Chapter14
Ethan sat back against the cushions of his couch, looking idly through his window at the Manhattan skyline. He and Brianna had made it through the week since they’d both found out about her pregnancy, and thus far no one in the office was any the wiser. But they had yet to actually—really—face the issue of the HR investigation into his relationship with Brianna.
And they hadn’t really discussed what they were going to do about both situations. It was Friday night, and instead of going out, the way they normally would, Ethan had suggested they stay in, and at his place; he’d ordered in a five-course, gourmet meal, and let Brianna soak in his bathtub, and then she’d curled up in his bed with him holding her until she drifted off to sleep.
Now, however, he was looking at the dark and light of the city beyond his windows, and he was worried. Ethan sipped at the scotch he’d poured for himself after leaving Brianna’s side and tried to focus on what was important. The investigation was moving forward; on Monday, he would be meeting with the board to discuss the ongoing HR investigation in general—and he was certain that his own involvement would come up.
They needed to know what they were going to do, and for once in his life, Ethan found himself utterly clueless; unable to even think about what the best option would be. He wasn’t sure if it was—strictly speaking—fair to put the decision mostly or entirely on Brianna as to what they would do about her pregnancy. He was still so shocked in the knowledge that he’d gotten her pregnant in the first place. How had it happened? Had it just been a casual accident—the kind of thing that just sort of happened sometimes—or had one of them been at fault?
His phone buzzed on the table where he’d left it, and Ethan got up to answer it before it could possibly wake Brianna up; he knew she was a light sleeper, and she’d already been napping for over an hour—long enough for her to wake up at the slightest notice. He hurried over to the table and unplugged the phone from its charging cable, recognizing the number flashing on the screen as being one of the office lines.
“Hale speaking,” Ethan said.
“Ethan, it’s Mark,” a voice on the other end of the line said quickly. Ethan felt his stomach sink down to his knees. Mark was the HR person in charge of the investigations.
“What’s going on?” He glanced in the direction of his bedroom, and decided to step out onto his balcony, in spite of the chill in the air.
“I just got an email from someone who spoke with one of your employees, Cassidy,” Mark said as Ethan stepped out of the living room and closed the balcony door behind him for the sake of privacy.
“Okay,” Ethan said, making it not quite a question.
“She claims that Brianna Evers told her that she had gone after you specifically to get the job she was given,” Mark told him. Ethan scowled.
“There’s no truth in that. None whatsoever,” he said firmly.
“I know it’s impossible to prove a negative, but it’s kind of…” Mark didn’t finish his sentence.
“It’s ridiculous!” Ethan was glad he’d thought to step outside; he didn’t want Brianna to wake up to his irritation at his employee’s betrayal.
“Do you have any records for your hiring process of her?” Ethan clenched his teeth. Technically, he had—at one point—had records about her hiring. He’d given them to her, and even if he still had them, those records wouldn’t exonerate him.
“No, I met her the first day she started at the company—the same day I completed my purchase—and after speaking with her and interviewing her informally, decided that she would be a good fit for the position I had open,” Ethan said.
“It seems to me like Cassidy was trying to go after Brianna—some kind of jealousy thing,” Mark explained. “If she can somehow carry the argument that Brianna tried to start up a relationship with you to advance her own interests, it might deflect some blame from you for starting up a clandestine relationship with her...but it wouldn’t look great for you, and it would almost certainly result in Brianna’s termination on top of it,” Mark said. “So I have to ask: did either of you pursue each other before she was hired?” Ethan swallowed against the sudden dryness in his throat. Could he lie, outright, to the HR investigator? What proof would anyone at all have?
“The whole situation came about very organically,” Ethan said. That seemed the safest thing to say—and it would be difficult to disprove, especially if he had the opportunity to discuss the situation, calmly, with Brianna before she was questioned.
“Can you be more specific?” Ethan took a quick breath. “We happened to meet by accident on the end of her first day in her previous position,” Ethan said. “We went for dinner—it was completely aboveboard—and by that evening I had decided that Brianna would be a good fit for the position I had in mind.”
That much was true, but Ethan knew he had to be careful. “The next morning I put in the request for her transfer to the new position, and gave her the day off so that she could prepare for that transition.”
“What was the justification for offering her the job on such short notice?” Ethan looked out over the city, glittering with lights. It was not very late, but he knew it would keep showing those little glimmers of light until dawn—at different points in the evening it would be more, and less, like dozens upon dozens of fireflies settled into the geography of skyscrapers and the valleys they created. Manhattan was constant movement.
“I appreciated the skills she had, and thought she would be a perfect fit—and thus far she has proven to be exactly what the position requires,” Ethan replied. It was a good thing that he had chosen someone who actually was qualified to do the work he’d put Brianna to—of course, since he’d more or less created the position for her, that would stand to reason. “If I had interviewed her normally there would be no question,” he added.
“Of course—but you have to understand that it is a little...unusual,” Mark pointed out, sounding uncomfortable. Ethan chuckled.
“Yes, I can understand that,” he said. He forced himself to sound more at ease than he was. “I can tell you with full authority that there is no way that Brianna sought me out for her advantage.”
“Okay,” Mark said. “We will ask Cassidy to come up with some kind of evidence...but I suspect there is going to be a lot of difficult questions before and during the meeting on Monday.” Ethan nodded to himself.
“I appreciate that,” he said. “Thank God it’s a short week—with Thanksgiving on the way.”
“Yes, I am definitely glad that we’ll all be out of the office after Wednesday,” Mark said with a sigh. “We’ll tackle this on Monday. I just wanted you to be prepared.” Ethan nodded again.
“Thanks for keeping me updated,” Ethan told the man. “I’ll be ready to close this all out Monday.”
He ended the call and stepped back into his apartment, where he saw that Brianna had awakened; she was seated on the couch, watching for him. “Something up?” Ethan nodded.
“Apparently—and I don’t want you to get too upset—Cassidy tried to throw you under the bus,” he said. Brianna’s dark eyes blazed with instant reaction, instant anger. “I told you not to get too upset,” Ethan reminded her.
“She’s always hated me,” Brianna said, her voice taking on a growling note. Her hand went unconsciously to her abdomen and Ethan realized that while they hadn’t discussed the plan for dealing with her pregnancy, she seemed to have started to associate her own safety and security with that of the future child; he was fairly certain that she wasn’t going to decide to terminate. They would have to decide, then, what they would do together.
“She has a thing for me,” Ethan said with a sigh, picking up the tumbler he’d put aside before answering the phone. He gulped down the last of the whiskey in it and resisted the temptation to throw the glass against the fireplace as irritation raged through him. Instead he set it down and sat down next to Brianna. “I didn’t realize how much of a thing.”
“You knew there was something there, though,” Brianna said, making it not quite a question.
“I mean—she invited me to lunch, and more recently to dinner,” Ethan said with a dismissive shrug. “I thought she was being a teacher’s pet, you know?”
“Yeah, but that…” Brianna shook her head. “What are we going to do?”
“I told the HR investigator that there’s no way you made a move on me specifically to get the job you got,” Ethan explained. He outlined the conversation in more detail at Brianna’s prompting, and watched her go from irritated to focused. She was working out the problem in her mind, too. If we can’t find a way out of this between us, we don’t deserve to get out, Ethan thought.
“So we stick with the story that the relationship happened organically, that the first dinner wasn’t anything more than—basically—an offbeat job interview,” Brianna suggested. “I mean, no one has any proof of anything else.”
“True,” Ethan said, nodding. “I’m just wondering how the pregnancy is going to play into things.”
“I’m not going to abort,” Brianna said quietly. “I mean—I don’t know how you feel, in general or specifically about this...but I’ve made up my mind that I’m keeping the baby.”
“I had figured as much,” Ethan said with a gentle smile. “And I told you before—and I still mean it—that I’ll support your decision no matter what it is. Whatever you need to make this happen.” He reached out and took her hand in his, and gave it a careful squeeze.
“Will you still be able to do that—and willing to do that—if we both end up losing our jobs?” Brianna raised an eyebrow, challenging him a bit. Ethan laughed.
“Sweetheart, I could lose this job twice over and still have enough to support you,” he said. “And I will be willing to do it no matter what our professional situation is.” Brianna smiled slowly, and even though Ethan wasn’t yet ready to tell her that he loved her, he knew that he felt it; and he knew that it was only a matter of time before they had to decide what that would mean for both of them.