Chapter 22

Dana

I’m nervous. Today is my first day, and I feel like I’m all over the place. I get up too early to get ready, have breakfast, and leave almost too late because I’m stressing and forget to check the time. When I finally get to the building, I can’t find a parking space close to the door so I must search for one far away and walk almost a block’s length to get to the office.

When I finally arrive and announce myself at reception, I hear that Julia isn’t in the office. She already left to see a client.

Great. The first day of any job is always chaotic for me, even more so than the interview process. But I console myself by thinking that the first day is the worst, and things can only get better from there.

I’m asked to wait in the lobby while another HR rep is called. I sit with my handbag on my lap, finally calming down when a blonde a woman approaches me.

She’s striking in a way that makes me take notice. She’s not beautiful, per se, but she has something about her. The way she carries herself, the way she uses her face when she speaks, that makes her attractive. She wears minimal makeup, less than I have on, but she makes it look like she’s only wearing it because she’s a woman and it’s expected of her in the workplace. Her body is trim, like she works out a lot, and she swings her hips like men might be watching.

“Dana, right?” she asks.

I stand up and extend my hand. She looks at it like I’m being strange. I drop my hand slowly, trying not to feel rejected. I dislike her immediately.

“I’m Bianca.”

As in Keagan’s fling? I want to ask, but of course, I don’t. I look at her again. I can’t imagine there are many Bianca’s in Golden Image’s HR division.

“Come with me,” she says and turns around, walking away. I get up and hurry after her.

“You’re supposed to shadow me for a while until Julia gets back to finalize your contract. I have calls to make so you can sit in my office.”

I nod. She glances over her shoulder at me, and I can’t decipher her look. She’s not the kind of woman I’ll be friends with. I wonder what Keagan saw in her. She is attractive, sure, and I can imagine some men go crazy over her body. She’s a bitch though, but Keagan did say she’d been just a fling.

In her office, I sit down in a chair and watch Bianca go about her business, making calls. She’s cold on the phone when it’s a woman on the other side of the line, flirtatious when it’s a man. She chooses her moods and the faces she wants to show carefully. I’m relieved Keagan suggested we wait with going public. Bianca would have made this first day hell for me.

The whole morning wastes away with me sitting in Bianca’s office while she does menial work. Finally, just before lunch, she gets a call that frees me.

“Right, I’ll send her,” she says into the phone.

“Boss wants to see you,” she says.

“Julia?”

Bianca laughs like I’m being ridiculous. “Julia’s far from your boss,” she says. She flips her blonde hair over her shoulder.

“Lisa will tell you where to go,” she says when I don’t make a move to leave.

I nod and leave the office without thanking her for anything. She did nothing but tolerate me in her personal space.

I walk to the reception desk, get directions to Lisa’s desk, and finally meet the secretary who shows me where my boss’s office is.

“How are you enjoying your day so far?” Lisa asks while we walk.

“It’s a bit overwhelming,” I say. Nothing enjoyable has happened yet.

Lisa smiles at me. “I’m sure you’ll feel differently when you meet Elizabeth. She’s great to work for, and she really puts effort into her employees.”

I nod. I hope so.

“Once you get your contract sorted you’ll be put on a project, and then everything will be a lot more fun.”

I smile at Lisa when she drops me off in front of Elizabeth’s door, and I thank her. I take a deep breath and knock on the door.

“Come in,” a gentle voice calls, and I open the door.

She’s facing away from the door, her chair swiveled so I only see the back of it.

“You asked to see me,” I say.

The chair swivels around, and I recognize the face immediately.

“Liz?” I ask.

“Dana,” she says, looking as surprised as I feel. She looks down at her file. “I saw your name, but I didn’t put two and two together. What a coincidence.”

She laughs lightly. I blink at her, struggling to swallow down my heart which is beating in my throat now.

Elizabeth, my new boss, is none other than Liz, the woman that ripped Keagan’s heart out after she’d dated him for three years. He hadn’t dated since, because of her.

“Sit down, please,” she says, a smile firmly in place.

It doesn’t reach her eyes, but it never did. I sit down, hesitantly. I eye Liz. Nothing about her has changed. I haven’t seen her many times. I’d gone to college by the time she was with Keagan, and he didn’t bring her along to family events often. But she has a confidence about her that comes with being told for years and years that you are better than others. Her smile isn’t genuine, her hair is a bottle blonde, no matter how professionally done, and her makeup is immaculate.

I swallowed. It was hard not to be intimidated by a woman like this. Especially after she dated Keagan, and she is his idea of a serious relationship. I hope to God that he doesn’t compare me to her when we’re doing everything.

“How is your brother?” she asks.

My ears start ringing. I can’t sit across from the woman that hurt him and smile, pretending everything is fine. I shake my head.

“I’m sorry, Liz,” I say. “I can’t do this.”

She frowns. “What?”

“I can’t work for you.”

She blinks at me. Her frown fades, and her face is unreadable. She’s always had a perfect poker face, and it’s unnerving.

“You’re quitting before you’ve even started.” It’s not a question.

I nod. “I know how Keagan feels about you. I’m not going to betray him like that.”

She laughs, a pleasant sound if it weren’t for the bitch it was coming from.

“Don’t be petty, Dana,” she says. “This is a good job with a lot of money. You’ll just throw it away?”

I nod and stand up.

“I’m sorry,” I say again and leave her office without saying anything else.

I walk through the building, head held high, until I’m in the street before I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. My heart hammers against my ribs, and I have a lump in my throat, although I can’t tell why I want to cry. Seeing not one, but two of Keagan’s exes in one day, in one office, makes me feel like throwing up.

I have to get out of here.

I walk to my car. When I’m behind the wheel, I dial my mom on the Bluetooth system. The phone rings for so long, I’m sure I’ll be pushed over to voicemail, but then she answers and her voice is pleasant and welcome.

“I just quit my job,” I say without saying hello.

“What? Honey, why?”

“Liz was my boss. Liz, Mom. That woman.”

I can’t find the words. I’m upset and angry, and I don’t know why I feel as strongly as I do.

“Oh, sweetie.” My mom can’t even find the words. After a moment of silence from both of us, she speaks again.

“Are you going home?”

I nod, remember she can’t see me and answer. “Yes.”

“I’ll be there in half an hour.”

“What about the studio?”

“Chris can manage.”

We end the conversation, and a part of me relaxes because my mom is on her way. No matter how old I get, when I can cry on my mom’s shoulder, things start to feel better. She comes when I need her, and I’m grateful that I have someone on my side, the way I have her.

I drive home. I have a sinking feeling in my gut. The more I think about what I just did, the sicker I feel. It was a great job, and it was a good salary. I could have moved back into my own place and stopped being a burden. But I can’t work for Liz. I hate her. She hurt Keagan so much. And I can’t stand Bianca, even though I only spent one morning with her.

Am I being stupid for running away, or am I doing the right thing?

When I get back home, I get changed into something more comfortable. I pull back my hair into a ponytail and wash my face, getting rid of the makeup I put on for the day.

My mom rings the doorbell, and I let her in. She whirls into the apartment in a flurry of colored material and wraps her arms around me.

“Don’t you for one second think you did the wrong thing,” she says after hugging me. She holds me at arm’s length. My eyes well up, even though I don’t know why I want to cry. Part of me feels like I made a mistake.

“I gave up the job,” I say to my mom. She leads me to the couch, and we sit down together. “Was that stupid of me?”

“What’s the alternative, work for that little witch?”

I smile when my mom says it. My mom hates Liz the most, even more than Keagan does, for what she did to him.

“You don’t need that drama, especially not with what’s going on between the two of you. There will be more jobs.”

I take a deep breath. “I wish it was that easy. I’ve been to so many interviews, and I was so happy when I finally landed something.”

My mom takes both hands in hers.

“The right job will come along, sweetheart. If it’s meant to be, it will be.”

Her destiny-driven view of life doesn’t make me feel better. I feel like I had something good, and I ruined it.

“You didn’t do it for yourself, anyway,” my mom says.

I frown. “What do you mean?”

“You gave it up for Keagan. Because you’re on his side. Or am I wrong?”

I shake my head. She’s not wrong. I did do it for him. I can’t work for the woman that hurt him and not feel like I’m betraying him.

“I can see what’s happening,” my mom says. “And you have to tell him.”

“Tell him what? About the job?”

She shakes her head. “No, do that when you’re ready. I mean how you feel about him.”

I take a shaky breath. “I have told him.”

“Did you tell him that you’re in love with him?” she asks.

God, am I really that transparent that my mom can see everything that goes on in my mind and my heart?

“I’m scared it will ruin things between us,” I say. “I don’t want to screw up what we have now.”

“If you don’t talk to him, eventually keeping it from him will break what you have. Communication is the only thing that works. And when you know what you want and the other person wants it too, it all goes so much better.”

I nod. I wanted to be able to cry on her shoulder. Instead, she’s lecturing me about doing the right thing. I hate to admit it, though, but she’s right.

I need to tell him how I feel. I’m just scared to. If he doesn’t feel the same, I’ll be crushed. But putting your heart out there is never easy.

“It will be fine, baby,” my mom says and touches my cheek. “If it’s meant to be…”

“I know,” I say. “It will be.”

The advice is a lot easier to hand out than to take. It doesn’t make me any less nervous about it. But there is some truth to it, and either way, I will have to talk to him, sooner or later. We can’t keep dancing around each other the way we are now. No matter how good the sex is.