Twenty-One | Ethan
Twenty-One
Ethan
“What is that smell?” I asked Kate as I stopped at her desk and sniffed the air. It smelled like something was on fire.
“Um, toast,” she said quietly, glancing down the short hallway to Eva’s office. “Ms. Sanchez made toast this morning.”
I pulled my lips in, forcing myself to hold the laughter in. I tapped my knuckles against the top of Kate’s desk a few times and smiled before I walked down the hall. I was surprised that the fire alarm wasn’t going off, given that the closer I got to her office, the worse the smell was.
I stood outside her door and knocked lightly on it, pulling her attention away from the computer. On a plate beside her keyboard were two pieces of black toast.
“Morning,” I said as she looked up at me and then glanced down at the toast nervously.
“Good morning,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry about the smell, I made—”
“Toast,” I finished for her. “I thought I smelled your culinary skills from the elevator.”
She grimaced and looked down again at the burnt disaster in front of her.
“Is that your breakfast?” I nodded to it.
“Yeah. But I’ll probably save myself the embarrassment and just eat a granola bar. I think I still have one or two in my desk.” She pulled open the drawer to check and frowned when she couldn’t find any. “I guess there goes that option as well.”
I felt bad that I kept forgetting to replenish her stock from the one I swiped last week. It was on my to-do list with a million other things.
“How about we go to breakfast? I needed to talk to you this morning anyway. The least I can do is buy you something edible to eat.”
“Don’t you have meetings?” she asked. I could tell that she was hesitant to go.
“My first meeting isn’t until ten-thirty, and it’s with Brent. I wanted to talk with you about the Watson deal before he gets here. Plus, I owe you a granola bar, so until I can get you one, we’ll have to make do with actual breakfast.”
I waited for a minute as she sat there, staring at me without making any effort to get up. Shit, I must’ve pissed her off more than I thought.
“I’m not leaving until we go eat, and I’m starving, so...” I raised my eyebrows at her and shoved my hands into my pockets. She narrowed her eyes at me as she reached down, pulled her purse out of the drawer, and then stood up.
“Why do you owe me a granola bar?” she asked as she walked around the desk and stood next to me at the door.
“I might have stolen one while you were out sick.” I rocked back on my heels and smiled, hoping she would find it cute and that it wouldn’t piss her off even further.
After a minute, she pursed her lips and tilted her head to look up at me.
“I knew one was missing... and just for that, I’m ordering a side of pancakes with breakfast.” She turned and walked out of her office, swinging her purse up onto her shoulder as her ass swayed perfectly behind her.
I shook my head and laughed. We walked a few blocks to the diner on the corner and found a booth in the back. It was busy for a Thursday morning, and I needed to be able to talk to her without having to shout over everyone else. While I needed to talk to her about Brent, I really wanted to clear the air between us about Cora.
“Do you know what you want?” I asked, looking over the top of my menu to see her.
“Everything looks delicious,” she said as she looked at hers. “But I think I know what I’m getting.”
At that moment, the waitress came back and set our cups of coffee on the table before pulling out her notepad to take our order.
“What can I get you guys?” she asked, looking between us. I nodded to Eva, and she turned to her and waited.
“I’ll do the meat-lover skillet, but can I add onions and mushrooms?”
“Of course. Do you want toast or an English muffin?”
I felt Eva’s eyes dart to mine with a warning look for me not to say anything.
“I’ll have toast, please. On white bread. And a side of pancakes.”
“You got it,” she said before turning to me.
“I’ll do the same,” I replied, sliding my menu over next to Eva’s. The waitress grabbed both menus from the table and rushed off to put our order in.
“Trying something new?” I asked, fighting to keep my tone serious.
“What do you mean?” She frowned, clearly missing where I was going with the question.
“White toast?”
Her face pulled up into the cutest angry face I had ever seen.
“Ha, ha. Real funny,” she mocked as she wadded up a piece of her napkin and threw it at me. I ducked to the side, missing it before it hit the man behind me in the back of the head. He turned around and glared at us as he touched the spot where it had hit him. She clasped her hands over her mouth, and her eyes went wide in embarrassment.
“I’m so sorry about that, sir,” I offered, turning to the side to see him better. “However, I am a lawyer, so if you’d like to discuss damages or seek legal counsel, I would be willing to help—free of charge.” I winked playfully, only to receive an eye roll from him as he muttered under his breath about stupid kids before returning to his breakfast.
“You’re gonna get us kicked out of here,” I playfully warned, leaning closer to her across the table. “You better stop, or you’ll never know what white toast tastes like.” I leaned back and laughed, watching her shake her head at me.
“I’ve had real toast before,” she countered. “I just happen to burn it more often these days. Maybe there’s something wrong with the toaster in my office?”
I stopped and stared at her.
“What?” she exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air. “Maybe it’s not all my fault, maybe you have a faulty toaster... you know, I could seek legal counsel for that...”
“You found the toaster in your office?”
“Yeah,” she replied cautiously. “Why do I get the feeling you’re going to tell me something bad about it?”
I leaned my head back and laughed, trying to hide it behind the palm of my hand.
“You are the only person I know who would have the unfortunate fate of finding that fucking toaster.” I laughed even harder.
“Why? What’s wrong with it?” I could hear the slightest bit of panic in her voice. “Ethan! What’s wrong with the toaster?”
I waited a few minutes for my laughter to subside before I answered her.
“Nothing is wrong with it, other than that thing has been an omen of bad luck since I was a kid. It was the first gift that my grandma bought Garrett when he went off to college. He hated it and never used it, but because it was from my grandma, he kept it. When he started Roberts and Associates, he brought it with him and would have it out in his office when she would stop by. I don’t think that it has ever been used in all the years he’s had it, and honestly, I’m sure he finally just tossed it in one of the offices until it got shuffled around and made it to yours.”
“Well, then, I’m glad I yanked the plug out of the wall before it caught on fire,” she admitted.
“You did what?” Suddenly, the humor was gone.
“Yeah, it was smoking really bad, and I was worried that it was going to catch on fire. I tried pushing the lever to pop the toast back out, but it didn’t work, so I just pulled the plug out before it could catch on fire.”
I covered my face with my hands for a few seconds before looking at her.
“Promise me one thing?”
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Please don’t go near a toaster again for the rest of your life.”
She opened her mouth to say something at the same time the waitress came back with our food. She set everything down on the table in front of us and made sure we didn’t need anything before she walked off.
We were quiet for a few minutes while we ate, and neither of us bothered to stop to make small talk. The longer we went with the silence between us, the more I felt the pressure to talk to her about Cora. I waited until she had taken a bite before I started talking, hoping that it would be a good way for me to get out what I needed to say without any interruptions.
“I want to talk about what happened the other night,” I said abruptly. She looked up at me with an uneasiness on her face as she chewed the bite of pancakes she had just taken.
“I’m not going to get into the full details of what happened—mainly because I can’t, but also, I don’t imagine that you would care to hear them. However, Cora was a former employee of mine, and one night, while we were working late, we had sex.” I gulped and tried to ignore the hurt look that just flashed across her face.
“I wasn’t interested in a relationship, and I didn’t think she was either. Right after it happened, she started asking me for a promotion to a position that she wasn’t qualified for. When I told her no, she got upset and started making it hard for us to work together. I knew then that she wasn’t interested in a relationship. She simply wanted the promotion. To fix the problem, I asked Regina to transfer her to another department with a slight pay increase. She refused the position and became a nuisance. We relieved her of her position, and at my recommendation, we gave her a severance package.”
I paused for a moment to gather my thoughts as I tried to push the anger away.
“This all happened five months ago. I hadn’t heard anything from her until a few weeks ago when I received the paperwork that she had filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against me. Our legal team has been handling everything, and I haven’t had any contact with her. Regina insisted that from here on out, I don’t take any meetings with female clients or employees unless I have you in the room with me,” I explained. “That’s why I didn’t want you to leave when she was there. I needed you to be there as my witness that nothing happened in case she decided to add more to her false accusations.”
Eva set her fork down on the table beside her plate and leaned back. Calmly, she looked up at me, but I couldn’t read the expression on her face.
“Did you get her pregnant?” she asked quietly.
“I have no fucking idea. I used a condom, so I am leaning toward no. But stranger shit has happened.”
“What are you going to do if the baby is yours?”
“I haven’t really thought about that. I guess I just feel so confident that it isn’t mine that I haven’t jumped down that rabbit hole. Garrett is looking into options for requesting a paternity test, but we’re also waiting on a few other things first. As of now, the lawsuit is only seeking payment for sexual harassment and for being terminated due to it. It doesn’t mention anything about requesting child support, but that doesn’t mean that she won’t try that route.”
“I’m sorry that I didn’t allow you to tell me your side of what happened. I freaked out, and I shouldn’t have.”
“You don’t need to apologize. I probably would have reacted the same way, especially given everything you have going on with your sister. I would have told you about it, but honestly, I was hoping it would just be resolved, and I wouldn’t have to deal with her again. I’ve also been instructed not to speak about it, which made it even more complicated.”
“I have to admit,” she said softly, “I don’t know how to take all of this. I mean, what you and I are doing really isn’t that different than what you guys were doing.”
Her face fell as she turned to look away.
“Eva, what you and I are doing is nothing like what happened with Cora. She was a quick stress reliever—as terrible as that sounds. But she knew what she was doing when she initiated it and confirmed that she only wanted a one-time thing. With you, things are completely different.”
“How so?”
“Because with you, I know that I should stay away and leave you alone, but I can’t. There’s this physical attraction that is so intense that my body knows when you’re close by. You’re incredibly smart and sexy, and you're possibly the only person I know who can burn toast, but I find all of that so mesmerizing. I’m not the kind of guy who has ever done the whole committed relationship thing, but yet I find myself wanting that with you.” I blew out a heavy sigh. “And now, because of this fucking lawsuit, I can’t do anything about it. I can’t be with the one person who I want to be with, even if it’s just baby steps toward a relationship.”
A beautiful smile pulled across her face as she leaned forward and reached across the table to hold my hand.
“You surprise me, Ethan. But I want to be with you too. Even if you judge my culinary abilities.”
She laughed, and I felt the tension start to ease from my shoulders.
“I understand that this lawsuit puts a hindrance on what we’ve been doing. Do you think it would help if we talked to Regina and let her know what’s going on? Then we wouldn’t have to hide it or worry about anyone finding out.” I could see the hope in her eyes, and I didn’t want to be the one who killed it.
“Unfortunately, I think it would only make it worse if we told anyone. I’m being sued by a former employee who claims that I sexually harassed her. I don’t think it’s going to look good if, not even six months later, I’m dating another employee. It could cost me my reputation, and I just can’t risk that.”
“I get it,” she said, slowly pulling her hand away from mine.
Fuck. This wasn’t how I wanted this to go.
“I’m not trying to hurt you,” I blew out.
I knew that coming clean and talking things through with Eva would be complicated. Not because she was hard to talk to but because I had somehow created this ridiculous mess that she was now being dragged into. Even if we didn’t tell anyone about us, it wasn’t fair to her to ask her to be in a relationship with me that we had to keep hidden.
“Please, Eva,” I begged, trying to get the hurt look off of her face.
“I think you’ve said everything you needed to say. Thank you for breakfast.” She pushed her food away and stood up, not bothering to look at me as she grabbed her things and walked away.