Chapter 1

I knew I shouldn’t have listened; I knew their conversation wasn’t meant for my ears but I’d eavesdropped all the same.  I couldn’t help it.  I’d always been both cursed and blessed with a curiosity capable of killing the entire feline population of Dallas.  Perhaps if the voices within hadn’t been raised and full of discord, I might have resisted temptation.  Perhaps…but probably not if I were being honest.

A little white lie, a fabricated errand to lure the administrative assistant away from her station outside of Kenneth’s office, and I’d cleared the way to press my ear to the door unnoticed.

“Bob, you can’t possibly sign off, there are too many known errors and even more questionable accounting treatments,” a woman’s voice said.  Marilyn.  The voice of reason, my mentor if I could impress her.

“Your objections are duly noted, but again I’m telling you, you’re overruled.  I’ve signed off.  The advisory partner has signed off.  It’s a done deal,” Bob said.

I pulled away from the door and scanned my surroundings to double check that no one would catch me spying.  My heart pounded as I considered the implications of Bob’s willingness to give Aphrodite a clean bill of health on their independent audit.  It didn’t make sense.  Why would he do it?

“We’ve got missing cash, overvalued inventories, two luxury cars and a jet that no one can seem to produce, to name just a few of the things we’ve found.  It’s significant, Bob, and you know it.”

I mouthed “don’t forget the past due payroll taxes” as if I could somehow prompt Marilyn.  I checked my watch.  I needed to get our lunches but another few minutes eavesdropping wouldn’t hurt.

“The inventory discrepancy is not an Aphrodite issue.  Gayle and Jon royally botched the counts and that’s all there is to it.  We can’t hold Aphrodite hostage because of abysmal staff performance that can’t be blamed solely on inexperience.  You should have replaced those two PURE’s at the beginning of the job like I suggested, but you said you had it under control.  At this point, the cost to recount would be exorbitant.  It’s no longer a viable option.”

I drew back for a second, stunned, and felt my stomach knot up, the hunger pangs vanquished and replaced by something malignant.  Abysmal?  Bob thought my work was abysmal?  And Jon’s too?  He called us previously undetected recruiting errors?  No way!  I know I did a good job and so did Jon; Marilyn even said so.  How could Bob be so glib in front of our client?

My hoop earring collided with the door as I pressed my ear too rapidly to its station.  I froze, afraid that they might have heard me.  I should have worn studs; hoops were much less professional.  Of course, what I was doing was utterly unprofessional and the synchronicity of my jewelry choice made me smile.  I listened for signs that I’d betrayed my presence and hearing none, pressed closer.

“…a lawsuit waiting to happen, then your costs will look like loose change in comparison,” Marilyn said.  “Kenneth, you can’t possibly sign your name to those financial statements.  Have you considered the implications to this company, to your reputation, your CPA license?”  If Kenneth answered, I didn’t hear what he said.

Visions of being called to the stand to testify in a massive class action lawsuit hijacked my attention.  I didn’t do well under that type of intense and contentious interrogation and knew I’d burst into tears before even being asked to state my name.  I wished I had never let Jon talk me into working on the Aphrodite audit with him.  I hadn’t had my CPA license that long and I didn’t particularly like the idea of having to hand it back before the ink had dried.  I had worked too damned hard to get it and would have zero chance of making partner without it.

“Marilyn!  You’re out of line!” Bob bellowed, his voice loud enough for the entire building to hear.  I scanned my surroundings to see if anyone had been attracted by Bob’s voice, but no one had.  A couple of strands of my hair snagged on the door’s name plate and came out by the root.  I watched them float down and dangle from the plate that said “Kenneth Petrovich, Chief Financial Officer”.  I plucked my silent witnesses free and dropped them to the floor then resumed listening.

“Bob, I think we should take this offline and discuss it further at the Anderson Blakely offices,” Marilyn said, her voice a little calmer, but the alarm still present.  She said something else but I couldn’t make out her words.

I backed away from the door when I heard Bob say something about taking Kenneth out to lunch before returning to his office downtown.  My timing was perfect.  I had barely seated myself on the edge of Nicky’s desk when she turned the corner with the stock register book in hand.  I took it, offered my profuse thanks, then rushed out of Aphrodite to pick up Jon’s and my lunches.

#

The same guest parking spot I vacated lured me back with of a tease of shade now that the sun had moved from its overhead position.  Though October, the Dallas weather remained warm and shade a coveted commodity.  I gathered my purse and the lunches and tottered toward the main entrance on my four inch high monuments to bad judgment.  They looked glamorous and classy, and almost brought my height to average, but on the inside, malaise ruled.  Kind of like this place.  I glanced at the oversized pink letters that adorned the wall above the receptionist.  “Aphrodite Cosmetics, Inc.”  What a joke, like naming a pit bull “Cuddles”.  Too bad, because they made good products–or used to anyway.

“There she is, the golden angel of gastro delights,” my co-worker Jon said as he looked up from his papers, smiling.  “What took you so long?  You left an hour ago.”

“More like the demon courier of gastroenteritis.  I got sidelined before I could leave, sorry,” I replied somewhat truthfully as I dumped my cargo on the table.

“Sidelined?  By whom or what this time?  Scully?”

“No.  I didn’t see his little Siamese buckskin or I would have.  Perhaps you already let him in though?”

“Me?  He’s your charity case,” Jon scoffed.  “One day the warehouse guys are going to catch you letting him in to give him water.”

“I’ll bet Scully catches mice and earns his keep when he’s inside.  They need him, whether they realize it or not.”  Despite giving me a hard time, I’d spied Jon letting Scully in too.  Plus, he always ribbed me about Scully when the mercury rose.

“So if not the cat, let me guess.  Shelly in Shipping wanted to know who highlights your blonde tresses or Pablo in Payables had to show off his new mechanical pencil or maybe it was Warehouse Wes who offered you a ride on his forklift.”  He wiggled his eyebrows at me.

“I know not of these fictional people of whom you speak,” I said, squinting and miming my hands in a confused gesture.

“You get more people and critters at this place trying to sideline you than a naked quarterback at the Superbowl.”

“Riiight.  That one could have used a bit more oven time, Jon,” I said as I shook my head at his teasing.  At least that’s what I thought he was trying to do.

Jon’s acumen with computers was almost paranormal but like a lot of highly intelligent, technical people, he leaned a smidge off center socially.  He’d sometimes speak as if he’d been having a conversation with you only he’d forgotten that your part of it had occurred in his head.  I had kind of figured out how his mind worked and could usually infer his meaning from a few external clues but others weren’t so lucky.  I often intervened as translator.  Despite his foibles–that also included a need for privacy that bordered on paranoia–we had become good friends.  Too bad I never dated co-workers because Jon was my type with an extra ‘rrrrorrww’.

“So? Where you been?”  He snapped his fingers.  “Gayle?”

“Oh! I went to the executive offices before I left to talk to your not-so-secret-admirer, Nicky.”  I divvied up the order and took my seat.  I ignored his coy eye-roll over my Nicky observation because he knew as well as I did that it was a hundred percent true.

“Oh?  Did she have anything to say about Bob and Marilyn’s meeting with Kenneth earlier today?  Would love to have been a fly on the wall during that.”

What a great straight man.  He’d handed me the perfect lead-in.  “Buzz, buzz.  I can tell you exactly what went down.  Bob said he was going to sign off, Marilyn had a hissy fit, then Bob exploded.” I had deliberately relayed my intelligence like it was no more important than tonight’s television lineup.  I took a giant bite of my apple and waited for his reaction as I chewed.  Meltdown in three-two-one…

“What! Did Nicky tell you that?” Jon asked in an excited but lowered voice as he rolled his chair closer to mine and leaned in like a co-conspirator.  I picked up a whiff of Irish Spring as he did.

I held up my finger for him to wait for me to finish chewing and swallowing.  “No, not Nicky.  I heard it with my own ears.  I swung by her desk on my way out to ask if she’d heard anything but the meeting was still in progress.  Anyway, while I was there I asked her if I could see the stock register book.  After she left to get it from the locked storage room, I walked over to the door to try to hear what they were saying.  I know, I know, I’m bad.”

He shook his head then asked, “Why did you need to see the stock register book?”

“I didn’t.  I needed Nicky to leave her desk.”

Jon regarded me with his expressive brown eyes, brows raised, no doubt shocked by my audacity; he always was.  I wanted to laugh.  He had no idea how low I’d stoop to ferret out secrets, including his.  This was nothing, but he didn’t need to know that.

“And?  What did you hear?”  He whirled his hand in a ‘hurry up’ gesture.

I took a big bite of my sandwich and after I’d finished chewing gave him a gloves-off synopsis, including the part about Bob’s intent to replace us and why.

“He said that about you and me, Gayle?  He wanted to kick us off the job?” Jon asked with a look that hovered between pissed off and hurt.  I noticed he jiggled his knee up and down too.

I reached for my sandwich to take another bite but before I could, Jon tugged the wrapper it lay on out of my reach.

“Yeah.  Sucks doesn’t it?”  I knew I sounded flip but all of this was so Twilight Zone to me .  I had no idea how to convince Bob to reconsider his position on Aphrodite; Marilyn had already failed and Jon and I were the lowest men on the totem pole.  But if we did nothing, we’d share in the blame.

“I can’t believe he said any of that in front of the client,” Jon said, eyes wide.

“I guess Marilyn couldn’t either because she asked if they could continue the discussion at the office and he said, ‘No, we’re done discussing.  It’s eating time now!  Who wants chicken fried steak?'”

“Eating time?”  Jon laughed.  “Did he really say that?”

I laughed and came clean.  “Nah, I took a few liberties but I’m sure he was thinking it.  Speaking of which, I’d like my sandwich back, please.”  I laughed again but Jon’s expression turned serious.  He also retained custody of my sandwich.

“What if someone had caught you eavesdropping?”

I flipped my hand at him.  “Don’t worry; they didn’t.  They’re all at lunch now,” then I lowered my voice an octave and said in my gruff Bob voice as I stood and hitched up my imaginary pants, “eating chicken fried steak.”

I continued my charade to ease the tension. “This is super serious partner stuff you wouldn’t understand, Johnny boy.  You must defer to my superior judgment.  Because I’m gorgeous, don’t you know!  Have you seen my latest picture by the way?”

Jon snickered at my imitation because Bob had pictures of himself throughout his office, got his hair cut every week and rarely ordered anything other than chicken fried steak for lunch.  Jon’s laughter died when he looked at the doorway.  I turned and saw, to my horror, that Bob Ternes stood there.  He didn’t look too pleased.  The restaurant must have run out of chicken fried steak.

I really liked this scene between the heroine and the hero.  They are still platonic co-workers at this point but the barriers are falling fast.  I like the sweet unspoken intimacy between them.

These 2 scenes span portions of 2 chapters and the “kiss” (Gayle) and text messages (Jon) is referencing a Friday night work party incident just two days before these Monday/Tuesday scenes.

******************************

Thirty minutes later, I heard Jon rustling in his cubicle as he slipped on his jacket.

“Lunchtime?” I grabbed my purse to join him.

“Yeah, but I can’t go with you today.  I have some errands to run.”

“Oh…okay.  See you later then.”

Neither one of us had mentioned his text messages from the night of the Ternes’ party thirty-six hours ago.  I had attributed his flip-flop messages to him giving me a taste of my own medicine.  But I didn’t know if he sent them out of annoyance or in jest.  That he might now be avoiding me because of what I had done saddened me.

I asked Scarlett to lunch and though surprised at my invitation, she agreed to go.  She suggested a place I’d never been to before but declared it served fabulous food and played jazz, always nice in my book.

The place was borderline seedy, dark and smoky inside but a cool oasis from the unseasonably warm Dallas afternoon.  The aroma of fried foods weighed heavy enough to serve as an appetizer.  Home-style offerings like corn bread, collard greens, barbeque and catfish dominated the menu.  Though I was more a fan of Mexican food, being from Albuquerque where the hotter the better was our culinary battle cry, I welcomed some traditional greasy southern cooking.

We sat at a table near the back with a good view of the entire restaurant.  Our server delivered our food a scant ten minutes after we ordered, a fringe benefit of a limited daily menu.  We enjoyed our food and gossiped about the Ternes’ party until Jon walked in with a very beautiful woman.

Scarlett saw him too and said, “Isn’t that Jon?”

“Yeah, looks like he’s got a date with him,” I muttered.

“Do you want to invite them over to join us?”  She kept her eyes on the couple as she asked.

“No.  Let’s give them some privacy.  I don’t want to cramp my boy’s style.”  I shovelled a huge fork full of greasy food in my mouth as I watched them walk to a small table near the bar, his hand on the small of her back.

From what I could see and imagine, this woman was a Victoria’s Secret model with a day job as an investment banker.  Tall and slim but nicely endowed, Latin-looking with long curly hair, she was the exact opposite of me.  Her knit suit hugged her curves in all the right places.  Together, they made a sultry and arresting couple.

Jon and his “errand” ate and conversed, their heads close but their expressions indiscernible.  While they didn’t touch, their body language told me she wasn’t a sibling or casual acquaintance.  I don’t think Jon had any idea that I sat a few tables away.  I couldn’t stop myself from glancing at them all through lunch.  By the time Scarlett and I had finished, I’d shredded my napkin into multiple tiny ropes that I tied together to form a long chain with a noose on the end.  I had no recollection of what we talked about after I’d seen Jon and his mystery woman.

“Come on, Scarlett, let’s say hello on our way out.”  I didn’t wait for her answer but grabbed my purse and marched toward Jon’s table.

As I neared, Jon’s head popped up and did a double-take.  Even in the darkened restaurant, I could see him blanch.  I gave him a brittle smile and said, “Hello Jon.  Get all your errands done?”

“Gayle.  Yes, all done.  Uh, Thalia these are two of my co-workers, Scarlett and Gayle.  This is my girlfriend, Thalia Milano.”  Though his tone was upbeat, his eyes betrayed his distress.  Thalia was unreadable—neither friendly nor aloof.  She was still breathtaking but not as beautiful up close and she had an annoying, whiney voice.

I hoped my jaw hadn’t dropped too far at Jon’s introduction of her as his girlfriend.  Why he hadn’t mentioned her or brought her to the Ternes’ party?  I prayed to God he hadn’t told her about the kiss.  Surely not since it was a one off, but had I detected her giving me the stink eye?  Get over yourself, Gayle.

As Scarlett and I left, she casually asked, “Did you know he had a girlfriend?”

“No.  Did you?”

“If you didn’t know, I sure as hell didn’t.  But damn, that woman was gorgeous.  Ooh, I spy a cookie shop.  Whaddaya say?”

Scarlett and I made our way back to the office within our one hour lunch break.  Jon returned an hour after us.  He walked past my cubicle without a word, slipped off his jacket and resumed his work.  At five when I left, he kept working.  We hadn’t spoken since lunch.

“Goodnight, Jon, see you tomorrow,” I said.

“Goodnight, Gayle,” I heard him reply after a long silence.
Chapter 6:

The next morning, Jon had his head down working when I plopped my purse on my desk and slipped off my jacket.  I sang along to a slow elevator music version of Billy Idol’s Rebel Yell.  I never understood why anyone thought it was a good idea to pipe in bad background music.

“Good morning, Jon.”  I had done some soul searching last night and decided that Jon’s reasons for keeping Thalia under wraps all this time were his own.  They had nothing to do with me nor with our working relationship.

Shuffling of papers and the popping of his chair as he shifted were the only noises he made inside his cubicle.  Is he mad at me?  Did he not hear me say good morning?

I frowned and decided to confront him.  We met halfway.  He handed me a Starbucks coffee and said, “I ordered what I thought was your usual.”

I looked dully down at the cup in my hand then back up to his face.  “Thank you?” I said, then with a little more confidence added, “But, you didn’t have to do that.”

“I lied to you about having to run errands at lunch yesterday.”

“I know, but you didn’t have to buy me a coffee in atonement.  So you had a date with your girlfriend and you told me a little white lie.  Big deal.  I’m actually more curious about why you’ve never mentioned her before, not that it’s any of my business.”

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

“But you said–”

“I know.  Yesterday I said she was.”

“You lied about that too?”

“No.  She was my girlfriend…yesterday.  No, that’s not quite true.  She was my fiancée…yesterday.  She’s not anymore.”

“Oh.”  I held on for dear life to a sympathetic expression.

“We broke up.”

“Yesterday apparently.  I’m so sorry, Jon.” Liar.

“It’s okay.  It was something I needed to do, was dreading doing but now that it’s done, I feel a lot better.”  He shrugged. “She’d been seeing someone else anyway,” he added without emotion.

“Oh.  Wow, I’m sorry, Jon.  How long were you engaged?  Are you okay?”

“I’m perfectly fine.  But I’m sorry that I lied to you.”

I flipped a hand at him.  “Please.  It was so not about me.  But, no worries.  Thanks for the coffee though.  That was really nice of you but totally unnecessary.  Next one is on me, okay?”  Stuff a sock in it already and stop licking your chops, you shameless hussy.  He did not break it off to be with you.  Plus, he’s a co-worker.  Remember what happened the last time you skipped down that thorny path.

Relief flooded his face, fanning the flames of my conceit,  because he seemed more troubled that he’d lied to me than that he’d broken off his engagement.  An engagement whose length remained a question mark.

“You got it.  Lunch today then?”

“Sure.  I’ll call my husband and cancel our nooner.  Kidding.”  I gave him a friendly nudge on the arm with the side of my head, then returned to my desk with my coffee.  He smiled at me over the low wall of the cubicle divider as I retook my chair, holding my eyes as I sipped my coffee.  I hoped he couldn’t see that I was grinning like an idiot between sips.  Oh boy, was I in trouble.