Chapter 2 #2
“She has obviously seen what kind of attention it will get her, and she’s interested in capitalizing on it. It’s not wholly unheard-of in this industry.”
“I know what this industry is like,” he snapped, and immediately regretted it once Gayle’s gaze turned icy.
He couldn’t afford to make an enemy of her now; in fact, it was the last thing he wanted or needed.
Taking a deep breath and exhaling evenly, he adjusted his tone.
“Why don’t we come up with an action plan—”
“We’ve been a bit busy around here,” she interrupted coolly. “And not all of us have been hiding in closets.”
Ouch. The shot landed where intended, and Ethan felt appropriately chagrined.
“I wasn’t hiding,” he muttered, stepping around her to enter the main hallway of the sleek office building once more. “I just needed a quiet place to think.”
“Well, time’s up,” she said ruthlessly, following him out and closing the door decisively behind them. “Now decisions need to be made.”
Sighing, Ethan looked heavenward once more, still neglecting to find any answers in the paneled ceiling.
“Go to your office first,” Gayle suggested, perhaps taking pity on him. “I’ll tell Henry he can expect you in a couple of minutes.”
It didn’t seem like much, but he knew she was granting him all the seconds of grace she could afford, before he had to face his fate.
He followed Gayle down the hall, then she gave him one brief, loaded yet commiserating glance before she veered left toward Mr. Fordham’s office and he turned right, walking straight into his.
The view from his nineteenth-floor window was, in a word, spectacular.
A partial view of the park on the left, with the glittering city skyline to the right, all the glass and metal of the buildings reflecting the setting sun in flashes of gold and red, which illuminated the walls and floor of his office in burnished streaks of amber.
He barely noticed any of it, however, as all his attention was focused on the woman unexpectedly sitting across from his desk. The root cause of all the issues he was dealing with.
Emily Sattler.
“Hi, Ethan.” She looked perfectly put together and not even a tiny bit chagrined, sitting there in a blouse and tailored pants, hands loosely linked in her lap.
“Good evening, Emily.” If she was going to be unfazed by all of this, so was he. At least on the surface, if not beneath it. Striding to his desk, he took a seat across from her. “Quite the day we’re having over here.”
Despite his blatant reference to the debacle, she met his gaze steadily, almost looking pleased with herself. “Yes. It’s unfortunate the way it all played out, but I could no longer live a lie.”
He nodded carefully, feeling his jaw tense and trying to inconspicuously take deep breaths to calm himself down.
“I wish you would have talked to me about things before—”
“Would you have listened?” she snapped, and he met her gaze, nonplussed by the sharpness in her tone.
“I would have done what I needed to do to ensure the least amount of damage to—”
“Yourself?” Once again she interrupted him, her words tinged with soft, caustic humor.
“All of us,” he replied, teeth gritted.
She rolled her eyes, the gesture appearing uncharacteristic on her pretty, delicate face. “I tried to tell you before that I was no longer interested in Greg and that I wanted out.”
“Emily.” His tone was flat and inexorable. “It’s very common for our clients to have cold feet and want to scale back on the”—deception—“exercise. What isn’t common is having a client go absolutely nuclear on live television.”
“I thought after what happened between us, you would agree with my”—she appeared to be searching for the right word—“somewhat extreme tactics.”
What happened between—
Ethan ran a flat palm roughly down his face and then up again for good measure.
“Emily.” His voice came out more roughly than he’d intended, but he felt himself losing control of his emotions, similar to how he was about to lose control of this situation. “There is no ‘us.’ Whatever you think happened, I’m sorry if I misled—”
“Ethan, you kissed me!”
Oh god, her voice was too loud, her voice was too fucking loud, and he was definitely going to lose his job.
“I did not kiss you,” he hissed, dropping both hands onto his desk with decidedly less force than he wanted. “You know that—”
Her expression softened, and she reached toward him, placing her hand atop his. He bit off what he was about to say and felt his whole body tense. It was an effort to keep his hand still underneath her warm palm when all he wanted to do was jerk it away.
“Ethan,” she murmured, looking up at him from beneath her lashes in what he recognized as a carefully curated expression meant to entice. “I—”
“Mr. Duchamp.” Gayle’s brisk voice interrupted them from the doorway, and Ethan gave in to the impulse to remove his hand from underneath Emily’s, never more relieved to hear the older lady’s voice. He stood, chair rolling away from him with more force than he’d intended.
“Yes, Ms. Smart?” Stepping away from the desk, he tried to put even more space between himself and Emily.
The last thing he needed was more rumors spreading about his involvement in this whole fiasco.
He knew Gayle wouldn’t say anything, but the glass doors of his office didn’t offer much discretion.
“Mr. Fordham would like to see you,” she informed him. Turning to Emily, she put on a professional smile. “Ms. Sattler. I believe your appointment with Mr. Duchamp is over now. Won’t you follow me?”
The sarcasm-laden use of the word appointment gave Ethan the impression that Gayle hadn’t been aware Emily had been in his office, and if he weren’t so wrapped up in dealing with the demolition of his life, he would almost find her disdain amusing.
Emily pursed her lips, also clearly catching the condescension and air of disapproval, but acquiesced. She gave Ethan one last inscrutable look before leaving wordlessly behind the secretary, her expensive perfume lingering in the room like a silent censure.
Ethan raked his hands through his hair, mussing up the cropped layers, before realizing it probably wasn’t the wisest decision to go see his boss looking as frazzled as he felt.
He attempted to smooth it down again as he walked, making it to Fordham’s office sooner than he would have liked.
The CEO’s office was also glass-doored, though his glass was frosted, as he was apparently entitled to more privacy than that bestowed upon his inferiors.
Ethan knocked on the door once, waiting to be granted entry.
“Come in.”
Taking a deep, bracing breath, then slowly exhaling, Ethan let himself in to the spacious office.
Mr. Fordham was sitting at his desk, fingers steepled as he regarded Ethan with dark blue eyes under heavy gray brows, waiting until Ethan sat down across from him.
He would cut a picture of a formidable man, master of his domain, leader of the pack.
If not for the fact that his bare feet were propped up on the desk, one lean leg crossed over the other, toes on full display.
“You fucked up,” the older man said without preamble the second Ethan sat down.
If the sight of his boss’s feet still gave him pause, even after all this time, today was not the day he was going to acknowledge it.
“Mr. Fordham, I—”
The CEO waved his hand in front of Ethan. “When am I ‘Henry’ to you and when am I ‘Mr. Fordham’?” he said, his tone turning mocking at the end. “Just say what you have to say, and then so will I.”
I’m getting fucking fired. Ethan knew with certainty that this was the last conversation he was going to have in Henry’s office. He was going to get fired, today, by a man who refused to wear shoes.
Focus, Ethan.
His mind swam with ideas about what he could say to make the CEO change his mind.
“I know how to fix this.”
The words were out before he even realized what he was saying. Fix it? How, you moron? The damage is done. Now it’s just suturing the wound. There’s no repairing anything.
Henry leaned forward, watching Ethan intently. The juxtaposition of his serious expression with his exposed feet was downright comical, even as Ethan refused to allow himself one iota of amusement. “Do you?”
As always, the inflection in his tone was so subtle, Ethan didn’t know quite how to parse it.
Despite his idiosyncrasies, the man was not a fool.
That was why Ethan respected him, disdain for footwear and all; why he tried to impress him—to gain his respect.
He was cunning, wise, and somewhere deep down, even caring.
Or at least enough to keep Ethan invested in his job, in the company. In making him proud.
“Yes.” Ethan punctuated his response with an adamant nod. “We need to turn this around in our favor somehow. No, better yet, we need to ignore it completely.”
Oh shit, oh fuck, he was spiraling into contradictions. This wasn’t good.
Henry looked confused. “Well, which is it?” he asked after a beat.
Great fucking question.
“Both, sir.” What the fuck, Ethan? Think, damn it. “We need an escape.”
What?
Obviously, Ethan’s abject desire to leave the room, possibly even the country, translated into the words that left his mouth. Resisting the urge to groan, he rolled his lips together as he tried to plot out his next steps. To his amazement, Henry spoke up instead.
“Yes,” Henry said, appearing to mull over the words and shocking Ethan completely. “An escape. Some idyllic place. Calm, beautiful.” He eyed Ethan sharply. “Very little tabloid or media presence—in fact, the fewer people there altogether, the better.”
Ethan was already nodding. “Absolutely.”
Henry raised an eyebrow. “And then?”
Shit, that’s right. I was supposed to be the one doing the thinking. He couldn’t shake the feeling, though, that Henry was guiding him toward some sort of inevitable conclusion in his mind. Ethan just prayed he and the old man were on the same thought train—and that it led to Employment Station.