Once Lana had learned the truth about who Jarrod was and why he’d hired her, she had known that staying at Marshall Industries would not only be uncomfortable for her, but it also left her vulnerable to rumors and gossip that could really hurt her reputation. So while she had been friendly and professional, Lana hadn’t spent a lot of time getting to know people at work socially. Even the occasional lunch with coworkers could turn phenomenally awkward pretty quickly.
Case in point was the conversation that she found herself listening to on a Friday afternoon. She had joined two of the women in her department at a small café around the corner from the office, and was happily enjoying her salad when Jarrod came up in conversation.
“Any idea who he’s dating?” Jenny, a tiny bubble of blonde energy asked the others.
“Nope,” Kathy responded, shaking her head and making her red curls fly around her face. “One of my girlfriends said she saw him with a woman at a restaurant a few weeks ago, but she had no idea who it was.”
“What I wouldn’t give for just one night with that man,” Jenny said with a twinkle in her eye.
Kathy laughed. “You are totally out of luck. He doesn’t ever date anyone at work. You’ll need to quit your job.”
Jenny giggled. “I might consider it. That man is hot. So what about you Lana? Are you the only person in this office building without a crush on our boss?”
Lana shook her head, aiming for casual as she responded with a slight grimace. “Oh, he’s definitely good looking, but I’m still getting over a bad marriage. I’m not interested in any man right now, and especially not the guy who signs my paychecks.”
Kathy’s expression was understanding. “I’m sorry. But I totally get it. It took me about three years to get over my ex-husband, and I’m the one who kicked him to the curb.”
Jenny grinned. “Yeah, but if you’re going to come out of a year or two of relationship-drought, who better to end it with than Jarrod Marshall?”
Lana laughed with the other women, but it was with an uncomfortable feeling in her stomach. If they only knew what her relationship with her boss was like, she didn’t think they’d be so kindly understanding of her and her situation. She needed to be really careful, at least until she had a new job lined up. As nice as these women were, it wouldn’t take much for workplace gossip to kick in and for people to start thinking that she had made her way to her job by way of Jarrod’s bedroom.
Fortunately, the conversation quickly turned to other topics, and Lana breathed a sigh of relief. By the time she made it back to her office, she was ready to spend some weekend time looking over some other job options in the city, even if she needed to take a pay cut. This just wasn’t a tenable situation any longer.
When Grace called her later that day and asked if she could swing by Jarrod’s office, Lana still had her lunchtime conversation in mind, so her response to Grace was pointedly focused on work.
“Sure, no problem, Grace. Did Mr. Marshall say what this is related to? Anything I need to bring with me?”
“He didn’t say, so it might just be a quick question.”
“OK, I’ll be right over.”
“Take your time, dear. He’s free for the next hour or so.”
Taking a deep breath, Lana smoothed down her skirt and headed down the hallway to Jarrod’s office.
“Hi Grace,” she greeted the older woman, who looked up from her desk and smiled warmly at Lana.
“Hi there. How are you, dear?”
“I’m glad it’s Friday,” Lana grinned. “Do you have plans for the weekend?”
“Nothing special. Just spending time with family and watching the grandkids for a while on Saturday night so the kids can get out on their own. How about you?”
Lana shook her head. “Quiet weekend, I think. Matt has a sleepover tonight, so I’ll go hang out with my sister for a while.”
“It’s nice that you have family here.”
“It’s great that I have family here,” Lana agreed. “It’s great for Matt too.”
“You can go on back,” Grace said, nodding her head in the direction of Jarrod’s office. “He’s expecting you.”
“Thanks, Grace.”
When Lana got to Jarrod’s office, she knocked lightly on the door, then moved inside when Jarrod looked up and waved her in, but she was careful to leave the door open.
“Hi. Grace said you wanted to see me?”
Jarrod nodded. “I’m sorry to summon you,” he said quietly as he got up from his chair and moved around to lean on the front of his desk. “I would have come by, but figured this was probably better for both of us.”
“Probably,” she agreed. “What’s up?”
“I just wanted you to know that I got a call from Grove Publishing this morning, asking about you.”
Lana grinned. “Oh, that’s fantastic! Checking references is a good sign.”
“I told them that I was not happy that you wanted to leave, but that you were a stellar employee,” Jarrod continued.
“Thank you for that.”
“I mean that, Lana. I’d very much like for you to stay.”
She shook her head. “I can’t. You know I can’t. It means a lot to me that you are happy with my work, but it’s not the right thing to do. Especially given everything that we have happening outside of work right now.”
Jarrod looked over at her, before saying firmly, “You mean our relationship.”
She glanced over at the open door before responding softly, “I don’t know what I mean.”
For the first time, Jarrod showed a hint of frustration. “What exactly do you think this is, Lana?”
“You don’t date people at work.”
“I never have,” he agreed.
“So then what are you doing with me?” she asked softly. “It’s not in line with who you are as a boss, and I don’t want to compromise that. This can’t be a relationship, Jarrod. Not while I still work for you.”
He barked out a laugh. “What is it, then? Friends with partial benefits? And what happens when you leave Marshall Industries? Is it a relationship then?”
Lana looked at him warily. “Why is it so important to name this?”
Jarrod sighed. “OK, you’re right. Look. Even before you told me about your life with Daniel, I wanted more from you than just a friendship. I think you know that. But you’ve had a rough few years, between your marriage to Daniel and how you’ve had to live since then. I feel like I might be pushing you too far and too fast. Am I?”
With another quick glance at the door, Lana recognized how easy it would be for someone to listen to their conversation. Grace would never let it happen, but what if she stepped away from her desk for a moment?
“Jarrod…”
“It’s OK,” Jarrod said quietly. “Grace is at her desk. She’ll let me know if anyone comes in.”
“But Grace might overhear.”
“Grace already knows about us,” he said, dismissing her concerns. “She…”
Lana was startled into interrupting Jarrod. “She what?”
Jarrod looked surprised by Lana’s reaction. “I trust her, Lana. And she thinks the world of you, so she’ll keep this between us.”
But Lana shook her head slowly. “I think the world of her too, but that wasn’t your decision to make. Not without me. You should have asked me if I minded.”
“She’s my employee,” Jarrod pointed out.
“She’s my boss!”
“I’m your boss.”
Lana let out a groan of frustration. “Oh for the love of God. Jarrod. This isn’t about Grace. This is about you making decisions that impact me, without my input. How do you think it will feel for me now to walk out of this office and to talk to Grace, knowing that I’ve lied to her for months about who I am and why I’m here? Worse, how do you think it will impact me if this somehow gets out to the office – and people start rumors and begin to gossip about me? This isn’t fair.”
Jarrod looked at her with puzzlement. “It’s done. I can’t undo it.”
Lana took a deep breath, crossing her arms in front of her in a defensive position.
“When did you tell her?” she asked quietly.
“I told her who you were after we talked for the first time ‒ after we confirmed that we were talking about the same man when we talked about Daniel.”
“I see. And the rest of it?”
“As things changed, I let her know.”
Lana looked at him in amazement. “For heaven’s sake, Jarrod. Why? So that if I sued you for sexual harassment, she’d have your back? So that if I tried to play some sort of games to get a promotion, she could step in? You haven’t even told Rachel and Frank about us, so you must have had a damn good reason to let someone at work know. Particularly since you don’t date employees.”
“Grace is trustworthy, Lana,” Jarrod tried to reassure her.
She fought back the tears that threatened to form in her eyes. Jarrod didn’t get it. She wasn’t bothered by Jarrod’s trust of Grace. She was bothered by his clear distrust of her. Again. Pulling herself together, she moved toward the door. “Thank you for letting me know about the Grove inquiry. Is there anything else?” She quickly qualified the question. “Work-related?”
“Lana…. Look. I’m sorry. I didn’t think how my actions might make you feel.”
She nodded. “I’ll let you know if I hear anything from Grove. Have a good afternoon.”
Escaping from Jarrod’s office, she took a deep breath. She needed to talk to Grace and get this elephant in the room acknowledged. She didn’t want to tiptoe around Grace until she got another job – she owed the woman far too much to let this build a barrier between them.
Stopping in front of her desk, Lana quietly said, “Grace.”
The older woman looked up at her with a genuine smile on her face. “Yes, dear? Is everything all right?”
Lana shook her head. “Not exactly. Grace, Jarrod just told me that you know about me. About us. I just wanted to say thank you, and that I’m sorry if it seemed like I wasn’t honest with you.”
“What Jarrod does in his personal life isn’t my business,” Grace assured her. “Even if I do approve,” she added with a wink.
Lana gave her a sad smile. “He told you who I am, and why he hired me?”
But Grace shook her head. “He didn’t hire you, dear. I did.”
“Well, that’s true. But he kind of lured me in.”
Grace’s expression softened. “He told me. I’m sorry for the loss of your husband, Lana.”
“Thank you. But…”
“And you have no need to worry about anything. You’ve been very good for Jarrod. He works too much, and he doesn’t smile enough. I’ve seen that starting to change since you’ve been here.”
“Has he told you that I’m looking for another job?”
“Yes. I would have been surprised if you hadn’t already started to apply. You’re an honest woman, Lana. I knew from the start that it would bother you to be involved with Jarrod.”
Lana smiled genuinely then. “Grace, thank you.”
“No need to thank me, dear. Just let me know when those job offers start to pour in.”
Ironically enough, when Lana got back to her office, she had a message on her voice mail to call the HR department at Grove Publishing. She made the call immediately, and when she hung up the phone and leaned back in her chair, she thought to herself, thank God. Two weeks, and she could move on.
That night, Lana dropped Matthew off at this friend’s house for a sleepover, and then drove over to Sam and Nick’s, where she and Sam spent the evening giving each other pedicures and soaking in the hot tub. They drank wine, talked for hours and just laughed together – something they hadn’t done for a long time. Lana told Sam about the job offer from Grove Publishing, but left out the part about the argument she’d had with Jarrod – it was still too raw of an experience. Then they’d spent a lot of time chatting about Sam’s job at a local television station, and the intrigue and behind-the-scenes gossip that went along with that. At the end of the evening, Lana decided she didn’t want to drive anywhere, so she spent the night in Sam’s guest room. She had already talked to the Wests the night before to tell them that she and Matthew wouldn’t be by on Sunday, but that she’d call early in the week to set up a time to bring Matt by to see them.
After a leisurely breakfast and a lot of coffee, Lana drove back home, where she planned to just spend the day with the Sunday paper until Matthew came home in the afternoon.
Pulling into her apartment’s parking lot, Lana was surprised to see Jarrod’s car parked in a visitor’s spot. She didn’t remember making plans with him, and she knew that the Wests weren’t expecting her today. He wasn’t in the car, though, and Lana wondered where he might be. It was too cold to wait outside, and there were no good places around for him to get a cup of coffee and wait. Puzzled, she opened up the door of her apartment, and nearly screamed when she saw a man standing in her kitchen talking on his cell phone, until she realized that it was Jarrod.
“You scared me half to death, Jarrod! What are you doing here? And how did you get in?”
Jarrod turned around quickly at the sound of her voice, and relaxed noticeably when he saw her walk in. Speaking a few words into his phone, he hung up.
“Where the hell have you been?” he asked, his voice laced with worry.
“At my sister’s. Why? What’s wrong? Did something happen?” Lana’s mind immediately went to Daniel’s parents – were they OK?
Jarrod ran his hand through his hair in aggravation. “I tried reaching you all last night. When I came by, your car was gone. And so were you and Matt.”
“Matt was with Ryan last night. I was at Sam’s. We didn’t have plans, did we? Did I forget something?”
Jarrod shook his head. “I borrowed the key you gave to Rachel and Frank – I was worried about you. When I got here, you and Matt were both gone, and there were clothes all over your beds." He stopped, shaking his head and burrowing his hands in his pocket. "I thought you left,” he said softly. “I thought you took Matthew and left.”
Lana stopped dead in her tracks. He what? “You seriously thought that my first reaction to a disagreement between us would be to pack my and Matthew’s things and leave town.”
“You were upset yesterday.”
“Yes. Of course I was. But I don’t see how being upset would lead to me taking Matthew and skipping town. How in the world did you make that leap?”
“I was afraid you were running away from me, like you did from…” he stopped.
“Daniel.” Lana turned away in disappointment, trying to keep from breaking down in tears or screaming in anger. She took a deep breath and counted to ten. When she had made it all the way to 22, she said quietly, “After everything, you still think I run away from my problems. And that I’m selfish enough to take Matt away from his grandparents. So what were you doing, calling your private investigator to find me?”
Jarrod’s reaction was defensive. “I just wanted to know that you were safe.”
“No you didn’t. You wanted him to find me so you could bring me back. For heavens’ sake, Jarrod,” she added quietly.
Jarrod leaned back against the wall, his arms crossed in front of him, his expression guarded. Lana sighed. It was time to count to ten again.
“I went over to see Sam last night – we had a little too much wine, and I didn’t want to drive home. Since Matt was at a friend’s house, I didn’t see a reason to come back here until this morning. That’s it.”
“Why didn’t you answer your phone?”
“Hello, wine and hot tub? I gave Ryan’s parents Sam’s number, so I didn’t even look at my cell phone. Why didn’t you call Sam before assuming I’d gone AWOL and calling in the troops?”
Jarrod was silent. He honestly hadn’t thought to call Sam. He had jumped to the worst conclusion he could about Lana, and proceeded to make a world of wrong moves from then on out. For a man who was supposed to have a lot of experience with the opposite sex, he was doing one bone-headed thing after another.
“I’m an idiot,” he said finally.
The thing was, Lana thought to herself, he wasn’t. He was competent and strong. He was the head of a company that was successful and growing. He was one of the smartest people Lana knew. He just had a blind spot when it came to Lana. He had distrusted her, and probably hated her, for so long, that he just wasn’t fully capable now, even after all he knew about her marriage to his best friend, to give her the benefit of the doubt.
A few months ago, she might have felt differently about all of this – she was still fighting her own demons around her marriage. Now though, it felt like a betrayal. Almost worse than all she’d been through with Daniel, because her husband had had an excuse for his paranoia. He was sick. Jarrod was not. And if he couldn’t see her for her, they were probably over before they’d really begun.
She swallowed hard as the realization came to her that she had been slowly falling for this man, even harder than she’d fallen for Daniel. It wasn’t an overwhelming sensation, or a kick in the gut, Lana thought. It was quieter than that. She respected him, both as a businessman and as a family man. She loved watching him with her son, and with his parents. And, she admitted to herself, when he touched her, she was lost. The problem wasn’t with her feelings, she knew. The problem was with his. He alternately disliked her and wanted her, distrusted her and needed her, but it was clear that he didn’t love her and that he probably never would. If she didn’t guard her heart more carefully, she was setting herself up to be badly hurt. And it would make for a hell of an awkward situation for Matthew.
So. New game plan. Jarrod was her soon-to-be-former boss, her ex-husband’s friend, and someone her son really liked to be with. That had to be it. She would deal with her feelings privately, and deal with them she absolutely would.
“Lana?” Jarrod was looking at her uncertainly.
She started. “Oh. Sorry. I was thinking.”
He was standing closer to her now, so Lana moved away. Setting her things on her couch and pulling off her coat, she kept distance between them.
“I need to go pick up Matt from his friend’s house in about an hour. But I have something I need to talk to you about, if you have a moment. Would you like a cup of coffee?”
Jarrod raised his eyebrows as he looked over at her. “Why does that sound ominous?”
“I didn’t mean it to, honestly. It’s actually about work.” Moving into the kitchen, Lana pulled out the coffee and started to measure it. As she filled the coffeepot with water, she spoke over her shoulder. “I was offered the job at Grove Publishing. I’m going to take it.”
“It’s a good company,” Jarrod said, after a moment. “You could do much worse. But is that what you want?”
“What do you mean?”
“You started out in advertising, and you left it only because you didn’t want Daniel to find you. Isn’t it time you went back?”
Lana shook her head as she turned on the pot to start it brewing. “No one will hire me. I’ve been out of the business for four years.”
“If you’d like to stay with us, I was thinking that we could ease you back into it at Marshall Industries. You already work in that department. It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch for you to start shifting back into the creative side of things again.”
Lana leaned back against the counter. It might have been tempting weeks ago, but not any longer. She needed to leave Marshall Industries if she had any hope at all of keeping her heart protected.
“I appreciate the thought. But I don’t think so. This offer at Grove is a good one.”
Jarrod looked pained, but he nodded. “If that’s what you choose to do, I’ll support you.”
Lana smiled at him, and thanked him as she reached for two mugs for their coffee.
“Have a seat if you’d like. I’m going to straighten up a bit before I go get Matt. The paper is on the coffee table.”
“Are we OK, Lana?” Jarrod asked quietly when she handed him a steaming cup.
“What? Oh. Yeah, we’re OK.”