50. Derek
CHAPTER 50
DEREK
T he muffled sound of a heated argument greets me before I get back to my office. Jansen’s door is closed, but it’s not enough to hide the fact that it’s he and Ana who are arguing.
I knock once as I open the door, then quickly close it behind me. I raise my voice to interrupt the both of them. “What’s going on?”
After glancing my way, Ana glares at Jansen, as if expecting him to explain. She should know better, and it doesn’t take long for her to realize he’s not going to speak.
“He fired Owen!”
“What? Why?” I look at both of them, expecting Ana to be the one to elaborate, but Jansen’s fired up.
“He was fucking hitting on her.”
“What? What did he say to you, Ana? Are you okay? ”
She waves her hand dismissively in Jansen’s direction. “Don’t make it sound like the man was harassing me. He simply asked me out to dinner, then you burst in and fired him.”
I don’t like the sound of that, and I must be scowling, because Ana turns her ire on me. “And you, don’t stand there looking like you think what Jansen did was justified. He’s a good employee, and it was unacceptable to treat him that way.”
“What did you say to him?” I ask her.
“Who, Owen? That’s completely beside the point. The point is that Jansen fired him for no good reason!”
When she mentions Owen’s name, I picture him taking her out, and my gut floods with acid. “Seems like a good reason to me.”
“Are you kidding me?! You can’t be serious.”
“You can’t go out with him, Ana.” Jansen says aloud what I was thinking, but wasn’t about to say, because Ana’s not having it.
“You can’t control me.” She’s no longer yelling. Instead, her voice is eerily calm. “I don’t belong to you just because we’ve been sleeping together.”
She turns to leave, but I grab her arm. “You’re ours, and only ours. What makes Owen even think he has a chance with you? Are you interested in him?”
“In case you forget, what we’ve been doing—” She gestures between the three of us with her finger. “—is a secret. He was talking to me about mystery gifts I’ve been receiving—I thought they might have been from him—and then he asked me out.”
She shakes herself free of my grip, and turns back toward Jansen. “Go apologize to Owen and tell him you made a mistake.”
My partner stares back at her, unyielding. When she turns to me, I probably look much the same. Maybe Owen didn’t deserve to be fired, but I’m not going to undermine Jansen.
Ana lets out a harsh sigh and shakes her head. “Unreal. Truly. You know what? I never thought I’d be someone who would do this—I was fully planning to hire and train my replacement—but with the two of you acting like you are, telling me what to do, and undermining the work I’ve done for you—I’m done here.
“I’ve worked so hard to help you grow the staff and hang onto employees longer, and you march right out there today and fire a quality employee for no reason. How do you think that’s going to affect morale once everyone else hears about it?
“Nothing could have made it more clear that you don’t respect the work I’ve done for you. I never should’ve come to work here, because we all know why I was hired, and it wasn’t for my HR experience. ”
“That’s not fair, Ana,” I interject.
“Fair? You’re really going to talk to me about what’s fair?” Her laugh is bitter as she heads for the door. “I’m done. I’m leaving.”
And she goes.