Chapter16
Ethan waited until after he knew Brianna had left for her talk with Mark to call Cassidy into his office. He knew that the brunette would cause a scene, and he wanted to minimize the risk of her creating more problems than she already had. He sent her an email with no body contents, just a subject line asking her to come see him immediately. She is in for a very rude surprise if she thinks she can do something like that and get away with it, Mark thought as he waited for the woman to respond to his summons.
A moment later, the door buzzer went off, and Ethan pressed the button on his desk to let Cassidy into his office. He’d given a lot of thought to the problem of the assistant over the weekend, over and beyond what he’d discussed with Brianna; he’d known Cassidy longer, and the fact that she had some kind of feelings towards him hadn’t escaped his notice—even if he had, mentally, downplayed the significance of those feelings. It was therefore his fault that she’d caused so much trouble to Brianna. It was his mess to clean up.
The brunette came into his office looking faintly excited, her eyes bright and her cheeks a little flushed, her notepad and pen in hand, smiling timorously at him. “Busy day today, isn’t it?” Ethan nodded, keeping his expression neutral.
“You aren’t going to need to take notes, this is a personal meeting,” he said quietly. He listened for the sound of the door locking behind Cassidy, giving them both privacy. The woman’s eyes almost gleamed at the suggestion that the meeting between them was personal, and Ethan felt his irritable anger at the woman rise up even more strongly.
“I know Brianna’s meeting with HR right now,” Cassidy said, her voice slyly innocent. “Is that something to do with what you want to talk about?” Ethan considered the question for a moment—and its obvious implication—and nodded, fighting back amusement at how deeply Cassidy would be disappointed in a matter of only a few moments.
“I wanted to talk to you about your conversation with Mark, from last week,” he said. “And I want to talk about why you felt the need to try and sabotage one of your coworkers.” Cassidy’s eyes widened and Ethan could see the dismay in them.
“I mean—they were asking me…” Cassidy licked her lips and Ethan thought she was trying to look as desirable as possible—even in the midst of her ‘damsel in distress’ act—as she tried to collect her composure. “They were suggesting that you only promoted her to have sex with her, that you were abusing your position and I thought that if I made it seem like Brianna was the one who started things, they’d back off of you.” Ethan shook his head.
“If you wanted to help me you would have simply said you don’t know anything about anything—which is true,” Ethan said. “You know nothing, Cassidy. You spouted off because you wanted Brianna to get fired.” He folded his hands on the desk in front of him and stared Cassidy down as she went pale, and then bright red, and then pale once more.
“No! I mean—I thought she might be distracting you...but I did really, truly think that she was trying…” Cassidy’s eyes welled up with tears and Ethan watched in disgust, not softening even slightly. “I just would have hated it if the board fired you, and I didn’t want them to tarnish your name, and Brianna…” He could hear the venom in the woman’s voice when she said her coworker’s name.
“Brianna has nothing to do with you,” Ethan told her, speaking quietly but firmly. “And she has nothing to do with the reason why I am not interested in dating you, either. I have never been interested in you.” He let the words sink in. Cassidy stared at him in abject shock, utterly silent for a few moments as the color came and went from her face.
“What do you mean?”
Ethan raised one eyebrow slightly. “I mean that there is no world in which I would ever have dated you, whether or not I ever met Brianna. And now that you have tried to sabotage an employee, I will be seeking your termination with Human Resources,” he said slowly but firmly.
“You’re going to have me fired?” Cassidy’s expression switched between shock and anger and denial and grief, and Ethan would have felt more compassion for her, if not for the fact that he knew that she’d gone against Brianna on purpose—and that purpose was, as far as he and Brianna could put together, to get her fired, so that she might have a chance with Ethan.
“I absolutely am,” Ethan said. “Whether or not I manage to make it through the board meeting today with my own job intact, I am absolutely going to make sure that you no longer work here.” He held her gaze until Cassidy looked down at her hands, helpless and pathetic.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she mumbled.
“No, you meant to harm one of your coworker’s reputations and future career,” Ethan said. “It was petty and immature and disrespectful and inappropriate.” Cassidy looked up angrily.
“How appropriate is it for you to be screwing one of your assistants?” Ethan laughed out loud.
“You’ve been trying to get me to start up a relationship with you for months,” Ethan countered. “It’s pretty clear that the only reason you threw Brianna under the bus was in the hopes of making it happen. You haven’t ever had the moral high ground here, Cassidy.” He decided that he’d had enough of the conversation and pressed a button on his desk phone. He’d already primed another member of the HR team to expect the call he had intended to place.
“Yes?” The voice of a woman came over the phone’s speaker.
“Ms. James, thank you for answering so quickly. I spoke to you before about one of my employees—do you remember?”
“Absolutely,” Brittany James said.
“She is ready to speak with you; if you could come up and collect her from her desk on my level, I think we’re just about done here.”
Ethan had done the work carefully; after all, he couldn’t let anyone come to the conclusion that he was firing Cassidy as retaliation for some kind of whistle-blowing. So formally, Brittany James—another highly ranked HR Department member—would be conducting the termination, based on the reports that he and Brianna had sent to her. Brianna hadn’t known that Ethan was going to recommend that Cassidy be fired; he’d let her think that it was simply a formality, part of clearing her own name.
By the time Brianna left her meeting with Mark, Cassidy would be out of the office, and gone from both their lives; that knowledge felt good. Ethan had to rise to his feet and nearly force Cassidy, crying, out of his office, but even that detail hadn’t dimmed his satisfaction in getting rid of the poisonous woman. She would be gone, and he had Jennifer to speak up for him, and there was every possibility that things would work out—one way or another.
Ethan sat down to wait for Brianna to arrive; she would, he thought, have about twenty minutes before he had to go report to the board, to tell him about her interview with Mark. He would let her know about Cassidy. Whatever else happened that day, there was at least one victory to be proud of. There was still the possibility that he would be asked to resign for conducting a relationship with an employee, but that was something he could live with.
Ethan began to work on drafts of two different letters: one was in case the board voted to force him to resign, and the other was an explanation of his part of the investigation, in case he was allowed to stay. It was something to do while he waited, and something that he could use to keep his mind off wondering how Brianna was holding up, and whether the stress of the situation was all that healthy for a pregnant woman.
Sooner than he thought, Ethan’s phone buzzed in his pocket, and he took it out quickly to see that Brianna had sent him a message. Just finished with Mark. It went well. On my way up to you. He smiled to himself, knowing that Cassidy was already out of the area—that no matter what else happened, Brianna wasn’t going to have to deal with that woman ever again.
Ethan set his phone aside and prepared to let Brianna into his office; he was sure that Jennifer wasn’t going to care much that Brianna would be right into his space once she left Mark. When he heard the buzz, he pressed the button to unlock the door; Brianna strode in, smiling slightly.
“I assume it went well?” Brianna rolled her eyes and chuckled.
“It was stressful, but it pretty much went the way I thought it would go,” she said. Ethan rose to meet her halfway across the room and kissed her lightly on the lips. He could feel the tension in her body still, and wished that they didn’t both have the board meeting hanging over their heads.
“What did he say?” Ethan led Brianna over to the seating area where they’d had so many trysts in the past few months and, acting out of habit, she kicked her shoes off as she sat down. He couldn’t offer her a drink—not in her pregnant state—but Ethan sat down with her and took her hand in his, wishing he could do more.
“He said that there was a parallel investigation into Cassidy’s behavior being conducted by someone else in HR, so that it wouldn’t look like retaliation,” Brianna said. She paused and looked at him closely.
“Yeah, I triggered that,” Ethan admitted with a little smile. “Cassidy is gone, as of about twenty minutes ago.” Brianna’s eyes widened.
“That easy?”
Ethan nodded. “Much easier to get rid of a troublemaker than it is to deal with claims that I abused my authority to put you in a position specifically to have sex with you,” he said. Brianna snorted.
“Especially since—technically—you did just that,” she pointed out. “I mean, I’m mostly happy with the results, but it’s kind of hard to disprove you did a thing that you technically did.” Ethan had to acknowledge that she was right; he had, technically, abused the freedom of his position to hire someone specifically to have a sexual partner on demand. The fact that he hadn’t forced Brianna to have sex with him at any point didn’t mean that it wasn’t his intention.
“If you want me to go in there and be completely upfront about what I did, and take the consequences, I’ll do it,” Ethan told her.
“As far as I’m concerned, the part of it that’s between you and me is resolved,” Brianna said after a moment’s thought. “The way you ended up hiring me is water under the bridge. Especially after you let me destroy the contract.” She took a deep breath and exhaled on a sigh. “Being pregnant kind of complicates things, though. And we have to deal with that—you know that, right?”
“How do you mean?” Ethan frowned slightly. Brianna licked her lips and Ethan rose to his feet, inspired; he couldn’t offer her alcohol, but he had bottled water in the office, too—along with some soft drinks and coffee. He walked over to the fridge and got the woman he cared about a bottle of water.
“What I mean is…” Brianna cracked the seal on the bottle and took a sip. “I think…” She closed her eyes and sighed.
“Tell me what you think, whatever it is,” Ethan urged her. “I’m listening.” Brianna opened her eyes and looked at him for a moment.
“What’s going to happen to both of us when it comes out that I’m pregnant with your kid?” Brianna held his gaze.
“That’s not going to happen for a while yet,” Ethan pointed out.
“Jennifer already figured it out,” Brianna countered. “She’s fine with it, apparently, but if she’d figured it out than other people might, too—and before we’re willing to come out about it. We need to figure out what we’re going to do.” Ethan blinked in shock at that knowledge.
“Jennifer knows?” Brianna nodded.
“She figured it out on her own; I had a bout of morning sickness when I came in, and she told me she’d figured it out.” Brianna sighed. “She’s going to keep her mouth shut, which is great...but we can’t count on people just not knowing indefinitely.”
“Did you bring this up because you have something in mind, or because you want me to think about what I want to do about it?” That was the important question—wasn’t it? If Brianna had an idea, Ethan wanted to hear it. If she didn’t have a notion for what she wanted to do about the situation, they could take care of it after the meeting that he had to go to in less than twenty minutes.
“I just feel like me being pregnant, having your kid...it makes the work situation complicated,” Brianna said. “I just feel like you and I need to figure something out about that before it comes up outside of us as an issue.” Ethan pressed his lips together and thought about it for a few moments, while Brianna sipped water.
“You have an idea in mind, but you’re not saying what it is,” Ethan suggested. “You want me to figure it out on my own.” He met her gaze levelly. “Just say it, please.”
“Maybe it would be better if I left the job,” Brianna said quietly. “Before it becomes an issue. If I resigned, and took a position somewhere else—or, if you’re still willing to support me, if I just...didn’t go back to work for a while until after the baby is born.” Ethan stared at her, surprised and not surprised all at the same time.
“Is that something you’d want?” He wasn’t sure how he felt about it—whether he felt good about it or terrible—but he would at least have the meeting to figure it out. There was no reason for him to rush into a decision, was there?
“I’ll be bored, but if you can get me a decent severance package from here...and if you would be willing to be my reference when I go find another job...and if you could see fit to make sure I can afford my bills, I think I could live with it,” Brianna said. Ethan nodded slowly.
“I don’t know if we have to go that far,” he said, thinking through it. “But I’ll keep it in mind.” He licked his lips and exhaled hard. The meeting was in less than fifteen minutes, and he needed to get ready for it. “Why don’t you go back to my place? You can work from there. Jennifer won’t mind, and the board isn’t going to need you.”
“You want me to wait for you at your place?” Ethan had started to formulate a plan, based on what Brianna had said and what had already passed between them, the actions he’d already taken.
“Yeah, if you don’t mind,” Ethan suggested. “I’ll step out after the meeting and let you know how it went. And you can work remotely, get some stuff done, and be comfortable since you can just change into pajamas.” Brianna smiled wryly.
“Okay,” Brianna said. She rose to her feet and set down the bottle of water, stepping into her shoes. “I’ll say goodbye to Jennifer for the day, and I’ll see you in what—about two hours?” Ethan nodded.
“Whatever happens, I’ll be there in two hours,” he promised. Brianna leaned in and kissed him lightly.
“I’ll hold you to that,” she told him with an arch smile.