Lily seriously considered calling in sick the next morning, but the thought of lying to her boss nearly made her actually sick, so she dragged herself in to the office. Whatever Scott’s problem had been, it wasn’t her problem. She was a grown woman, and if she wanted to make out with someone she barely knew, so what?

Make out? her own sardonic voice asked inside her head. Is that what we’re calling it now, when we’re caught with some guy’s hand up our dress?

Whatever. The point was, she was a grown woman and Scott’s reaction was ridiculous. He’d literally ignored her all the way back to the office and then didn’t speak to her for the rest of the day. Yes, she’d been a little unprofessional—okay, a lot unprofessional—but it was also not his place to judge her. He wasn’t her boss.

Gerald Stone, who was her boss, had left a note on her desk, though. He wanted to see her as soon as she got to work, which—she noted with a wince—was supposed to have been twenty minutes ago.

In her defense, it had been another long, hard morning. There had been another cat fight outside her window by the dawn’s early light and she’d been unable to go back to sleep again. Then she’d been waylaid in the lobby by old Mrs. LeFevre, who wanted her to know at least one of the new cats hanging around looked to be rabid, by the condition of its fur and ears, and on and on until Lily thought she might shoot either the cat or Mrs. LeFevre. Bad news for Mrs. LeFevre, since the cat was nowhere to be seen.

Still, she didn’t think being twenty minutes late was going to be a huge deal, and she was in fairly good spirits as she dropped her stuff on her desk and headed for the elevators. It wasn’t until she stepped off the elevator and saw Scott that she started to get a bad feeling.

He and Mr. Stone were standing in the doorway of Mr. Stone’s office, and Scott was clearly upset, shaking his head and saying something as he turned toward the elevator. They both looked up and saw her, and Scott froze in place for moment, looking at her a little vaguely, as if he wasn’t quite sure what she was doing there.

Oh, no, she thought. Oh, please, Scott, don’t have said anything. I thought we were friends.

Mr. Stone clapped Scott on the shoulder and Scott came down the hall toward her. She got her feet in gear and headed down the hall toward him. They passed without saying a word, and then she was standing at Mr. Stone’s office door herself.

“Ms. Randall,” he said formally, which was probably not good, since he usually called her by her first name. His tone was cold, his posture rigid.

She had a feeling she was about to be made very unhappy.

“Mr. Stone,” she said. “I got your message.”

“Come in, then,” he said, though he sort of sounded like he really wished she wouldn’t. He gestured her through the door ahead of him; she took a seat on the visitor side of the desk and waited for him to seat himself on his own side.

“Well,” he began, and said nothing more for a moment. Then, again: “Well.”

“Yes, sir?” she said.

“I’m at a bit of a loss as to how to begin,” he said. “This is not a conversation I find myself having often.”

She said nothing.

“I guess it’s best just to get directly to the point,” he said. “Are you aware, Ms. Randall, that the contract you signed with us has a morality clause?” He opened the folder sitting beside his coffee mug, took out a sheaf of papers, and passed them across the desk.

She glanced down and saw it was a copy of her contract.

Deep breaths.

“I don’t need to see it, sir,” she said. “It was a lot to read, but I did read it and I know what I signed.”

“So, knowing what you signed, I’m sure you can see, then, that this is very problematic for us,” he said.

“I don’t, actually—” she began.

“Ms. Randall, my understanding is you were caught in some sort of intimate contact with a client, during work hours.” He looked at her sourly. “Have I misstated the situation?”

She wished so fervently that she could lie—tell him Scott had misunderstood what he saw, something, anything to stop this from happening. It would be his word against hers. But, of course, that wasn’t an option; just thinking about it made her queasy.

“No, sir,” she said, “But I think—”

“Additionally, apart from the morality clause, there are several subsections of your contract dealing with conflicts of interest, which I’m sure you can see comes into play as well.”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t see that. I barely know the man; I can hardly have developed a conflict of interest in such a short time.”

“One gets the impression the two of you were … getting to know one another, quite well,” he replied, and tucked her contract back into its folder.

She could feel herself flushing with equal parts embarrassment and frustration. Damned if I do and damned if I don’t, she thought. If I don’t know him I’m violating the stupid morality thing, and if I do know him, it’s a conflict of interest.

“I don’t know quite what to say to that,” she said. “It seems a defense against one is an admission of the other.”

“Precisely. So.” He pulled a sheet of paper out from underneath the folder containing her contract, turned it over, and gazed at it for a moment.

Up to this point, she’d had nothing but commendations at work, and now she would have a reprimand. All because, for no reason she could see, she fell apart when this one particular guy touched her. What was wrong with her, messing up her career this way, over a guy she didn’t even know?

Mr. Stone pushed the piece of paper across the desk and handed her a pen from the jar next to his inbox. “You’ll need to read and sign that, and then I’m afraid company policy dictates someone must accompany you while you clean out your desk.”

She was so taken aback she just blinked at him for a moment. “I’m sorry—what?”

“It’s company policy,” he said smoothly. “I do understand it can be seen as insulting, and certainly I personally don’t think you would—”

“Are you saying I’m fired?” she asked, incredulous.

He looked at her like she was speaking Swahili. “What did you think I was saying?” he asked.

“I thought— I thought I would get a warning, or a reprimand of some kind,” she said. “I’ve worked here for over a year and never been in trouble for anything.”

“I’m afraid that’s not the point,” he said. “This is a serious breach of ethics and decorum. It’s all in the contract, if you’d like to review—”

“No, thank you.” She hastily scrawled her name across the bottom of the paper and stood. “As I said, I read the contract when I signed it. If you’ve nothing further to say, I think I’d like to clean out my desk now.”

He nodded stiffly, and rose, pushing a button on his intercom. “Stella, please call for Security to escort Ms. Randall to her desk and out of the building.”