“Uh, I have a lot of work to catch up on. I am sorry…. Mr. Sinclair,” she said the last words with a lot of emphasis. She was trying to undo the last few months, undo me.
“I don’t recall, Miss Roberts,” I said, returning her formality with the hopes of throwing her off. “Giving you a choice in the matter. And last time I checked, I was still your boss and I call the shots.”
She shut her eyes tightly. After what felt like hours, she finally said, “I’ll be there in a few seconds, boss.”
She seemed to take her sweet time, as I watched her finish up whatever she was typing, then remove and replace an insane amount of objects from her desk drawers. If she was trying to hide the fact that she was intentionally delaying our encounter, she made a poor attempt of it. Frustrated and eager to tell her my side of the story, I called again.
“Now,” I said and hung up, staring at her with the iciest gaze I could muster.
Finally, she began walking towards my office, leaving me wondering what exactly I was going to tell her. I could claim Gina was my coworker; she hadn’t exactly heard anything we had been talking about, and it wasn’t a completely ludicrous notion that I would be discussing business with an attractive female coworker at my office. At the same time, if I was considering Gina’s offer, Aria was bound to find out who she was sooner or later, and if I lied now, I would not only be accountable for being married, but also for lying to her about it.
When she was outside my door, she knocked. “May I come into your office, boss?” She put so much stress into that word, as though she was taking all the bitterness she felt towards me and our situation and expressing it through that single word.
“Just get in here, Aria,” I said, starting to lose my patience.
“Do I need to, like, curtsy or something, since you’re trying to make it clear that you’re the boss?”
“I am, though,” I said helplessly. “I wasn’t trying to rub it in like that but–”
“You did. And that’s exactly what you were trying to do, which is okay. You’re right, you’re the boss and I do as you say if I want to keep my job. So what do you need, Mr. Sinclair?”
His face was turning red. My attitude must have been pissing him off.
“Zayden. We’ve been over this, Aria. Let’s not go through this whole ordeal again,” I said and shook my head.
“Oh, so it isn’t just who I talk to that you control, but how as well? Duly noted, boss,” she snapped.
“Stop! Just fucking stop. We have a lot to discuss, Aria, and for the sake of both of us, let’s not make it more difficult than it has to be. Just take a seat will you,” I said, trying to sound a little gentler.
She didn’t say a word and sat down across from me, her expression unreadable.
“You have been crying?” It wasn’t really a question.
“Hah,” she snorted. “Wouldn’t you like that? I suppose it helps your already inflated ego quite a lot, the thought of a girl crying over you.”
“What?” I was perplexed. “Don’t be ridiculous. You think I want you to cry? The last thing I want is for you to be miserable. You should know that by now. I would think it was pretty obvious.”
“Right. Between trying to tell me who I can or cannot talk to and romancing another woman in your office in broad daylight, it is so very obvious that the last thing you wish to do is hurt me. Don’t mind me, I am clearly just blind and stupid.” She was looking at her fingernails instead of making eye contact. Her voice sounded solid and confident, yet there was an underlying tone of despair.
I reached out to hold her hand, but she pulled away. “You are neither blind, nor stupid, Aria,” I said. “What you saw in here? I was just talking to the woman that was here about a business deal that had recently gone wrong.”
“I know she’s your wife – or ex-wife, or whatever. You should know that before you begin your elaborate web of lies. It will just be a waste of time.”
“How do you know?” There was no way she could. Gina had never been here since Aria began working, and not many people knew… and then I realized. “I am going to fire Mrs. Brian!”
That piece of shit. She did not have any right to tell Aria. She must have known what was going on between us. A strange and unpleasant feeling came over me at the thought of Mrs. Brian taunting Aria about Gina.
“You can fire every single person who works for you, but it won’t change the fact that you are a liar.” She was fighting back tears hard.
“I never lied to you!”
I exclaimed. It was true. Gina was never mentioned, because when Aria and I had started the contract she was a non-entity in my life. And even though we were technically still married, it was merely in name only. Since the topic had never really come up, I could have never really lied.
That made her burst into hysterical laughter. “Whatever. Your wife just walked out of here after passionately kissing your cheek and you sit there and tell me you never lied to me?” She shook her head as though she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“She is not my wife, she is my ex-wife. The divorce proceedings have been underway for a while now and we are married in name only.” I slammed my fist on the desk, feeling the fury begin to swell inside of me.
“Oh wow, that is a perfectly reasonable explanation for what she was doing in your office, acting exactly like a non-ex-wife would act.”