7. Seven #2
Olivia opened her mouth, but I sent her an almost-imperceptible shake of my head to stop her.
It wasn’t worth it. If Olivia kept harping on Kyla, the manager was going to make life more difficult for me.
I did not want to be everybody’s least favorite nepotism baby.
That wouldn’t end well for any of us. Instead, I managed a smile.
“Thanks so much for your time, Kyla. I greatly appreciate getting those matters cleared up.”
“Yes, it was enlightening,” Kyla readily agreed, flipping her red hair over her shoulder. She was a tiny woman—as if she was always too angry to eat—but she came across as formidable. “If that’s all?” She flashed a flat smile in Olivia’s direction.
As for my best friend, she looked torn. It was obvious that she wanted to push the issue further. Since I didn’t, however, she backed off. “I’ll have to stop in more often,” Olivia said instead. “I forgot how much I love the ambiance here.”
The ambiance could best be described as modern pit lizard, but I smiled in return. “Yes, that will be fun.” I waited until Kyla walked—more like stormed—away. “You can’t always swoop in and save me,” I said to Olivia when she was gone. “That’s just going to make her more unhappy.”
Olivia didn’t look as if she cared. “I don’t like her attitude.”
“Her attitude is because she believes I walked in here and stole a job that belonged to her sister.”
Olivia snorted. “She doesn’t make that decision.”
“She doesn’t feel I worked for this. It’s okay. I honestly don’t blame her for thinking that.”
“Well, I blame her.” Olivia’s fury was a thing of beauty. “I’m going to talk to Zach.”
“Don’t,” I pleaded, shaking my head. “Just let it go.”
“Except there’s a complaint in there from some random employee.”
“Yeah, that was weird.” I took a moment to consider it.
“Have you fought with anybody since you got here?”
My knee-jerk response was Ronan. He and I had sniped at each other multiple times before the incident in the storage room. Immediately, I wanted to discard the notion. He wouldn’t do that. And yet…
“What are you thinking?” Olivia demanded. She looked as if she were about to start breathing fire out of her nose. “Who is it?”
I hesitated, but only for a moment. “Ronan wasn’t happy about me being here. Maybe it was him.”
“Do you really think he would do that?”
I held my hands palms out. “I don’t think it’s beyond his scope.
” Especially since he was outed because of your big mouth, my inner voice reminded me.
Was this payback for that? It was frustrating to think about.
I’d done my best to mitigate things. What if he wasn’t satisfied? What if he was out for revenge?
“I can talk to him,” Olivia offered. “I’ll find out if it was him.” She seemed determined, which worried me.
“Don’t.” I was firm. “If you go over there and throw down with him, you could get in trouble.”
Olivia balked. “Not that I want to use that whole ‘married to the boss’ thing, but, um, I’m married to the boss.”
“Which means you could be opening Zach up to a lawsuit if you accuse Ronan of something, whether he did it or not. You heard Kyla.” I was blasé as I absorbed the endless possibilities. “There’s a policy in place that promises no retaliation for anonymous complaints.”
Maybe that was his plan, I mused. Maybe he intended to tick somebody off to the point where they did something to him and he could get a settlement.
He’d said he needed money. Perhaps, because of our past, he’d decided I was the exact right employee to further his agenda. Had I been wrong about him?
“I know you and Ronan have a complicated history,” Olivia hedged. “He always seemed like a nice guy to me. Well, despite the whole ‘I’m a billionaire’s son and you will kneel before me’ thing,” she added, almost as an afterthought.
I snorted. “Isn’t that enough reason to hate him?”
“I don’t know. He was always so quiet. He wasn’t like Zach, who was always looking for attention back then. He did his own thing.”
“Just because he was shy doesn’t mean he was a good person,” I fired back.
“Also, let’s not forget, he stood me up for prom.
” Even saying it made me uncomfortable. I wasn’t a “pick me,” and I didn’t want people feeling sorry for me.
That didn’t change the fact that I harbored a great deal of pitiful feelings regarding Ronan’s behavior.
“I could never forget that.” Olivia looked fierce. “Maybe I should tell Zach to fire him.” She was talking to herself more than me, but I responded anyway.
“Absolutely not.” I was vehement when shaking my head. “If you fire him and he made the complaint, then you’ll be playing right into his hands. You do not want to hurt Zach that way, given everything he’s going through—still—with his father.”
Olivia looked momentarily sad. “Why couldn’t they just keep Ryder in prison?”
“Because money talks.” It was the truth.
“What if Ronan tries to cause more trouble for you, though?” She couldn’t let it go. “Things could get ugly.”
“They could get ugly,” I readily agreed. “Just … leave Ronan to me, huh? I can handle him.”
Olivia didn’t look convinced. “I don’t want you getting in over your head.”
I didn’t want that either. “It will be fine,” I assured her. “Trust me.”
I could handle Ronan Hawthorne. I’d learned a lot since I was a teenager, and he’d crushed my heart. I wasn’t afraid of him—or anybody, really—now. If he wanted to play games, we would play games.
This time, I would be the winner.