Chapter 8 #2
The color drained from her face. Not slowly, but all at once, like someone had pulled a plug. “How do you know about that?”
“I just do.”
She swallowed. “It’s not what you think.”
A surge of grim satisfaction pulsed through me. I had her. “You mean you didn’t get fired?”
“I did, but—”
“Oh, so you didn’t accept bribes?”
“Will you just—”
“Cut the bullshit, Fabiana. You lied to me when I asked you why you came back here ear—”
“I was set up!” The words burst out of her loud enough that the couple at the nearest table turned to look.
One glare from me, and they went back to minding their own business. “What do you mean you were set up?” I demanded.
“I was set up by my old boss, all right?”
I paused.
She held my gaze, her lips pursed, and her eyes glistened. “He was my mentor. We got along. I thought it was just a professional relationship, but…”
Inside me, something clenched. Where the fuck was this going?
“About three months ago, he asked me out. He was…insistent, but I refused. I wasn’t interested. Even if I did like him that way, I was already engaged.” She rolled her lips and looked down at her hands, at the ring sparkling on one of them.
I shifted in my seat. “Insistent how?”
She trailed her finger over the edge of the table. “He invited me into his office one evening after everyone had left. He tried to kiss me. I stopped it, but it was an uncomfortable situation.”
My fists tightened in my lap, and a vein in my temple ticked.
“The next day, he acted like it was fine,” she went on.
“I thought he took the rejection in stride, and that we were back to normal. A few weeks later, a wine supplier we sometimes ordered from invited me and one of my coworkers on a weekend trip to their winery. It sounded harmless, but I didn’t want to assume.
I asked my boss if it was okay to accept the invitation.
” Her laugh was brief and humorless. “He told me it was no problem. So my coworker, Mona, and I went.”
I stayed silent even though I already suspected how this story would end.
“The day after we got back, we were called into a meeting with the ethics office. Someone had reported the trip as an improper gift. When I said my boss had approved it, they asked him. He denied everything. And because I had nothing in writing, it was my word against his.”
Jesus. I sat back in my chair and dragged my palm down my face.
“They fired both of us,” she said weakly. “Me and Mona. She got dragged into it because of me.”
“Because of him.” Inside me, a storm was brewing. “He retaliated because you turned him down.”
Her face twisted. “Yes. But I should have gotten permission in writing. I should have protected myself instead of just trusting him blindly.” She swallowed hard. “That mistake cost someone else their career.”
She looked down at her plate, oblivious to the violent fantasies playing out inside my head right now featuring that son of a bitch.
Some logical part of me knew that I should cross-examine her.
It also knew that feeling this strongly about a guy who tried to kiss my fiancée before I’d even met her was absurd.
But that logical part of me wasn’t in the fucking driver’s seat right now.
In fact, it felt like nothing was, except for this furious need to make that fucker pay for what he’d done.
Fabiana was still talking. “I’ve been paying Mona’s bills while she looks for work, but she hasn’t been able to find anything, and I just feel—”
“You’ve been paying her bills?” I cut in.
She shrugged. “I mean, it’s the least I can do. The whole situation was my fault.”
“It wasn’t.”
“Mona, unlike me, doesn’t have an older brother she can rely on if things go off track. And she certainly doesn’t have a trust fund she can access like I’ll have once we’re married. So yes, I’ve been paying her bills.”
Before I could even begin to wrap my head around that, Rosa emerged from the bathroom. She stopped by our table, which she definitely wasn’t supposed to do, and held Fabiana’s phone out to her.
“Thanks, hon. You’re a lifesaver.”
“Don’t mention it.” Fabiana mustered up a smile.
Rosa’s accusing eyes met mine for half a second before she turned and walked toward the door.
I stared at the phone in Fabiana’s hand, convinced I was hallucinating. “What was that?”
“She needed to borrow my phone. Hers died, and she needed to call her babysitter.” She slid the phone into her purse.
“You’ve been sitting here for at least ten minutes already,” I ground out. “You let a stranger have your phone for that long?”
She frowned at me. “So what?”
“Are you serious?”
“I told her to give it back to me when she was done. It’s not like we’re in a rush. What’s she going to do, walk away with it?”
My mouth opened and closed. She was appalling. “Yes, that’s exactly what she could’ve done.”
“Well, she didn’t.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Sometimes it pays to have a little faith in people instead of thinking they’re all bad.”
I sat perfectly still. The noise of the restaurant receded into a low hum beneath the blood pounding in my ears.