Chapter 34
DANE
Imarched down the hall toward the conference room, and when people saw me coming, they walked in the opposite direction. My prickly mood had become a topic of conversation throughout the office, but maybe that was for the best.
I sat in the conference room with Norma and two board members. Alex and Patricia, both of whom had been with Cupid’s Arrow since we way back. Both looked extremely unhappy to be here.
The feeling was mutual. I leaned back in my chair, my gaze drifting to the windows and beyond. It was raining, which seemed perfect for the gray clouds over my heart.
It had been twenty-four hours since Ina walked away. I was still fighting for her and myself. For us. It was a losing battle, but I had to try.
“Let me make sure I understand this correctly,” Patricia said, her voice crisp and professional with a touch of irritation. “You’ve been in a relationship with your executive assistant. A woman who reports directly to you. A woman whose salary you determine and career trajectory you control.”
I leaned forward and clasped my hands on the table. “You can just say executive assistant. And that’s an oversimplification.”
“Is it?” Alex matched my posture. “Because from where I’m sitting, this is a textbook case of inappropriate workplace conduct. The kind of thing that opens us up to lawsuits, bad press, and serious questions about leadership judgment.”
“It was part of the Valentine’s campaign,” I said. “It was Heidi and Lucas’s idea. The fake dating for publicity. It got out of hand, but it was always meant to be temporary.”
“So it was fake?” Patricia cut in.
I hesitated, and in that hesitation, I saw them both pounce.
“If it was fake, why are we having this meeting?” Alex asked. “Why are you considering restructuring options if it was just a marketing stunt?”
“Like I said, it got out of hand. I had to pivot.” I met his gaze evenly.
Patricia pulled up something on her tablet.
“Either you were in a real relationship with your subordinate, which is a violation of company policy and potentially a legal liability. Or you were pretending to be in a relationship for marketing purposes, which could be seen as manipulative and potentially fraudulent. Either way, we have a problem.”
“It’s not a problem,” I said with a sigh.
“You’re a grown man, not a teenager,” Alex growled.
The guy was in his late sixties and that was the only reason I was letting him get away with speaking to me like I was a child.
“You had opportunities to stop this before it became a problem. You could have moved her to another department. But you didn’t. ”
“I know. That’s why I’m pivoting.” I shrugged.
Alex pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “Please stop saying pivot.”
“The question now is what we do about it,” Patricia said. “And frankly, the easiest solution is to let Ms. Lavin go.”
“No.” The word exploded out of me. “Absolutely not. She did nothing wrong.”
“Dane, I think you need to be reasonable,” Patricia said.
“If anyone is getting reprimanded, it should be me.” I tapped my fingers on the table. “And possibly Heidi for pushing this campaign in the first place. Probably the board, too, for missing such an obvious violation of company policy. Are you meeting with them next?”
Alex shook his head. “They weren’t dipping their pen in the company ink.”
I wrinkled my nose at him. “Now who’s being inappropriate?”
“Still you,” Patricia said.
“Well, be that as it may, Ina did nothing wrong,” I insisted. “She’s an excellent employee who happened to be put in an impossible situation by her boss’s poor judgment.”
“That’s very noble,” Patricia said dryly. “But it doesn’t solve our problem. We have an employee who was in a romantic relationship with the CEO. The optics are terrible.”
“I don’t care about optics.”
“Well, you should.” Alex’s voice was cold. “Because we do. The board has a responsibility to shareholders. And if this becomes public—if there’s even a whisper that the CEO was playing favorites with someone he was sleeping with—people will want answers. Investors will lose confidence.”
“Then we’ll deal with it,” I said. “But firing Ina won’t protect the stock price.”
“This isn’t a request, Dane.” Patricia’s voice was ice. “The board has the authority to make these decisions.”
“I own fifty-one percent of this company.”
“Of a public company,” Alex corrected. “Which means you have a board of directors who have a fiduciary duty to all shareholders. And if we determine that your personal life is affecting your judgment to the detriment of the company, we can vote to remove you as CEO.”
I was about sick of that threat.
“Look, we’re not trying to be the bad guys here. We’re trying to protect the company you built. But you need to understand the position you’ve put us in. You need to understand what’s at stake.”
I looked at Norma, who had been silent through most of the meeting.
“Dane didn’t admit to actually dating Ms. Lavin,” Norma said. “He said it stopped being just for show. That could mean anything—that they became friends, that the lines blurred, that there was chemistry but no actual relationship. Right, Dane?”
She was giving me an out.
All I had to do was lie.
Again.
But I was so fucking tired of lying.
“No,” I said. “We were actually together. We are together.” I looked directly at Patricia, then Alex. “Heidi’s campaign worked so well that I fell in love with my assistant. Which, if you think about it, is exactly the point of Cupid’s Arrow. Finding connection in unexpected places.”
“That’s a lovely sentiment,” Patricia said. “But it doesn’t change the facts.”
“You’re not firing Ina,” I said and I used my big boy voice that meant I wasn’t messing around. “Because she did nothing wrong except have the misfortune of working for someone who fell in love with her.”
The tension in the room was suffocating.
Norma cleared her throat. “I might have a solution.”
Everyone turned to look at her.
“The matchmaking department,” she said. “We’ve been talking about separating it from IT, giving it its own budget and leadership.”
“What does that have to do with this situation?” Patricia asked.
“Ina would be perfect to run it.” Norma pulled up something on her laptop. “She knows the company inside and out. She knows the matchmakers. She understands the business and the mission. She has the organizational skills to build a department from scratch.”
“You want to give her a promotion?” Alex’s voice was incredulous. His face was so red I was worried he would blow a gasket. “After all this?”
“I want to give her a job she’s qualified for,” Norma corrected.
“A job that removes any conflict of interest because she’d no longer be reporting to Dane.
It’s a job we need to fill. It makes sense to hire someone who can hit the ground running.
She’d be a department head, same level as Heidi and Lucas and Henry.
Completely separate from the CEO’s office. ”
I could see where she was going with this, and a small spark of hope flickered in my chest.
“That’s still a conflict of interest,” Patricia said. “She’s dating the CEO.”
“According to company policy, dating between employees in different departments is permitted as long as it’s disclosed to HR and doesn’t affect business decisions,” Norma said. “We have three couples currently working here who are in different departments. It’s not unusual.”
“Those couples aren’t dating the CEO,” Alex pointed out.
“No, but if Ina is a department head and not Dane’s direct supervisor, the power dynamic is significantly different. She’d have her own team. Yes, Dane is the CEO, but there is nothing in the bylaws that says it’s against policy.”
Patricia and Alex exchanged a long look.
“It’s not perfect,” Alex said finally. “But it’s better than the current situation.”
“I’ll certainly sleep better at night with that arrangement,” Patricia said. “But we’ll be watching closely. Any sign that this relationship is affecting business decisions and we revisit this conversation. Are we clear?”
“Crystal clear,” I said. “Norma, open the position. Post it internally. If Ms. Lavin applies and is the best candidate, offer it to her.”
“Dane, you don’t get to be involved in the hiring decision,” Alex said. “Norma handles it.”
“How about you back the fuck off, Alex? You’ve already gotten everything you asked for.” I smiled at him. “With respect.”
He grumbled under his breath but didn’t say anything, just gathered up his stuff and left with Patricia. When they were gone, I sank back into my chair and took a deep breath.
“That could have gone worse,” Norma said. “I think Alex is taking a shine to you.”
“Really?”
She laughed. “No.”
I sighed. “Well, I don’t think the job matters. Ina quit.” The word came out hollow.
Norma went very still. “What?”
“She told me she’s done. I told you she wasn’t going to wait around for a stupid investigation. So your solution doesn’t matter because she’s not going to take the job.”
“Oh, wow.” Norma nodded, impressed. “Good for her.” I shot her a look and she held up her hands. “I just mean, that woman has some stones on her, walking away from a job like this because she didn’t want to deal with all our bullshit. She might be the smartest employee we have.”
“Had.” I spun in my chair, looking up at the gray ceiling. “It’s no longer a conflict of interest because we’re no longer together. That’s what I should have told them, right? That’s what would have made this easier?”
“You told them the truth.” Norma’s voice was calm. “That also took courage.”
“Open the position. Offer it to her. Let her decide what she wants to do. I’ll stay out of it.”
Norma nodded. “I’ll make it so.”
She left, and I sat there alone in the conference room, staring at nothing. My eyes felt gritty after not sleeping the night before. I was twisted up inside.
And I knew I had already lost her.
I went back to my office and found Keith waiting by my desk. He was the last person I wanted to see. His meddling had torpedoed my entire life. We had been friends for years, but I wasn’t feeling too friendly to him right then.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
I couldn’t tell if he was genuinely concerned or just being nosy. “No, Keith. Everything is not okay. And you’re a big reason why.”
“Hey, I was trying to help.”
“You were mad Ina liked me instead of you,” I said, shaking my head. “You wanted to cause problems for us over some high school jealousy, and I’m having a hard time remembering why I ever put up with your bull shit in the first place.”
“That’s not true,” he said. “I wasn’t jealous of that nobody.”
I nodded toward the door. “Get out of my office.”
“Dane, you know I’m only looking out for you. You were all twisted up over that woman.”
“Twisted up?” I repeated, my voice dangerously low. “You think I’m twisted up?”
“Yeah, I do. Look at you. You’re a mess. You haven’t slept. You’re making terrible decisions. All because of some chick. There are millions of women out there. You don’t need that one.”
“Don’t you dare.”
Keith held up his hands. “I’m just saying, if you’d been honest with her from the beginning instead of playing games, maybe this wouldn’t have blown up in your face.”
“You’re right,” I said, and watched surprise flicker across his face. “I should have been honest. I should have told her how I felt instead of trying to protect myself. I should have trusted her instead of panicking when you showed up threatening to destroy everything.”
“I wasn’t threatening to destroy anything.” Keith smiled like I might still believe him. “I was trying to save you from yourself.”
“Bull fucking shit.” I came around the desk. “You were jealous and it made you petty.”
“So what if I was? She’s attractive. I would have taken her to dinner, shown her a good time.”
“You couldn’t even get her name right!” The words exploded out of me. “You called her Ava. Multiple times. You were only interested in her for one thing, and we both know what that is.”
Keith’s jaw tightened. “That’s not fair.”
“It’s completely fair. You’ve never respected any woman in this office.
You see them as conquests, not people. And when I instituted the no-dating policy because HR was drowning in complaints about your behavior, you got pissed.
This isn’t about protecting me or the company.
This is about you being angry that you can’t have what you want. ”
“You’re delusional.” He scoffed.
“Am I? Because from where I’m standing, you saw that I cared about someone and you decided to blow it up. You couldn’t stand that I was happy. You were pissed I found something real while you’re still getting rejected by most of the women in this city.”
Keith took a step toward me, his hands clenched into fists. I mirrored his movement, my own anger making my vision narrow.
“Okay, that’s enough!” Lucas appeared between us, physically pushing us apart with his hands on our chests. “Both of you need to calm down, or I’ll beat both your asses.”
“Stay out of this, Lucas,” Keith growled.
“Not a chance.” Lucas looked at me. “Dane. Get your coat. We’re going for a walk.”
“I don’t need a walk. I’m not a fucking dog.”
“Now, Dane.” Lucas’s voice was firm in a way I rarely heard. “Keith, you can leave. Actually, you should probably work from home for the rest of the week.”
“I don’t report to you.”
“No, but I’m pretty sure if you stay here, Dane is going to knock out some of your teeth. You two need a break. You’ve been friends too long to let this destroy it.”
Lucas might be right, but I had a feeling that friendship was already irrevocably damaged. Still, I grabbed my coat.
“Great, Dane,” Lucas said, grinning at me. “Let’s go.”