The Relationship Clause

Chapter 7

Monday morning comes,and for some reason, I’m more antsy than a kindergartener on the first day of school. I get to the office early, or at least earlier, and keep checking the clock. My lawyer arrives with the paperwork he drew up over the weekend, and I have the first check for Junie already inside my desk drawer.

Eight o’clock rolls around, and most of my employees are already here, including Kiera. She keeps eyeing me through my window. All weekend, she texted, trying to ask me personal questions about what was going on and asking if Junie had accepted the job yet.

She pokes her head into my office at 8:05. “She’ll be here,” she says, staring me down.

I roll my eyes. Somehow my little sister always seems to know what I’m thinking. “So you say.”

“She’ll be here,” she says in a lower tone, almost growling the words. Her gaze sweeps my office. “What, no coffee run today?”

I’m startled at her comment. “What?”

She points at my desk. “Usually you have a cup of coffee on your desk right about now. A small dark from Pete’s Perk with zero cream, zero sugar, zero fun. A coffee which ultimately grows cold on your desk until you throw it away at the end of the day.”

Color warms my cheeks, and a weird, flustered feeling that I don’t like flutters around in my gut. “What are you talking about? I do too drink my coffee.”

“Mm-hmm…” She eyes me with pursed lips. “So you didn’t get one this morning because…?”

I know what she’s thinking. She’s thinking my not getting coffee has something to do with the fact that Junie isn’t at Pete’s to give me said coffee. By the look on Kiera’s face, she’s waiting for me to admit this. Ha. Even if that was true, I’d never say it out loud. I would literally never hear the end of it, and that would make the next three months with Junie an unmitigated disaster.

Three months with the possibility of more.

I’m not sure how I feel about that “more” part. Junie’s request was completely understandable. It’s not good to jump from job to job, any employer can see that as a red flag. I wasn’t thinking of her resume when I proposed the three months, and I don’t want to hurt her future prospects. But…

What if her staying longer than three months becomes too tempting of an idea?

Why don’t you expound on that thought, Owen?

My therapist’s common follow-up question is louder and more insistent than I like. I don’t want to expound on the thought, and I won’t. There’s nothing to be expounded on. This weird, flustered feeling whenever I think of Junie has everything to do with my sister’s line of questioning and nothing to do with my actual feelings toward Junie.

“I didn’t stop by Pete’s because I had to get here early to meet with my lawyer,” I say.

Bill, who is currently sitting in the corner with his briefcase and his nose in his phone, glances up briefly and grunts.

Kiera smirks and opens her mouth like she’s about to point out something painfully obvious to everyone in the room, but before she can, I play the boss card.

“Don’t you have work you should be doing?” I say in my most grumbly, bossy voice.

But Kiera, who is used to this, smirks again and tosses me a wave as she floats back out of my office.

“Thanks for the backup,” I mutter to Bill, who only grunts again then excuses himself to grab coffee from the breakroom.

As the seconds tick by, I begin to wonder if I’d misplaced my trust in Junie, despite Kiera’s reassurances. What does “first thing in the morning” mean to most people? True, I didn’t specify eight o’clock, but she knows what time I visit Pete’s every morning. This means she knows roughly what time I get to work every day. So she should be here. She should absolutely—

“I’m here!” yells a voice.

I look up through my office windows to see a woman with fiery hair bolt out of the barely opening elevator. She dashes through the room toward me, and for a single, but very long, second, I have to remind myself who I’m looking at.

I’m used to seeing Junie dressed in her barista outfit. White shirt, black pants, black flat shoes, apron on top, and her red hair pulled up and tamed into either a ponytail or a bun, sometimes a braid. That’s who Junie is. She’s the barista. A cute barista, yes, I can admit that, but a barista all the same.

The woman running toward me is most definitely not the barista.

Her hair is loosely curled and streaming wildly behind her, her lips are a soft shade of pink, her blouse is a creamy color, and her skirt is flowy, ending above her knees. It’s a perfectly respectable length for a skirt in an office setting, except for the fact that she’s wearing heels, and for some reason, I can’t handle both the heels and the legs at the same time. My eyes zero in on them, and it’s not until she flies into my office, pink-cheeked and chest heaving, that I finally tear my eyes away from her legs and snap my jaw shut.

“I’m so sorry I’m late,” she says. “I was having car trouble. Had to get my neighbor to jump start Bessie for me.”

“Bessie?” I ask. It’s literally the only word I can latch on to in the moment.

“My car.”

“You named your car Bessie?”

She slides up and nudges me with her elbow. “Wait until you meet her. You’ll understand then.” I must give her a blank look because she clears her throat and backs up a couple of steps. “So, um, anyway, are we ready to do this?”

I suddenly wish there were a window in my office to open. I need air. Cold air. I’m panicking. There’s no reason for me to panic, yet it’s happening anyway. I tell myself it has nothing to do with the woman before me and everything to do with the fact that I’m entering into a contract to hire someone who may as well be a complete stranger to be my secretary for the next three months, but I know that’s not it entirely.

It’s something else. Something I don’t want to face or name.

But Bill emerges from where he’d gone to get coffee, and I know it’s too late to back down. Besides, if I did, I have no doubt Kiera would kill me.

Bill stops dead in his tracks, his eyes bugging out as he looks at Junie. “June?!”

Junie turns, and Bill’s surprise is mirrored on her face. “Billy?”

June? Billy? What the heck kind of twilight zone did I fall into?

My eyes dart between them. “I’m guessing this means you two know each other?”

Bill doesn’t say anything, but Junie breaks eye contact with him to turn to me. She looks jittery. “Yeah. Um. We used to date.”

Now I’m the one with my eyes bugging out of their sockets.

Bill??? Bill dated Junie? I mean, I see the appeal from Bill’s perspective. Junie is a stunning creature who any man would count himself lucky to call their girlfriend. But Bill? He’s a great lawyer, don’t get me wrong, and granted, I don’t know him as anything more than that, but from the outside, he seems so…

Not like someone a girl like Junie would date. Not to mention way too old for her.

What kind of guy would Junie date?asks that annoying, introspective voice in my head that sounds way too much like my therapist’s. I dismiss the question, not having the time or the bandwidth to figure out the answer.

“Oh.” I stuff my surprise away. “What a small wo—”

“I thought you moved to Tennessee.” This comes from Bill, who’s still staring at her like he’s starstruck. His tall, thin frame looks like it could blow over at any second, and his prominent Adam’s apple keeps doing this annoying bobbing-up-and-down thing.

“W-well, I did, but, um, then I moved back.”

“Was it pretty recently? I mean, I guess it’s none of my business, but I kind of thought if you ever moved back here, we might be able to reconnect.”

Junie looks like she’d rather die than answer that question, so I clear my throat and move between them. “Sorry to interrupt the reunion,” I say, though I’m not sorry at all, “but we should get down to business. Is this going to be a problem?”

“Oh, right, business,” Bill says. “Um, no, this shouldn’t be a problem at all.” But the way he keeps looking at Junie has me thinking otherwise.

I close the door, turn the opacity up on the windows, and we all sit around my desk. Bill brings the contract out onto the table and starts spouting off a bunch of legal stuff, but I’m having trouble focusing, which is unlike me.

I don’t seem to be the only one feeling out of sorts though. Bill, who is normally professional, even unflappable, when it comes to situations like this, is suddenly stumbling over his words. Junie keeps looking between him and the door, no doubt wondering if it’s too late to run away from this strange situation.

“Now, um, you’ll want to read this thoroughly before you sign,” Bill is saying. “Particularly of note”—here he flicks a look in my direction—“is this section, uh, mentioning the no-dating clause.”

All the blood drains out of my face. Not because of the clause. I knew it was in there. I specifically requested it. My horror is more to the way Bill delivered the information and the way he’s intently watching Junie for her reaction.

“No-dating clause?” Junie’s eyebrows pinch together.

“Yes,” Bill says. “It states that you agree not to enter into any relationship with Mr. Ferguson outside of the office for the duration of the contract.”

“Oh, um, is that kind of thing normal in a situation like this?”

“Trust me, nothing about this situation or this contract is ‘normal,’” Bill chuckles, and I’ve heard enough.

I stand abruptly, drawing both of their attention. “Thank you, Bill, but that will be all for now.”

Bill, the snake, has the audacity to look taken aback. “B-but what about the contract?”

“Junie needs time to read it.” Because Bill still isn’t making a move for the door, I start herding him toward it. Junie stands behind me, watching the spectacle, and my temperature rises even more. “I’d also like to speak with her privately before she signs. I’ll call you back in before any ink is put to paper. Go get some coffee from the break room.”

“B-but I already got some—”

“Goodbye, Bill,” I grind out, and then I all but shove him out of my office and shut the door in his face.

I take a good, deep breath before turning back around. I double-checked with my therapist over the weekend, and she reminded me that it’s in for five, out for five. I don’t quite get there, but at least it’s something, and when I turn around, I do feel more grounded. Or maybe that’s because Bill is out of my line of sight. Either way, I’m seriously going to have to consider finding a new lawyer after this.

I sit down once again, and there are two seconds of silence before I can’t take it anymore. “You dated him?”

Junie bends over, covering her face with her hands and moaning. “I know. Ugh. It was a long time ago, okay?”

“I mean, how much older is he than you? Enough to be your dad?”

Junie turns scathing eyes on me. “He’s only twelve years older than me. And at the time, he was thirty-two and I was twenty so it wasn’t that weird.”

I splutter. “Twelve years? That’s huge. You might as well go out and buy him diapers. Keep a geriatric nurse on speed dial.”

She reaches over the desk and hits my arm. It’s a gesture that I would totally disapprove of from anyone else, especially in an office setting, but coming from Junie, here in my office, I don’t say anything.

“Twelve years is not a bad age gap,” she says. “Plenty of people do it, and plenty of people read age-gap romance and don’t find it icky, so, ha.”

“Age-gap romance?” She’s lost me.

She waves a hand. “Never mind. How old are you anyway? Seeing you two in here side by side, I would have assumed you were the same age.”

The same age? The same age? I scowl at her. “Bill is almost forty. I’m only thirty-one.”

She shrugs. “Still in the same decade, isn’t it?”

I’m about to give a full-blown lecture on how dissimilar those two ages are when I notice the tiniest twitch at the corner of Junie’s pink lips. She’s teasing me.

My scowl deepens, and suddenly I can’t be in the same room as her anymore. Not because I’m actually annoyed at her words or even the fact that she’s teasing me, it’s more the effect said teasing is having on my body. There’s an exhilarating thrill racing through me that I don’t like. I shouldn’t be feeling this way. Not right now and certainly not with her, my soon-to-be sort of fake secretary and my sister’s best friend.

I fold my arms, giving her what I know is my best disapproving look, but it doesn’t seem to faze her. It’s a clear indication that I should let go of this line of questioning, but I can’t.

“How long did you two date?”

“A few months, I think.”

“And you moved to Tennessee?”

Here, a smidge of something that looks an awful lot like guilt cracks her confident demeanor. “Oh, um, yeah.”

Interesting… “What part?”

“What part?”

“Of Tennessee. What part did you move to?”

“Oh, ha, um, Memphis.”

“Right, Memphis. Memphis is a great city. I love visiting the Zoo at Grassmere, the replica of the Parthenon, the Grand Ole Opry. Did you visit any of those?”

She nods quickly. “Y-yeah, those were great. I loved the Parthenon.”

I scratch my chin and step closer to her. “Right, yeah… Except all of those things are in Nashville, not Memphis.”

Junie’s normally fair skin flushes an attractive shade of pink. She claps her hands over her face and moans. “Okay, fine. You caught me! I didn’t move to Tennessee. I told Billy I was moving because it was easier than breaking up with him, okay?”

I don’t know why, but for some reason, this admission makes me that much more intrigued by Junie. She’s like a good mystery book. The more I read and discover, the more I want to find out where all these little threads of story will lead.

But that is definitely going too far. If anything, I need to shut the cover of this book once and for all and commit never to pick it up again.

Before I do something I’ll regret, I push away from my desk. “You have reading to do. I’ll give you some time to review the contract.”

“But what if I have questions? Should I ask Bill or—”

“You can direct any questions to me…or Bill.” I tack on the last part because it feels weird not to. He’s the lawyer after all, even though I hate the thought of letting him close to her again. I leave the room and shut the door.

I settle myself against the wall, arms folded, glaring at the room as a whole. Heads that were previously turned my way quickly duck back to their work. All heads, that is, except for Kiera’s and Bill’s. Kiera is pointedly turned in my direction at her desk, chin resting in hand, a satisfied smirk on her lips. Bill is hiding behind the open blinds of the break room, sipping coffee. We’re across the room from each other, but even from here, I can tell he’s not looking at me. He’s looking at my office. My jaw clenches, anger burning me through.

Not five minutes later, my office door opens, and Junie is standing there, contract in hand.

“I’m done,” she says. “Ready to sign.”

I straighten. “What?”

“I said I’m ready to sign it.”

I can already see Bill hurrying over, but before he gets close, I usher Junie back into the room and close the door. “What do you mean you’re ready to sign? You couldn’t have read the whole thing already.”

One of her shoulders lifts casually. “I got the gist of it.”

The gist?

“No, Junie, this is a contract. You should take it seriously. Did you even read it? Do you have any questions?”

“Nope.”

“The NDA, the relationship clause, the terms, the conditions?”

“It’s all copacetic.”

Copacetic?

I don’t know why, but for some reason, Junie’s flippant answers are suddenly making me doubt her ability to do this job. A small part of me starts to panic. This isn’t usually how I hire my employees. Under normal circumstances, Junie would go through an intense hiring process that would include much thinking, questioning, and comparison of her skills against the skills of other applicants.

This isn’t at all like that. This is…scary.

My mother’s unwanted words are in my head. The secretary is the face of the company. Junie might look the part, but will she be able to act it? Not to mention the fact that I’m counting on her to be able to weasel out any possible moles.

She said she had secretarial experience, and Kiera vouched for her, but what do I really know about her anyway?

My thoughts begin to spiral out of control, and I can’t go on with the contract until I’ve addressed them.

“Do you even want this job?” I ask, my voice gruff and grumbly.

Junie’s eyebrows shoot up. “What?”

“This job. Do you actually want it? Can I rely on you to do what needs to be done? Because if you’d rather go back to serving coffee, I can tear up the contract and we can forget this ever happened.”

Junie’s features settle into something resembling a storm cloud. I swear I hear the rumble of thunder in the distance.

Without another word Junie goes to my door and swings it open. I think she’s about to walk out of it forever, and I’m still not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but instead of walking away, she sticks her head out and yells across my entire office, “Oh, Billy! We’re ready for you!”

Junie steps back and folds her arms, sending me ice daggers with her eyes while we wait, but Bill’s big head butts into the office as if he’d been right outside the door this whole time.

“Did I hear someone say they’re ready to sign?”

“Indeed we are, Billy.”

“Excellent, June. Let’s all take a seat.”

Great. This is going to be a disaster. I’ve single-handedly dealt myself the future demise of my company, my reputation, and my sanity, to name a few things. I know I’m going to live to regret this day.

I also know, I’m getting a new lawyer.