Chapter 25
Haylee trembled. She held the business card, flipping it back and forth between her fingers, the sharp edges of the thick paper pressing into her skin. She kept glancing at Cherish, who wouldn’t stop looking at her with a curious glance.
Did she know?
Did she understand what Haylee was thinking?
What she was planning?
Biting her lip, Haylee sucked in a sharp breath and shoved the business card into her pocket. Febe was going to kill her. Dead as a doornail. Haylee stood up and grabbed her jacket off the hook.
“I’m going to snag lunch.”
“Okay?” Cherish paused her furious typing, her beautiful blue eyes locking on Haylee’s. She brushed her red hair behind her ear and tilted her head to the side, as if that would convince Haylee to answer the question she wasn’t asking. “We could go together.”
Haylee ground her molars. What was she supposed to say to that? Any other day, she’d jump at the opportunity for some one-on-one time with Cherish, but that had been happening so much lately. And it needed to stop. Relationships never lasted, and Haylee was hopefully about to throw a wrench into this one that would be the biggest benefit that she’d ever had in life. Because this wasn’t about a job anymore. It was about helping veteran families, and if Febe wasn’t going to allow Haylee to accomplish that, then she would find someone who would.
And that person was hopefully the one who had given her this card.
“Not today,” Haylee answered, cold rushing through her. Guilt punched her gut hard when she saw Cherish’s disappointment. “I need to talk to Jackson.”
“Oh. Okay.” Cherish clenched her fingers into a fist before she rubbed two of her fingers against her right temple.
Did she have another migraine already? She’d been having a lot of those lately. Sure enough, Cherish reached into her desk and pulled out the stark white bottle with pills in it. She dry-swallowed two of them before plopping the container back into the drawer. Haylee hated that she had to take so much of that. It wasn’t good for her body, but neither were the headaches.
Haylee zipped up her jacket and nodded her head, guilt still eating away at her. “See you in an hour.”
“Sure.” Cherish’s voice was so soft that if Haylee hadn’t been facing her, she probably wouldn’t have heard her.
What the hell was she doing?
Before she could second-guess herself, Haylee walked out of the main office to the elevator. The business card burned a hole in her pocket, and she wasn’t sure she was making the right decision. Still, if Febe was going to shut her down at every attempt, then what was she supposed to do? She didn’t want to be a glorified secretary forever, and she’d started to think that was all she was here. She wanted to be valued. That was something she couldn’t give up on, and she needed a place of employment that gave a crap about her.
Cherish cared about her.
Haylee cringed.
She had to stop thinking like that. Yes, Cherish cared, and that was only going to lead them down a road that wasn’t good for either one of them. She’d won the bet with Cherish, and yet Cherish had failed to help her get her point across with Febe. Everyone was a disappointment, Haylee first and foremost.
The lobby was abustle with people who were going to and coming from their midday meal. Haylee had nowhere to go, and she had no money to pay for any food. Plopping her butt onto one of the benches in the front lobby she pulled the business card out of her pocket.
Allegra Ilic.
Her number was printed in a clear font. Normally Haylee would have sent an email, but this was too important for that. And Allegra had told her at the gala to call if she needed something or if she wanted to talk about what they did at the foundation. Haylee bit her lip hard.
This could be her make-or-break moment.
Febe had told her no twice, and she didn’t want to ask a third time.
It wasn’t worth the anxiety or the pain to force herself through that.
Typing the number into her cellphone, Haylee crossed one leg over the other as she pressed the phone to her ear. The first ring. She put both her feet flat on the floor. The second ring. She crossed her legs again. The third ring her toes were bouncing against the floor, energy sucking from everything around her straight into her chest. She couldn’t hold it.
“This is Allegra Ilic.”
Haylee’s voice caught in her throat. Fuck. She needed to speak. “Uh…hi. This is Haylee Coleman. I work for Febe Aarts as her second personal assistant.”
“Right.” Allegra didn’t sound all that interested.
Cringing, Haylee knew she had to get her shit together immediately. “I was wondering if you had time for me to set up a meeting with you soon.”
“Is this for Ms. Aarts?” Allegra sounded distracted. Haylee could hear typing through the phone line, rustling of papers, voices in the background. Where was she?
“No. No, this would be a personal meeting for myself.”
“Oh.” That was definite curiosity.
Allegra’s voice had this strong quality to it that Haylee reveled in. She wanted to be that person already. She wanted to know what she was doing and be confident in her decisions. She needed to know that she was worth something. That she was worth her passion.
“I was hoping to talk to you about an idea I had, and if you know of anywhere that would be receptive to perhaps working with me on it.”
“Okay.” Allegra paused, the tension this time a sweet one. “I have time next week on Thursday morning. I can meet you there.”
“No.” Haylee’s voice was firm. “No, I can meet you at your office. I think that would work better.”
Was she really doing this? Haylee vibrated from the excitement she tried to contain, the excitement that mixed unpleasantly with anxiety.
“What time?” Haylee asked.
“Ten-thirty work for you?”
“I’ll make it work.” Haylee repeated the time to memorize it. She couldn’t forget this meeting. Allegra was doing a huge favor by fitting her into her schedule so quickly.
“Do you mind giving me a hint about what this project is?”
“Um…” Haylee sucked in a deep breath and glanced around. Was Febe lurking somewhere in the corners? Ready to spring out for betraying her? Because that’s what Febe would see this as. More importantly, that was exactly how Cherish would view this. Simple betrayal and disloyalty. “I’d rather wait until Thursday, but I do believe that it’s something that can combine a lot of the work you already do and perhaps some of what Ms. Aarts does.”
“Have you spoken with Febe about this?”
“Yes.” Well, that wasn’t a lie. She had. Now she just had to hope that Allegra didn’t ask what Febe’s response had been. “I’ve spoken with Ms. Aarts several times on the matter.”
“You’ll have to fill me in on what her thoughts are.”
Right. Haylee would get right on that, but at least Allegra was giving her a week to figure out what exactly to say and how to weave her way around that landmine.
“I’m looking forward to meeting with you, Haylee. And potentially working with you. See you Thursday.” Allegra hung up before Haylee could say anything else.
That had been painless. Shockingly so. Allegra must have been busy with something because she wasn’t someone who normally seemed to cut off calls like that. Haylee would know, she’d talked to her several times on the phone for Febe’s sake. Haylee wanted to stand up and pump her fist in victory, but this was only one step.
Cherish had told her that she needed to have passion that was visible about this project, and she wasn’t going to fuck that up with Allegra like she had with Febe. All her chances with Febe had been spent, but she had to make this work. Rubbing her palms together in a pitiful attempt to tame the energy running through her, Haylee blew out a breath.
She had to call Jackson.
Then at least she wouldn’t be lying to Cherish about why she’d insisted on taking her lunch break alone that day.
Jackson, thankfully, picked up on the second ring.
“You know I hate keeping secrets,” Haylee started.
“So don’t.” Jackson’s flippant response wasn’t what she needed.
Haylee snorted. “Don’t exactly have a choice in this one.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You got time? Or do you have to run off to something?” Haylee chewed on her thumbnail, a nervous habit that she thought she’d broken. It had been a while since she’d done it at least. Hadn’t it? Cherish would scold her for it if she saw Haylee doing it no doubt. Just like Haylee would scold her for taking so much medication to help her never-ending trail of headaches.
“Haylee.” Jackson’s voice was firm.
“What?”
“You went quiet.”
“Did I?” Haylee looked around the lobby, people still coming and going, though the numbers were slimmer now. She probably only had twenty minutes max before Cherish came down for her lunch. She bit her thumbnail again. “Do you have time?”
“I said I did. Jesus, you weren’t paying any attention, were you? What’s going on? You’ve got me worried now.” The noise on the other end of the phone stopped, which meant she had Jackson’s full attention.
Haylee wasn’t sure that she wanted that. Having his full attention meant it would be harder to avoid his prying questions. Why had she called him again? Oh, right, so she wasn’t a liar.
“Don’t worry,” Haylee answered in her best calm voice that she could manage. “Everything is fine.”
“You’re calling me in the middle of the workday to ask if I have time to talk. That’s not fine.”
Haylee wrinkled her nose and leaned back, stretching the muscles. “I’ve just got some drama at work.”
“What drama?”
“I set up a meeting with the executive director of that foundation we had the gala for the other week. I’m going to talk to her about my idea to help veteran families.” Haylee nervously ran her thumb over her fingertips. The sensation centered her. Thankfully.
“I thought you were going to work with Cherish on that.”
“I was, but she’s not as helpful as I thought she would be. And, well, I won the bet, and she hasn’t followed through on it.”
“Wait. What bet?”
Haylee shouldn’t have said that. Now she was going to have to explain everything to him. “Ugh. Okay, so this gala was a big deal, I didn’t know why, but it was. It was stressing everyone out, so Cherish and I made a deal that if we could get to the gala and through it without incident, which we did, that she would help me pitch my idea to Febe.”
“And she hasn’t done that?”
“No.” Haylee frowned. It wasn’t like Cherish not to follow through, but the few times they’d attempted to even talk about it, they had ended up sideways. Not that she wanted to tell her brother that.
“Oh my God. Did you sleep with her?”
“What?” Haylee choked out the word, her cheeks instantly heating with embarrassment.
“You did. I can’t believe you. You work with her.”
Well, that wasn’t a first, not that Jackson needed to know that. And it probably wouldn’t be a last either. Work was one of the most common ways to meet someone, since they all spent the majority of their time there. But she also wasn’t going to have that argument with him.
“It’s none of your business.”
“It damn sure is, especially when you get fired over it. And then this plan to go behind her back to find another job? You’re such an idiot sometimes. This is going to get you fired in two seconds flat.”
“It’s not!” Why was he always so good at saying her fears out loud? Damn him for being so astute sometimes. “It’ll be fine. No one knows. I don’t have to quit my job in order to make this happen. But, Jackson, I can’t give this up. You know I can’t.”
The silence was deafening.
Haylee wished he would say something, anything, so that she would know he was still there and ultimately that he was rooting for her through all of this.
Jackson finally scoffed. “I can’t believe you sometimes.”
“I’ve thought this through.”
“Have you? Where are you living, Haylee? Hmm? Who paid your phone bill this month?”
She didn’t want to answer him. She didn’t have to because they both knew who had paid it. He had. And it was so she could still have these frustrating conversations with him and so their parents wouldn’t skin her alive if they couldn’t get hold of her whenever they needed to.
“I won’t get fired over this.”
“You don’t know that. And you need the job.”
“I know I need the job!” Haylee’s voice rose too loudly. She winced as it echoed through the lobby. She really shouldn’t be having this conversation here, but where else was she supposed to do it? Everywhere she went there were other people. Couch surfing was not made for privacy seekers. “I won’t lose my job, okay? And I’ll pay you back for the phone bill.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Jackson sighed heavily, his voice dropping as if resigned to the situation. “I just want you to think things through before you jump to the next thing. That’s what got you into so much trouble in the first place.”
“I’ve had this job for almost a year now. Can’t you trust me?” She knew she shouldn’t have asked the question, because his answer was going to be no. He didn’t trust her to keep the job. Hell, she didn’t trust herself to keep it either.
She also knew he was right.
Talking to Allegra put everything at risk.
“Listen, I’ve got to go. My lunch break is up.”
“Just be careful, Haylee. I don’t want you to end up in a worse spot than you’re already in.”
“I’ll try,” she answered.
“I love you, Stinker.”
She smiled at the familiar nickname from childhood. “Love you too, Jackjack.”
Hanging up, Haylee rolled her shoulders, but the stress wouldn’t back off. She didn’t have another choice now. She had to make this work. She couldn’t fail. She couldn’t let Cherish be the be-all and end-all of her life. Not now. Not when she was so close to getting everything that she wanted. When she was about to make something good happen for people who truly deserved it.
“He’s wrong,” Haylee mumbled to herself. “I can do this. I will.”