“Holy shit! You will never believe what I just found out.”
She gives me no time to even guess.
“Ivan fired Rebecca, the hiring manager, snotty Bea the receptionist, and Dan.” She pauses. “Because of you.”
“Me? What did I do?”
“Rebecca said something obnoxiously racist about you.”
“What did she say?”
“How you hid you were black.”
I sag against the wall. Dan had been the person who accused me of lying about being black when he saw the picture of my grandparents on my desk. All of them, he fired all of them. “I can’t believe it was because of me.”
“The lone person besides payroll left in human resources swears it is. Ivan also said if there is anyone in the company who has a problem with minorities working here, then to leave now. What makes me want to kiss him, though, is he admitted it was on him for not ensuring more minorities were hired, then sent a plan to correct it. That’s a person I can respect.” A tug on my arm. “Christina, what’s the matter?”
I’m dying to tell her about the crazy thing between me and Ivan. There’s also a part of me that thinks if I don’t talk about it, don’t put it into words, it will go away. I want to tell her, to ask her what I should do, only I don’t dare. What if I'm wrong? I have to be; this has to be all me.
The guy is gorgeous, stunning. He's used to dating models, practically an entire catalog’s worth of lingerie models. What the hell would he want with me, short, fat, dumpy me? God, if I told Anna she’d laugh until she passed out. I tell half the truth. “I feel guilty.”
“Whatever, you didn’t fire them. It was their own fault for being racist assholes. Forget about them. Martin has Simon calling him and he is losing his shit. He’s blaming you, not, oh, I don’t know, not actually being able to do his job.”
“Is that what Martin was yelling about on the phone? I could hear him through the door.”
“Yeah, Simon is mad at Martin too. Some shit about how Martin should have stopped you. Martin hung up on him once already. He’s the idiot for answering again. Anyway, I’d better get back to my desk. Give me a minute for me to get back to my desk before you go back. Lunch today at one.”
“See you downstairs.”
There is a café downstairs for the building. They don’t love it when you take your own food to eat but they don’t actually tell you to leave, so we go there instead of the break room to avoid the bitchy cliques in the office.
Back at my desk I can’t stop thinking about Ivan firing all those people because of me. Was it, though? A good person would have done the same thing if it were any employee, not just someone they wanted to have sex with. Right?
An email comes through. It’s from Simon. I don’t even hesitate to delete it unread. This isn’t my fault, it’s his. I’m done giving him even ten seconds of my energy. Another email is waiting for me. It’s from Tim, detailing our itinerary for the next two days. The two days are filled almost entirely with me at Ivan’s side, close enough to touch.
I think I might be in trouble, a whole lot of trouble.
***
Ivan
My cell goes off. I realize how long I have been looking through Christina’s account. Damn it, you are supposed to starve a fever, not
feed it. I answer and close out of the website for once, grateful for Hannah’s call.
“What do you want, Hannah?”
“God, you are such an arse. Can you never once say hello? Hi, Hannah, how are you doing today? How’s the weather? Did you have a good week? I swear, I have absolutely no idea why I put up with your shit.”
I do not bother replying as I check my email. She puts up with my shit because anytime she calls and asks for money she gets it. We both know this, so I do bring it up as I have the last five times she asked the rhetorical question.
A heavy sigh. “Please, can you please talk to Gemma? She’s as the Americans say, on the fucking ledge.”
“Is that not what her fiancé is for?” I mutter as I respond to a particularly important email.
“Not when it’s about her fiancé, or rather how she’s worried about all this affecting her fiancé.”
“All of what, Hannah? What are you talking about?”