The Relationship Clause

Chapter 5

What I’m aboutto propose is ridiculous.

And dangerous.

And crazy.

But it might work.

“I’d like to hire you to pretend to be my secretary for three months.”

Junie’s jaw drops, and she starts looking around the room as if half-expecting to find a hidden camera. Who knows, maybe she really is expecting something like that. I can’t blame her. My proposal sounds that preposterous.

Kiera’s the one who came up with the idea though. Kind of.

“I’m sorry, what?” she asks.

I take a deep breath. This is going to take some convincing. “I’d like you to be my fake secretary for three months.”

She shakes her head, mouth slightly agape. “Okay, um, is this because of your mom? Doesn’t she live in New York or something? How would she even know I’m not actually your secretary after today?”

The fact that she knows this about my mom isn’t surprising. Apparently, she is the best friend of Kiera’s who I’ve heard about. The one who got my sister through a rough time in college when they were roommates. I had no idea she was also working at Pete’s Perk Up for the last few months, or that I’d been kinda sorta making eyes at my sister’s best friend all that time. Honestly, if someone had walked up to me today to quiz me on my sister’s best friend’s name, I would have been pulling guesses out of thin air. Katie? Sierra? Kylie? I’d never heard it enough to commit it to memory.

One thing’s for sure, if Junie accepts this proposal of mine, the “making eyes” will need to stop immediately.

“Yes, she does live in New York,” I say, folding my arms. “But Kiera and I were informed that Mother will be leasing out a suite in Charlotte, North Carolina for the foreseeable future thanks to some business she’s involved in. That means she’ll be checking in on me more often, which, in turn, means she’ll expect to see you.”

This new, unfortunate information from Mother was a shock to both Kiera and me. There’s a reason we decided to stay in the south when we were college-aged and Mom and Dad moved back to New York.

Kiera and I realized a long time ago that the more physical distance we put between ourselves and our parents, the better off we’d be. Both Mom and Dad are high-powered business people. I don’t remember sitting down to a single family meal with all four of us. There was almost never peace in the house growing up. I don’t even know why they stayed together as long as they did.

When Kiera moved out of the house for college, they quit living together but still didn’t get divorced. It wasn’t until about two years ago that the pressure between them grew so great that it finally exploded. Each one determined they would divorce and take the other for all they were worth, and that’s when the claws came out. They surrounded themselves with high-powered lawyers and have been in an awful legal battle ever since. Often, it’s Kiera and me who get caught in the crosshairs.

I know I could just be a man about it and tell my mom she made a mistake, but doing so would also mean a rejuvenation of Cynthia’s efforts to choose a secretary for me. This may seem like a small thing, but I don’t want to give her a single finger-hold in my company. I have no doubt that anyone she recommends would ultimately be reporting back to her.

This is why I started Em3rge with Shane completely on our own and without any help from my parents, particularly from Mother. Give her an inch, and soon, she’ll be thinking she can give me orders, tell me how to run my company, and buy so much stock, she’ll eventually own it.

Sounds too harsh to be true? You don’t know Cynthia Burton.

After hearing Junie’s qualifications, I knew she’d be able to do the job, but also, seeing the way Mother reacted to Junie made me all the more set in keeping her. She’ll drive my mom crazy. And that in and of itself is immensely appealing.

“I’d expect you to be doing actual secretarial work,” I continue, “so it’s not like you’ll be sitting around doing nothing. Those are details we can quibble over if and when you decide to accept my offer though.”

Her blue eyes peer up at me like maybe I’ve lost my mind. “A fake secretary who does real secretary work? What does that even mean?”

I sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose. Glancing over, I can tell more than a few curious employees have started watching us from the windows of the conference room, most notably Kiera, who looks as if she might bolt in here at any moment to take over for me in convincing Junie to stay. This is not going as swiftly as I’d hoped.

After sending Kiera a pointed glare, I flick a switch beside my desk. The glass wall of my office turns opaque, effectively shrouding Junie and me in privacy. It’s both a good and bad thing. Good because there are no more prying eyes. Bad because there are suddenly far less things to distract me from the fact that Junie is right here, leaving me very much alone with her bright eyes and pouty lips.

“Look,” I say, forcing myself to focus, “like I said, we can talk more about details later, but the short of it is, I need someone I can trust who can help me…collect information about what my employees are saying and doing around the office.”

Wow. Could I try to sound any more cryptic?

I can see her calculating. Analyzing and dissecting every word. “So you need me to be your spy?”

I hold back a wince. “Spy is an overly-dramatic way of putting this. I prefer to think of you as…doing some investigative work. What do you say?”

“I guess I say, why me?”

Her question isn’t one I’m expecting, and for a moment, all I can do is blink at her. “I need someone outside my company. Someone who has no interest or stake in anything we do here.”

“Right, that makes sense, but I mean, why me? There have got to be thousands of people out there who meet those exact qualifications. I know we kind of got into a sticky situation back there with your mom, but you could easily tell her you fired me, let me walk out the door, and hire someone else. Maybe someone whose spying skills don’t rely on what they’ve seen from James Bond or Mission Impossible. Why me?”

I pause, wondering if I should admit this next part. I don’t like revealing all my cards, but, knowing Kiera, she’ll probably end up telling her anyway.

“Kiera said I could trust you.”

Actually, that’s an oversimplification. In the seconds following our mother leaving my office, I hurriedly asked Kiera how much she trusted Junie. What Kiera actually said was, “I would trust her with my life, and if you turn around and fire her from this job that Mom thinks she has, I will disown you as my brother and write your personal phone number on every single public bathroom stall I can find.”

Yeah, it was a little scary, but I could tell my sister was serious about all her points. We’re opposites in many ways. Kiera doesn’t always make the best business decisions, but she does know people. Her opinion about Junie is good enough for me.

Junie folds her arms over her chest. “Okay…” She seems to be toying with the idea, and it has me way more excited than I should be. “So, how much are not-so-fake secretaries charging these days?”

I’m already prepared with the answer to this question and don’t even hesitate. “Ten thousand per month.”

Junie immediately starts choking on her gum. Literally. She inhales after I tell her the amount, and I hear the gum lodge in her throat. Her eyes go big, and she panics. She struggles to breathe, and her hands go to her throat.

I react on instinct. I pull Junie toward me and wrap my arms around her. There’s no time to think, no time to question. Bending her forward, I ball my fists together and perform the Heimlich, pressing in and up once, twice, three times.

Her gum pops out of her mouth. It lands with a little splat on the tiled floor, and Junie gasps for breath.

“Are you alright?” I ask as I let her go.

She moves slowly, clutching her stomach and wincing. “I’ll survive,” she wheezes.

“Did I hurt you? I didn’t mean to. I was—”

“No, no.” She holds up a hand and eases down into one of the plush leather chairs in front of my desk. “Believe me, I’m glad you saved my life. I just don’t think ‘receive the Heimlich maneuver’ was on my list of approved post-surgery activities.”

Awful realization seeps through me, and I sit in the other chair. While she was away from the coffee shop, I assumed she was gone for the holidays, not in the hospital. So many times I wanted to ask Pete where she was, but I’d stopped myself. I barely knew her. At the most, we were acquaintances. She was an attractive acquaintance, but an acquaintance nonetheless. She’d spent the holidays in the hospital? Recovering from surgery?

My alarm grows deeper and deeper, choking me like a weed until Junie lifts her head from where she’d had it close to her knees. Her pale skin is flushed, almost matching her hair, which makes the picture all the more endearing when she shoots me a beaming, if not forced, smile.

“Don’t worry. It was only a ruptured appendix. I’ll survive this pain like I survived that. So, what were we talking about before I started choking? Oh, yeah. Working for you. Ten thousand? Are you sure you don’t want me working for free? Because I think I literally owe you my life now.”

“No. You will not be working for free. I insist on paying you.”

“Okay, but seriously? Ten thousand every single month?” she repeats. “As in, dollars?”

“Yes, of course dollars. I’ll also expect you to sign an NDA.”

She leans back in her chair, studying me with a critical gaze. Not for the first time do I question my own sanity, as she must be doing too. If she thinks ten thousand dollars for a month’s worth of work is expensive, she doesn’t know how much I stand to lose.

Asking Junie to do this was spur of the moment, and that’s not like me. I’m not a spur of the moment kind of guy. I like to think, plan, formulate, worry, plan some more, and then act. But this morning, I hadn’t done any of that.

“Look,” I say, feeling impatience seeping into my words, “I know how much Pete likes you, and I wouldn’t want you to have to quit suddenly and leave him in a bind. Think about it over the weekend and let me know your answer on Monday. Because of the situation with my mother,” I say, grinding the word out, “I can’t give you much more time than that. Deal?” I give her my best close-the-deal look and hold out my hand.

She gazes at it, and for half a second, I think she’s going to shoot me down altogether, but then she nods. “Monday.”

We reach across the table to shake hands, and as we do, I swear a spark shoots across her fingers to mine. I hold firm against the feeling but tuck it away for further inspection later when I’m alone and can think more clearly.

Before she leaves, I hand her one of my business cards. This time, I make sure to skip the skin-to-skin contact.

After my staff meeting, during which I kept getting pointed looks from Kiera and curious eyes from other employees, I return to my office and shut the door. The windows are still opaque from my meeting with Junie, which is good. I could use some alone time.

My life, which I make a point to keep orderly and private, is suddenly feeling the very opposite. I scrub my hands over my face and allow a sigh to fill the room. I swivel around to face the set of windows overlooking the city. The January sky is gray and overcast, like my mood.

“Control the things I can control,” I whisper to myself. It’s something my therapist often says. I rack my brain for what is within my control right now, and the obvious answer is: work. Starting with the horrendous amount of emails I get on a daily basis.

Emails. I can do that.

I manage to get a good chunk of them answered before my door swings open and Shane walks in. He looks around like he expects a clown or maybe a puppy to pop out behind the fake potted hibiscus in the corner at any moment.

“Can I help you?” I ask, already anticipating what this is going to be about.

“Hey, man, what’s this I hear about you hiring some hottie to be your secretary?”

I bristle at his words.

Here’s the thing. I love Shane like a brother. I consider him as close to family as a guy can come without being blood related. We wouldn’t have this business if it weren’t for him since he’s the brain behind this whole operation. He’s wicked smart. Where I have the business-savvy expertise, he has the ideas for pretty much everything else. But Shane can also be…problematic when it comes to women.

“Call her a hottie one more time, and I’ll report you to HR,” I mutter, turning back to my computer.

“Aw, come on. You’re not going to give me the story?” He comes all the way inside, closing the door behind him and plopping down in one of my chairs.

Since I know he won’t give up until he’s gotten what he wants to hear, I tell him the watered-down version of what happened earlier this morning, including the details with my mother, but excluding the parts about wanting someone to poke around the office for me and our arrangement for Junie to be here temporarily.

Yeah, I know I need to tell Shane my suspicions about a leak, but I’m not ready to do that. Not yet.

“So, yes, I’ve got a new secretary, and I’d appreciate it if you respect her new position at the company and leave her alone.”

Shane grabs a stress ball off my desk and starts tossing it into the air. “Pshhh, come on, of course I’ll respect her. Then, after a month or two of showing her how respectful I can be, I’ll ask her out on a date. When that happens and I report our relationship to HR, I hope you’ll be the one to respect us.”

“I think you forgot the part where I told you to leave her alone.”

Shane laughs. “Come on, man. We’re in different departments. There’s nothing wrong with dating someone from a different department. If you and your new secretary decided to hook up, then there’d be some trouble.”

I bristle again. He’s right. I know he’s right, and I have no intention of “hooking up” with Junie. But for some reason, his words bug me way more than they should. “There will be no hooking up, from either of us. I forbid you from even trying.”

Shane’s eyebrows raise, and I realize my mistake. He throws the ball one more time, catches it, then leans forward, squeezing it between his hands under his chin. “There’s something different about her, isn’t there?”

My heart gives a little squeeze in my chest.

Yes, there’s something different about Junie. Up until this morning, she was my favorite barista. Heck, if she decides to turn down my offer, she might still be. Up until this morning, my life was easy and uncomplicated. One might even call it mundane, but I like mundane. Up until Junie, I didn’t have to worry about lying to my mother.

But I can’t tell Shane any of this. That would mean I’d need to tell him about my suspicions around the office and about Junie being a fake secretary, and if anyone finds out, that will jeopardize the whole operation.

“There’s nothing different about her,” I say through gritted teeth. “I want my mother off my back for a while, okay? And I don’t need you and your issues running around here and chasing her off.”

“Nooo, that’s not it. There’s something different about her, and I can tell, even if you can’t.”

I roll my eyes. “Come on, Shane. You wouldn’t know what finding ‘the one’ looked like even if it landed on your head.”

As soon as the words leave my mouth, I wish I could suck them back in again.

Shane’s entire golden retriever demeanor deconstructs into something more resembling a basset hound.

He stands to leave, but I get up and block the door. “Look, man, I’m sorry. That was a lame thing for me to say, and I’m a jerk for saying it.”

He shakes his head like it doesn’t matter, but he still won’t meet my eyes.

“Hey.” I put a hand on his shoulder. “Seriously, Shane. I’m sorry. You were right. I have no idea what I’m doing when it comes to love. I’m as emotionally stunted as a first grader’s eraser on a number two pencil.”

My comment about the eraser gets him smiling while I hold back a wince. The truth in those words sting my own lips. They weren’t originally my words. No, that colorful quip was spoken to me by a girl some years ago. I don’t even remember her name or what specifically I’d done to make her so upset. All I remember was imagining myself as this yellow pencil with no eraser and realizing she was right.

At least Shane was able to let himself risk his heart enough to have it broken by Sally. That’s more than I can say. With my dysfunctional parents as relationship role models, it’s no wonder I turned out this way.

The fact that you can admit your shortcomings is progress.

That’s what my therapist would say. But it doesn’t feel like progress. I’ve been wading through all the complicated emotions surrounding my delightful parents and their relationship for years now. I shouldn’t still be this stunted pencil. I know I need to try dating again, make a leap of faith, but putting it into practice is harder to do in reality.

“Come on, let me treat you to lunch today or something,” I say, trying to forget my own gloomy thoughts.

When I mention lunch, Shane finally meets my eyes. “Fine. But I’m warning you, I have expensive taste.”

“Oh, I’m well aware. My wallet’s still recovering from the last lunch I owed you.”