held her head high. She didn’t know what Cole’s game was, but she sure as hell intended to find out.

The door to his office flew open and Cole jumped. Garret, Blake, and Hawk all turned their heads as Dana stalked in. There was fire in her eyes, and he knew that she’d figured out what he’d done.

“Dana,” he said softly.

She barely looked at his brothers or Garret. “Did you think that I’d be grateful?” she hissed. “You think that I’m someone to pity? Someone who can’t get a job on her own?”

“No, of course not.” He stood and calmly buttoned his jacket. “Gentlemen, can you please give me a second?”

Hawk smirked and leaned back. “Not a chance in hell.”

“Nor should they leave,” Dana growled. “This is your family, Cole. You should be turning to them for support, not kicking them out because you’re embarrassed about how a situation is going. Why don’t I fill them in?” She faced them. “Boys. Cole apparently thinks I’m unable to get a job, despite the fact that I was good enough to work for Parker Industries before he unfairly fired me!”

“Unfairly?” Blake raised an eyebrow. “That sounds like something that we should investigate.”

“Agreed.” Garret nodded. “We’ll look into that immediately.”

Cole narrowed his eyes. “Do you want your job back? Consider it done. I’ll even make sure you get paid for time missed.”

“I don’t want my job back. My boss was an incompetent idiot, and working for her was miserable! I want you to quit interfering. I already made it very clear that I don’t want you in my life!”

“You told me not to contact you, and I didn’t,” he said as he held up his hands in defense. “I just wanted you to move on with your life, and I wanted to help.”

Those were clearly the wrong things to say. She narrowed her eyes, and he could have sworn that the temperature dropped a few degrees as she took a threatening step toward him. “Move on with my life?” she hissed. “I told you that I loved you, and you called me a whore!”

“Geez, Cole.” Blake winced.

Dana whirled around on him. “Don’t you start. You were the first one to call me a whore!”

“I didn’t know…”

“Of course you didn’t know,” she snapped. “You all get off on thinking the worst of each other. Your father was an idiot to put the three of you together again. You’ll probably burn this company to the ground before any of you actually try and do something nice for one other.”

Cole reached out and grabbed her. Her words were killing him, and he just wanted to hold her once again, but she slipped out of his grasp. “Dana, wait. Please. Everything that you said about me was right, but I do want to be better. Don’t give up on me now.”

His confession shocked the room. All eyes were on him, but he only cared about what Dana said. Taking a deep breath, he pushed forward. “I was a cold bastard when I hired you, but you’ve changed me. I need you in my life. I’ll pay whatever you want.”

Tears pricked her eyes, and she pulled her hand. “You can’t fix everything with money, Cole,” she whispered. “That’s just not how relationships work.”

He’d hurt her even further. Anger filled him as he watched her walk away, and when the door shut, he whirled around and pushed his hands through his hair. “Damn it!” he roared. Grabbing a book from his bookshelf, he hurled it through the air.

“Blake. Hawk,” Garret said quietly. “Can you excuse us? I think Cole and I need to have a word.”

Silently, his two brothers got up and left, and Cole was faced with the man who had once been his brother, and his friend. “I don’t want to hear anything that you have to say, so you can get the fuck out.”

“Look at what your anger has turned you into,” Garret said quietly. “You already confessed what you almost did to Kathryn Wellington. The merger would have been good for the company, but at the expense of someone who we grew up with? Hawk dated that girl, and you were willing to throw her to the wolves for a business deal.”

“I didn’t know,” Cole hissed. “I didn’t know that her father was doing that to her. I just thought her heart was broken. I had no idea that her father was forcing her into that marriage.”

“And I didn’t know that your father refused you the job.”

Garret’s words hung heavily on him, and Cole closed his eyes. He finally knew how Garret felt, and all that anger that he’d been holding in slowly left him. “I was jealous of you,” Cole admitted. “For a long time, I thought you’d done it on purpose to worm your way into my family just to replace me. How insane is that?”

“Considering the way your father raised you? Not insane at all?” Garret asked dryly. “I think he gave me this job out of pity because he felt he owed me. He took me in and helped me believe in my dreams, but you? He knew you could do better. You didn’t need the Parker name to create a legacy.”

“Why couldn’t he just say that?” Cole whispered. “Why go through all of this?”

Garret grinned. “I’m willing to bet that the Parker men are not great at confessing their feelings. What about you? Are you going to make the same mistake, or are you going to figure out a way to prove to Dana that you love her?”

Cole’s gaze sharpened on the man. “What makes you think I love her?”

“You look at her the same way that I look at Lisa, and I have been in your shoes.”

“What did you do?”

“Proved to her how much she meant to me.”

Cole shook his head. “I don’t know the first thing about women.”

His friend snorted. “None of us do. Luckily, you don’t need to know about women. You just need to know about Dana.”