Tess
When Teyana came over later that afternoon, she found me lying on the floor in Kendra’s closet. “It went that bad?”
I moved my arm from where it had been draped over my eye to look at her. “It didn’t go well.”
She nodded thoughtfully, likely trying to decide how much of my reaction to the meeting at SIC was real and how much was dramatics. “This position is a familiar one for me. I don’t usually do it in the closet though.”
“You’ve never had a closet big enough.”
“Good point. But was there a reason you chose the closet?”
I grimaced as I remembered how I’d arrived here. “I came in to choose something to wear for my next meeting. Then I started thinking about all the money I’m going to need to pay the dry-cleaning bill for all the outfits I’ve been borrowing, and I suddenly needed to lie down.”
Her eyes brightened at the hint of a “next meeting,” but like a good friend, she zoned in on the problem at hand. “Don’t dry-clean. Hang them back up, and don’t say a word.”
“I can’t be in a room with those people and not be nervous. And I sweat.”
“You’re saving on commute money, and we’ll cook instead of ordering out.”
“Fine,” I sighed. This was where I was being dramatic. I lived paycheck to paycheck, but I had non-essentials in my budget. “You’re right.”
“Mmhmm.” She gave me a superior smirk as she dropped her overnight bag and leaned her cane against the shelf.
“How are you feeling today?” I asked belatedly. It should have been my first question. A trip into the city was always exhausting for her, but she’d insisted on coming.
“Feeling pretty great, actually.”
“That makes me happy.”
She lived for these days, when her energy matched her ambition, and she got to “live” instead of just exist. We both knew she’d feel it tomorrow. It was a good thing she was spending the weekend with me instead of going back to Jersey City tonight.
“Hang on,” she said, squatting beside me. “Let me get down there with you, and you can tell me all about it.”
I waited until she was prone and comfortable to begin. Then I spent the next half hour detailing the entire morning, starting with finding Eden at the welcome desk and ending with Scott Sebastian leaving me wound up in the meeting room.
“I think after all that, I’d be lying on the floor in the closet too,” she said when I’d finished.
“You are lying on the floor in the closet too,” I pointed out.
My smile faded fast, though. Retelling the events had returned my focus to the mess I was in and the anxiety that sat like a medicine ball in my stomach. I let out a groan. “What am I going to do, Tey?”
She turned toward me, bringing her knees into her chest and propping her head up on her hand. “What do you want to do?”
“Well, I don’t want to get fired, but obviously that’s on the horizon.
” In some ways, accepting that made my decisions easier.
There was no reason to bail if I was going to face Kendra’s wrath no matter what.
“I guess what I want is to make sure SIC picks the Dysautonomia Relief Foundation as their charity. That’s the only good that can come out of this. ”
“That’s a bunch of baloney. There are other fantastic charities in your portfolio. Anything they pick will be for the good.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “I get what you’re doing, Teyana Lewis, managing my expectations and all. But I want it to be the DRF. I’m going to sell them the DRF.” Saying it that emphatically felt like making a promise. It was a promise I would work my ass off to keep.
“I hope you aren’t just doing that for me.” She blinked, obviously touched.
“Well. A little. But also for me. If I can sell the DRF, then maybe I can negotiate a better salary than the one Sarah previously offered. And I need to have a reason for them to hire me in case the offer has expired or something.”
“Ooh. Good call.”
A fraction of my anxiety lifted. I was sure I’d thought through the entire situation, inside and out, but I was grateful for the validation.
“I haven’t reached out to Sarah about proposing this yet either. Don’t want to get her hopes up. I’ll call her when SIC invites her for the consultation meeting.”
“Then you’ve decided what you’re doing. You got this. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.” When Teyana believed in me, it was so much easier to believe in myself.
Still, I wasn’t done freaking out. And with her here and on my side, I could now fully let myself worry. I sat up and twisted so I was facing her, my back against the shelves full of Kendra’s extensive assortment of purses. “But what if they don’t choose the DRF?”
“Then you sell them something else, and Sarah will still hire you. She’s said before she knows you’re going to accept eventually. She’s just waiting for you to know it too.”
Yes, I’d have a job somewhere. I supposed I wasn’t concerned about that. “What if Kendra shows up before the deal is done?”
She shrugged. “Then she finishes it up. She can’t walk away once it’s started.”
Humiliating, but survivable. “What if Scott calls Kendra and finds out I’m a sham before this really gets anywhere?”
Tey sat up for this one. “Number A,” she said, pointing a single finger. “She’s never going to answer her phone.” She put up a second finger. “Number B, same results as if she showed up. You go work for the DRF. This is a no-lose situation, baby.”
“But he could hate me,” I whispered.
“Scott? Yeah, I suppose there’s that.” Even Tey couldn’t spin that into a comforting lie.
I shook my head in self-irritation, the shelf digging into my neck as I did. It was ridiculous that I cared about what Scott Sebastian thought of me, but I did. More than I wanted to admit.
A beat passed before Tey spoke again. “Do you think he fucked Kendra?”
“Oh my God, I’m trying not to go there!” It was the thought I’d somehow managed to push off until now. Once invited, the image rushed into my head, graphic and disturbing.
“But you’re looking at the worst possibilities, right? Which means you need to go there. It’s irresponsible not to. So what if he did?”
I scowled at her, convinced the question was more about needling out my feelings than it was about responsibility.
“Then I’d be jealous,” I admitted. I was jealous just thinking about the possibility.
It was stupid because I hadn’t felt that way as much about Eden, who I knew had fucked around with Scott.
Probably because of Kendra. Because I knew her.
Because she always got what she wanted and never appreciated it.
God, what was wrong with me? The guy wasn’t even mine.
“I get it,” Tey said, as if she could read my thoughts. “Besides the icky feelings, what’s the worst thing that it would mean in terms of the job?”
Maybe I’d been wrong about her motives. Now that I thought about it, there was an advantage to asking this question. “It probably helps the situation, honestly. Typical Kendra, she’ll never talk to him again. I kind of think that’s his M.O. as well.”
“He does seem like the heartbreaker type.”
“You only know him from what I’ve told you.”
“You’ve painted a very clear picture.”
I attempted a laugh. It was hard to think there was a silver lining to the very real possibility that my boss had slept with the hottest man I’d ever met. A hot man who’d also shown interest in me. “He did hit on me again after our night together.”
She understood my concern. “But nothing actually happened. You’re different. You’re still the unknown.”
That was something else I hadn’t let myself think about—the sex that we didn’t have.
On the one hand, I was glad not to have missed something that was surely mind-blowing.
It also made it easier to keep this strictly business.
On the other hand, it made me feel like I didn’t actually own a thing that I’d thought I’d owned.
A thing that Kendra might have owned. Now I wanted to own it more than I did when I’d supposedly owned it.
“Is it a good thing or a bad thing that I didn’t sleep with him?” I asked, wanting to figure out how to feel about this bit of information.
“It’s neither,” Tey said matter-of-factly. “It’s just a thing. It’s why he won’t try to call Kendra, and why he will try to call you.” She paused before asking the question we both knew she needed to ask next. “What will you do when he tries to bed you again?”
Not if. When. She was that certain it would happen.
Why did I feel such an overwhelming adrenaline rush at the thought of it? “I don’t know the answer to that one, Tey.” I knew what I should do. But I also knew myself, knew just how weak I was around men like Scott Sebastian.
Tey looked at me with wide-eyed shock. “You can’t sleep with him, Tess! You absolutely cannot, no matter how much he makes your snatch tingle. That is not how you want this to go down.”
She let the lecture sink in, and when she spoke again it was less stern. “Look, you go in there, you pitch this deal, sign the contracts, seal up a job at the DRF. Then you can bang his brains out.”
He’d likely find out I was a fraud before then, which completely erased any possibility of the fantasy becoming reality.
Ignoring that fact, though, I nodded in agreement. “Sounds like a real good plan.”
“Are you ready for this?” Brett asked quietly as the team members arrived at the SIC conference room.
My heart pounded furiously as I considered my answer.
Sure, I was ready for this. My presentation was solid.
The PowerPoint was hooked up and ready to go.
My handouts were already placed around the table.
I had both a water bottle and a cup of coffee.
On top of that, I looked pretty damn good in the Oscar de la Renta printed blouse and pants I’d stolen from Kendra’s wardrobe.
But was I ready for this? Not fucking ready at all.
“My hands are so clammy, I’m afraid to shake anyone’s hands,” I said, which told him all he needed to know.
“Stay back here as they come in. I’ll intro you when they’re all seated, and there will be no need for shaking.” But he knew what I was really saying. “You’re going to be amazing, Tess. You got this.”