Chapter 46 The Newest HR Violation Is My Ex
AMANDA
“No.”
The word comes out flat, final, like I’m rejecting a particularly insulting job offer or someone trying to sell me a timeshare in Florida. “No, no, no. This cannot be right. Cal?” I turn to stare at him, willing him to tell me this is some kind of elaborate joke. “Come on. Anyone? Izzy?”
But Cal just stands there with that infuriatingly calm expression he always wears when he’s about to ruin my life, and Izzy is sitting behind her desk looking like she’s trying very hard not to laugh.
And then there’s Kade.
Standing in Izzy’s office like he belongs here, like this is totally normal, like the last time I saw him I wasn’t holding Josephine to his throat in a warehouse after discovering he’d been lying to me for weeks. Scratch that, years.
He’s wearing dark jeans and a simple black T-shirt that fits him way too well, and I hate that the first thing my brain registers is how good he looks.
How the fabric stretches across his chest in ways that make my mouth go dry.
How his hair is slightly messed up like he’s been running his hands through it, which he probably has, because he looks nervous, which he should be.
Because I might actually kill him this time.
“Kade Steele is Monarch’s new intern,” Cal announces, like it’s reasonable instead of the most insane workplace development since Izzy married the head of security.
“Unpaid,” Izzy clarifies immediately, shooting a glare at Kade.
She’s looking at him like he’s a particularly offensive piece of gum stuck to the bottom of her designer shoe.
God bless Izzy. Even though she’s clearly a traitor who let me get ambushed at work, she still has my back in this small way.
Cal clears his throat. “His work schedule suddenly opened up, and I could use some help from someone who knows what they’re doing.”
“Oh, okay, sure. Yeah, exactly. This is what we’re going with?
” I laugh, making sure it sounds as fake as possible.
“Perfect. Love being gaslit before nine a.m. on a Thursday. What’s next, are you going to tell me this is all totally innocent and has nothing to do with the fact that he’s my ex-husband and I’m not speaking to him? ”
Cal has the decency to look slightly uncomfortable. “It’s a legitimate business decision.”
“Oh my God.” I throw my hands up. “Are we really doing this? Are we really going to try to act like this is normal?”
Throughout this exchange, Kade hasn’t said a single word.
He’s just standing there, hands shoved in his pockets, watching me with an expression I can’t read.
And that bothers me more than it should.
Because this is so unlike his smug ass, so unlike the cocky, confident man who used to text me with such arrogant certainty.
He feels less like himself right now, and I don’t like that. I don’t like seeing him subdued and careful and almost… fragile. It makes something twist uncomfortably in my chest, some stupid protective instinct that I refuse to acknowledge.
Ugh. This is exactly why he gets under my skin. Because even when I’m furious with him, even when I want to strangle him with my bare hands, part of me still wants to fix whatever’s making him look so lost.
Stupid attractive ex-husband.
“We should get going,” Cal says finally, clearly recognizing that this conversation is about to devolve into something that belongs in a therapist’s office rather than a place of business.
He heads for the door, and Kade follows without a word, but I can feel his eyes on me as he passes. That familiar weight of his attention used to make me feel seen and desired, and now it just makes me feel confused and angry and, God help me, slightly turned on all at the same time.
The door closes behind them, and I immediately whirl on Izzy, pointing my finger at her. “You’re a traitor.”
“Look,” she says, holding up her hands in surrender. “You think I can get Cal to do what I want? He just announced that this was happening. I had about as much warning as you did.”
I scoff. “Um, he’s completely wrapped around your finger. Yes, you can get him to do what you want him to do. I’ve seen you bat your eyelashes at him and watch him turn into a lovesick puppy who would rob a bank if you asked nicely enough.”
“Okay, that’s probably true,” she admits with a small smile. “But maybe this will help you figure things out. Having him close. Keeping him at a distance didn’t work.”
I hate when she’s right. I hate it with the burning passion of a thousand suns, because it means I have to admit that my weeks of careful avoidance and emotional processing have been a complete failure.
I tried. God, I tried. I threw myself into work so hard that Izzy asked if I was okay, which is code for “you’re crashing out and I’m worried.
” I sacrificed my beauty sleep and stayed up until three a.m. reorganizing my entire closet by season rather than its current color-coded system.
I even tried sleeping in the T-shirt one night—the one every woman has that’s got threads hanging where the hem should be, the printing from whatever airport you bought it at on a layover long since faded and peeling, and it reaches down to your knees—and woke up in the middle of the night feeling pathetic.
Because the truth is that keeping him at a distance isn’t just “not working.” It’s actively killing me.
Every wall I keep trying to build to protect myself just makes the loneliness echo louder.
Every time I tell myself I’m strong enough to do this alone, I feel weaker.
Being independent has stopped feeling like freedom and started to feel like punishment.
“I hate when you’re right,” I tell her. “Good thing it rarely happens.”
Izzy rolls her eyes. “Oh, yeah, rarely. Just, like, constantly. Meaning all the time.”
“You can make it up to me,” I announce, settling into the chair across from her desk. “Girls’ night after work. Bar, drinks, dancing, the full package. I need to get spectacularly drunk and not think about my ex-husband.”
Izzy winces. “Amanda, I can’t. I love you, but Cal and I have plans to finish Succession tonight.”
I stare at her in horror. “What happened to you? Is this what happens when you get too much good dick? You become boring in other aspects of life?”
“I guess so,” she says with a shrug that certifies she’s been domesticated beyond recognition.
“Speaking of dicks,” she continues smoothly, “Gerald Finley just scheduled a fitting for next week and specifically asked for you.”
Groan. Gerry Finley, heir to some pharmaceutical fortune, who thinks dropping ten grand on a custom suit gives him the right to “accidentally” brush against me while I’m taking measurements.
He’s handsome in that bland, entitled way that screams “I’ve never been told no in my entire life,” and he tips well enough that I tolerate his wandering hands and inappropriate comments.
“Of course he did. Fine, whatever. Yes, I want the commission.”
“Cal will be standing by,” Izzy says, and there’s something protective in her voice that makes me look at her more closely.
“I know. But I don’t need people to fight my battles for me. That’s what I have Josephine for.” I pat my purse, where my pink Glock rests comfortably in its holster, the one thing that makes me feel in control of my life.
“You can’t shoot people at work,” Izzy calls after me as I head for the door. “I had to write that into the employee handbook specifically because of you!”
“I’ll take that under advisement,” I call back, already planning my strategy for the rest of the day.
Step one: Avoid Kade at all costs.
Step two: Focus on work, and pretend this is a regular day where my ex-husband isn’t suddenly employed in the same building.
Step three: Don’t think about how good he looks in that T-shirt or the way his presence still makes me want to violate several HR policies simultaneously.
I turn the corner with renewed determination, mentally rehearsing the professional, polite-but-distant demeanor I’m going to maintain if I happen to run into—
I slam directly into a wall of solid muscle and familiar warmth.
“Shit,” I gasp, stumbling backward as strong hands steady me by the elbows.
Of course. Of fucking course.
I look up to find Kade staring down at me, his hands still on my arms, his face closer to mine than it’s been since the warehouse. This close, I can see the tension in his jaw, can smell that familiar combination of leather jacket and masculine cologne that makes my brain stop working properly.
For a second, we just stand there. His thumbs brush against my elbows in a touch so light it might be accidental, but the way his eyes drop to my mouth suggests it’s anything but.
And my body is giving Brutus-level betrayal.
Because it’s telling me to shove him against the nearest wall and find out if he still tastes the same.
To run my hands under that perfectly fitted shirt and feel his abs flex.
Which is insane. Absolutely certifiable.
And my brain knows this. It’s screaming this at maximum volume.
But apparently, my hormones have noise-canceling headphones on.
Because, oh my God, he’s only gotten hotter in the eight years he’s been away.
It’s completely unfair. Like cosmically, universally unfair.
Men aren’t supposed to age like fine wine while women are told we peak at twenty-five and it’s all downhill from there.
But there he is, looking like he stepped out of some kind of “Hot Dads of Manhattan” calendar, all broad shoulders and confident stride and that calm I-got-this energy that makes my hormones unionize.
I want to kiss him. But I also want to knee him in the balls for putting me in this position. For making me feel this way. For being the reason I’ve been functioning on four hours of sleep and sheer spite for the past few weeks.
“Sorry,” he says quietly, his voice rough in a way that does things to my insides. “I didn’t see you coming.”
His hands are still on my arms. He’s still standing close enough that I have to tilt my head back to meet his eyes. And there’s a vulnerability in his expression, or maybe uncertainty, that I’ve never seen before.
Chad was always so confident, so sure of himself and his effect on me.
But this version of him, this Kade who’s looking at me like he’s afraid I might disappear, is somehow more threatening to my carefully constructed emotional fortress.
Because it makes me rethink my walls. They used to feel like safety.
And now they’re starting to make me feel trapped.
“Well,” I manage, stepping back until his hands fall away from my arms, “now you have. Seen me coming, I mean.”
Smooth, Amanda. Really eloquent.
“Yeah,” he says, sounding almost sad. “I have.”
I blink at him, waiting for the inevitable follow-up. The smirk, the innuendo, the crude joke about “coming” that the old Chad would have pounced on like a cat with a laser pointer. But there’s nothing. He just stands there looking at me with those dark eyes, no trace of his usual cocky humor.
We stand there in the hallway, the space between us feeling charged with eight years of history and weeks’ worth of unresolved tension.
I should say something cutting that establishes boundaries and makes it clear that just because he’s working here, that doesn’t mean anything has changed between us.
Instead, I find myself studying his face, looking for signs of the man I married, the man I fell in love with twice.
He’s older now, obviously. Lines have appeared around his eyes that weren’t there before, a hardness to his jaw that speaks of years spent doing things I probably don’t want to know about.
But his eyes are the same. Dark and intense and focused on me like I’m the only person in the world who matters and not a girl who spent twice as long trying to apply her makeup this morning because her hands were shaking.
“I should go,” I say finally, because standing here staring at him is not part of my avoidance strategy.
“Amanda—”
“I have work to do,” I interrupt, not wanting to hear whatever he’s about to say. Not ready for it. “Important work things that require my immediate attention.”
It’s a lie, and we both know it. But he nods anyway, stepping aside to let me pass.
“Of course,” he says. “I wouldn’t want to keep you from important work things.”
There’s a hint of the old Chad in that response, a trace of the teasing, confident man who used to drive me crazy in the best possible way. And that hint is what cuts deeper than if he’d been completely serious, because it reminds me of what I’m trying so hard not to want.
I brush past him, my shoulder bumping against his arm, and try to ignore the way my pulse kicks up at the brief contact. Try to ignore the way he smells like home and trouble and everything I’ve been trying to forget.
“See you around, intern,” I call over my shoulder, putting as much casual dismissal into my voice as I can manage.
I don’t look back, but I can feel him watching me walk away.
Can feel the weight of his attention following me down the hallway.
And despite my best efforts to remain unaffected, despite my careful plans to avoid him and maintain professional distance, I find myself walking a little slower than necessary.
Just in case he wants to follow.
Just in case he’s brave enough to try.
Because even though I’m furious with him, even though I don’t trust him, even though I have no idea what I want from him or what comes next, there’s still a part of me that hopes he will.