Chapter Eighteen ~ Fiona #3
She fidgets for a moment before straightening her shoulders and clasping her hands in her lap.
“About six months ago, Sanjay and I did a stint together in the London office for a couple of weeks. I’d never been around him for any length of time before that, but I could see why you liked him.
He was charming and funny, and after a few days, he got kind of flirty with me, and I… well, I flirted back a little.”
I remain silent, nodding for her to carry on.
I’m not sure if she expects this to be shocking news; Mila has a naturally flirtatious personality.
Hell, she even flirted with my dad at times, and he flirted right back.
It was hilarious to observe, probably because it was all in good fun and meant absolutely nothing.
“It seemed harmless, and he never veered into anything inappropriate, so I went with it,” Mila continues.
“I convinced myself it was no big deal because you two had never been an official couple, you were just…” She circles a hand in the air as if trying to grasp a name for what Sanjay and I were to each other.
“Let’s go with ‘friends with benefits’. Sounds nicer than ‘fuck buddies’,” I say, and we both laugh, although Mila’s sounds forced. “If you think I’d be upset about you flirting with Sanjay, it honestly doesn’t bother me. He has this way of making you feel like you’re the only woman in the world.”
She winces. “There’s more. He started texting me a week or so after that.
Casual stuff, still a bit flirty. He asked if I wanted to meet up, but we were in different cities at the time.
We kept texting over the next few weeks, but he was always the one to initiate it.
It all seemed harmless until some of the things he said started to border on inappropriate.
I told him I was only interested in being friends, and immediately stopped saying anything remotely flirtatious.
“After the third time he suggested we hook up the next time we were in the same place, I stopped replying altogether, hoping he’d get the message. I should have told him to fuck off, but I knew we’d likely eventually have to work together again, plus with his seniority—”
“You don’t have to explain or justify it, Mila,” I say, cutting her off. “That’s seriously gross behaviour on his part for a million reasons, least of which is the power imbalance.”
“So you’re not mad?” Mila asks.
“What?” I sputter out a laugh, but clamp my mouth shut when I see how distraught she appears. “No. The only person I’m mad at is Sanjay. It took me way too long to figure out what a lowlife he is, and this sure seals the deal.”
“There’s…more?” Mila says in a small voice that comes out sounding like a question.
“He eventually stopped texting me, but then a few weeks later, he drunk-texted me one night. It was kind of amusing, so I went along with it. I figured if he veered into anything inappropriate, I’d just block him once and for all, but it was sort of random drunk observations about life and the people around him… until he sent me a dick pic.”
My mouth drops open. “What the fuck?”
Mila winces again, this time likely at the unintended volume of my voice.
“That earned him an immediate block. I was about to delete our entire chat history when something told me not to. I not only kept them, I took screenshots too, just in case.” Her words are coming quickly now, and her fingers are twisting together in her lap.
“The thing is, the drunk texts and the dick pic happened after the no-fraternization policy was put into place. I pored over the new contract and the wording is vague, but it does extend to relationships between tour guides, not just guides and clients. I have evidence that Sanjay broke the terms, and since he wasn’t above taking his evidence to the higher-ups to get you suspended… ”
“You want to do the same to him,” I say slowly.
She tilts her head back and forth. “Not necessarily. As of a couple of weeks ago, he is one of the higher-ups, which means I’d need to go directly to him with my evidence.”
“You mean…blackmail him?”
Her lips curve into a smile that holds a definite sharp edge. “You say ‘blackmail’, I say ‘motivation’.”
“Motivation,” I repeat, unable to stop the bewildered laugh that accompanies the word.
Mila laughs with me. “I show him what I’ve got and tell him that in exchange for it never seeing the light of day, he needs to release both of us from our contracts, including the non-compete clause.”
“You’re diabolical.” Just like I was unable to stop my laugh a moment ago, now I can’t keep the hint of pride from my voice.
The sound Mila makes in response can only be described as a cackle. She even throws her head back for good measure. “We’re talking about making our dreams come true here, Fiona. If we get to put a weaselly jerk like Sanjay in his place in the process, so much the better.”
That restless feeling from earlier returns, making my legs twitch until I get up and resume my pacing.
“I know you said you’re not mad about the flirting, but I wouldn’t blame you if you were,” Mila says. “I knew what I was doing was wrong, and I did it anyway.”
“If that doesn’t sum up my entire relationship with Sanjay, I don’t know what does,” I tell her with a mirthless laugh.
“I knew it would never go anywhere, I knew I was just a warm body to him, I knew we were probably breaking company rules, but none of that stopped me. The arrangement we had, plus your flirtation with him, are all part of a vast grey area.”
Mila nods slowly, her eyes trained on her feet. “Still. I am sorry, for what it’s worth.”
I return to the window seat and take her hand, waiting until she lifts her head to meet my gaze. “Think of it this way: what happened between the two of you could be our golden ticket out of On the Go and straight into our own business.”
Her eyes light up a second before a smile blossoms across her face. The sight alleviates some of the heaviness that’s been weighing on my chest since we started this conversation.
“Does that mean we’re doing this?” Her voice shakes with barely suppressed excitement.
“Maybe,” I say firmly, even though my own eagerness wants to take over. “We need to be sensible about this and put some real thought into it. And we need to see what Sanjay says once he’s confronted with the information you have.”
Mila makes a sound of disgust in the back of her throat. “Before I left London, I tried to make an appointment with him, but his assistant gave me the run-around at every turn. I even tried unblocking his number and calling him directly, but it wouldn’t go through, so he must have blocked me too.”
“Of course he did,” I say, rolling my eyes. “Okay, let’s take a few days to think about all of this and figure out our next steps.”
“Okay.” She visibly deflates, shoulders hunching in. When her eyes begin to droop, it registers that it’s not disappointment I’m witnessing, but rather exhaustion.
“Why don’t you go to bed?” I suggest.
“Okay,” she says again, this time faintly. She offers me a weary smile as she rises from the window seat. “Probably a good idea. I feel like I’ve been on a rollercoaster the last few days.” She goes to the table and gathers up everything from Dad, replacing it in the box. “You coming?”
“I’m going to stay out here for a bit longer.” As usual, I’m the wired sort of tired. My body feels heavy and sluggish, but my brain is still whirring.
Mila comes over and presses a kiss to my cheek. “Good night. Love you.”
“Love you too. Have a good sleep.”
As she shuffles toward the door, I cross the room to the chest with blankets inside. When I turn back, Mila is standing in the doorway.
“I’ve dumped a lot on you tonight and given you a lot to consider, but…
I think we should do this even if we can’t get out of the non-compete clause,” she says.
“Six months is nothing in the grand scheme of things. We could take that time to plan, figure out where we want to be based, and hire the people we’ll need to help us run the business.
Look at the response to my post from earlier.
We could post some strategic content, hint that something big is coming, and build up a bunch of hype before the big reveal. ”
I bob my head slowly, my whole upper body swaying with the motion.
“Have I broken your brain?” Mila asks, and I laugh, nodding harder. “Okay, just one more thing and then I promise I’m done for tonight. Don’t hate me for playing the Dead Dad Card here, but what would Seamus say about us putting our dreams on hold? Or letting other people have a say in our future?”
“Oof, right in the feels,” I murmur, chuckling as I place a hand over my heart. She’s right, of course. About all of it. Dad left her that money for a reason. Just like he left Nathan the house in Ireland for a reason, even if I still can’t quite wrap my head around it.
The words Dad wrote on the note attached to the cheque flit through my mind: Take a leap.
That was one of his mantras in life. He said it to me countless times.
Liam told me once that Dad said it to him and Nathan when they were uncertain about starting Honeywell Handymen.
Dad always said the philosophy served him well in life and that everything he’d accomplished had come from taking leaps, even when it was terrifying. Especially when it was terrifying.
I inhale deeply and let it out slowly. “We both know what he’d say. And I say…one way or another, we’ll make this happen.”
Mila squeals and runs back across the room, dropping the box on the floor before throwing herself into my arms. I stagger back, managing to catch myself before tumbling over and taking her with me.
We’re both laughing and crying now, our arms wound tightly around each other as we sway back and forth.
Mila jerks away suddenly, swiping at her tear-stained face, and retrieving the box from the floor. “If I don’t leave now, I’m going to want to start making plans, and I promised I was done for the night.”
“Plus jet-lag brain and life-changing plans don’t really go hand in hand,” I point out.
“True enough. Okay, good night for real.”
This time, I watch her until she actually leaves, and I can hear her footsteps receding down the treehouse stairs.
I gather an armful of blankets and arrange them into a small nest on the floor so I can stargaze through the skylight.
I turn off the overhead light and smile to myself at how pretty and cozy the space looks lit by fairy lights.
I settle on the floor and let my thoughts drift.
They’re still chaotic, bouncing from Dad to business plans to how Mum will fare on her own when I leave… to Nathan.
They linger on Nathan; his smile at various points tonight, the way he squirmed in his chair when we sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to him, the way we kept catching each other’s eyes throughout the evening.
I have no idea how much time has passed when I hear footsteps approaching.
I wonder if Mila’s busy brain kept her awake, and she’s returned to break her promise about being done for the night.
When the door opens, it’s Nathan’s large body that fills the doorframe, backlit by the soft glow of lights from the house.
“I was about to leave when Mila came in,” he says, leaning against the doorjamb and crossing one leg in front of himself. “She made a point of telling me you were still out here. The sensible part of my brain told me to go home and stay there.”
“And yet here you are,” I say, pushing myself into a seated position.
“Here I am. Funny thing is, the sensible part of my brain usually wins.”
“What’s different now?” I ask.
He lets out a dark chuckle, running one hand along his stubbled jaw. “You,” he says with a sigh. “I remembered something I had at home, and I went to get it. I thought it might make it easier for us to talk…”
At my questioning look, he holds up a bottle. It’s too dark to see it clearly, and for a second, I wonder if it’s a bottle of Jameson.
“Summer wine,” Nathan says. Those two words evoke a flood of memories. “I’ve been saving it since last year and didn’t know why. Now I think I do.”