Costars (New York City Bad Boy Romance) (60 page)

I
won’t force the decision on my guys, though. If things go sour, I’ll simply let
José—who narrowly avoided arrest due to the quick thinking and quicker words of
Linda—know that he’s in charge and tell the guys to stay on the job.

They’ve
gone long enough without a good payday.

Jessica
comes out of her office, and I’m ready to put my cards on the table, but she’s
quickly approached by a customer. As much as I’d love to put her in a position
where she’d be forced by propriety to say yes, I don’t want to do anything to
ruin her business either.

There
are limits.

“Hey,
boss,” Ian says, “we’re ready to put this window in. You
wanna
let Miss Davis know, or do you just want to chance it?”

“Go
ahead and put it in,” I tell him. “I’ll be right back.”

Jessica’s
dealt with the customer and I know she sees me coming. She doesn’t look at me,
but I can see her deep breath from here.

I
don’t want an argument, but I’m ready to give one if that’s what has to happen.

“Hey,”
I say, approaching her. “Could we talk for a minute?”

“I’m
kind of busy right now,” she answers. “Is it important?”

“Oh,
I’d say so,” I answer.

“All
right,” she says, “but we’ve got to make it quick. I’ve got a meeting with a
supplier in a few minutes, and I’d really prefer not to have him come into a
screaming match in my store.”

“I
don’t see any reason why it has to go that way,” I tell her.

“Let’s
go,” she says and we walk in silence back to her office.

I
close the door as usual, but before I can start, she jumps right in.

“I
thought about what you said, and you’re right: It’s not fair that that man lost
his job for trying to stand up for one of his coworkers,” she says.

“Great,”
I tell her. “That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“What
I do think is fair, though, is for you to fire whoever actually
did
break into my store. So I think if
anyone’s being unfair here, it’s you,” she says.

“Me?”

“Yeah,”
she says, “you. Once you told me he wasn’t the guy, I didn’t want to see him go
any more than you did. I was angry, though, and I just let it go the way it
went. That part was my fault. Knowing who broke the law and broke into my
store, however, you shouldn’t have just let him quit like that. You should have
held the right person responsible and that should have been the end of it, now
I have to go. It looks like my supplier is here a little early.”

“No,
we’re not done here,” I tell her. “Either my guys—all my guys—stay, or I go.
They’ll finish out the job for you, but I’m not going to work in a situation
where you’re going to try to dismantle a group of people I’ve worked with and
come to trust implicitly for years.”

“Hmm,”
she starts, “you’d think that having one of your own people commit a crime
against one of your clients might do something to that trust. Maybe you should
think about your judgment. Now, unless there’s anything else—”

“What’s
it going to be?” I ask. “Lose me and Alec, setting you and your plans, whatever
the hell they are this hour, back who knows how long, or realize that a mistake
was made, but it’s no reason to fire anyone and you can have me and my
whole
team working hard for you until
this job is finished.”

“Neither,”
she says. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

Here’s
my predicament: She’s opening the door now, so anything else that I say to her
has a good chance of being overheard, not only by my guys and her staff, but by
this supplier of hers.

If
I do something to screw with one of her business partners, chances are that me
and my crew are immediately let go. If, however, I hold my tongue, Alec, a good
friend of mine, either stays out of a job because he did a good thing for José,
or I lose the best guy on my crew for making a mistake.

Fuck
it.

“It’s
going to have to be one or the other,” I say quietly and with a smile on my
face.

“Now
really isn’t the time,” she says, mimicking my actions, trying even harder than
I am not to see the whole situation explode.

“Now
is the only time,” I tell her. “Either make your choice or I walk now.”

“I
don’t do business with people who hold a gun to my head,” she says. “Mr.
Burbank, it’s great to see you again. This is Eric. He and his men are doing
some renovations for us. Would you come into my office and we can talk about
our future together.”

I
wait for the older man to walk past me and then I give her my best “I’d make a
choice unless you want me to really embarrass you” look.

She
takes a step toward me and, still smiling, she whispers, “Call your guy and get
him back here. Don’t think that I’m going to forget this.”

“Thank
you,” I tell her. “You made the right choice.”

Although
Mr. Burbank is already in her office, we’re still too close for her to do
anything but mouth her final thoughts on the matter.

“Screw
you.”

I
smile and walk back over to the work area.

“What’s
got you so happy?” Tripp, the newest new guy asks.

“I’m
going to call Alec and tell him to get his ass down here. He’s late for work.”

I
glance back toward Jessica’s office as the crew claps and offers their
congratulations, but I can’t see anything more than the door closing.

“Great
job, boss,” Ian says.

Even
José has a smile on his face.

I
walk outside and make the call.

“What’s
up, boss?” Alec answers.

“Good
news,” I tell him, “José’s safe. The inquisition is over and you’re hired. When
do you think you can get here?”

“Uh,
I’m kind of busy at the moment,” he says. “Any chance I can just come in
tomorrow?”

Right
now, I’m glad I stepped outside for this.

“I
don’t know what you’re doing, but you have no idea what I just risked to make
this happen and the
shitstorm
that’s going to be
waiting for me before the day is over because of it. So, do you want the job or
not?”

“Of
course I want the job,” he says, “it’s just…”

“It’s
just what?”

“Well,”
he says, “I’m kind of out of state.”

“How
can you be
kind of
out of state?” I
ask.

“Okay,
so I’m in Delaware. There’s a pool tournament going on here and it’s fucking
wicked.”

This
is one of the guys I just risked my livelihood for.

“You’re
in Delaware for a pool tournament,” I echo. “Are you fucking serious?”

“Well,
it’s not like I knew that I was going to be rehired today,” he says. “Besides,
I kind of, you know, already found another job.”

“You
really could have told me that,” I scold. “I’m going to look like a fucking
idiot when you don’t show up here.”

“I’m
really sorry about that,” he says. “I’ll totally quit this job and come back to
work for you, only…”

I’m
waiting for the end of the phrase, but it looks like it’s not going to come of
its own freewill.

“What?”
I ask, “Only what?”

“Well,
I kind of promised these guys that I’d stay on at least until the job at that
store finished up,” he says. “I figured you’d hire me back eventually, but I
didn’t know you’d do it so soon.”

“This
really sucks,” I tell him. “You know you’re putting me in one hell of a
position here.”

“Sorry,
bro,” he says. “I need a job, and I didn’t think I was going to have one with
you for at least a little while longer. I can talk to my boss here and see if
we can—”

“Don’t
worry about it,” I sigh. “We’ll figure it out.”

“Thanks,
boss,” he says. “If you want, I really do have the day off tomorrow, so I’d be
happy to drive up there—you know, assuming that I can get a little
reimbursement for gas money.”

I
hang up the phone.

Fuck.

How
the hell am I going to spin this so I don’t end up looking like the idiot I
apparently am.

Sure,
it makes sense now that I should have called Alec before giving that ultimatum,
but in my defense, Alec’s one of the laziest motherfuckers I know. How was I
supposed to know he’d actually go out and get himself a new job?

I
walk back into the store, smiling at Linda as I pass her on my way to the newly
sunken floor which, after a whole lot of back and forth and more wasted
concrete than I’m prepared to admit, now sits level at sixteen-and-a-half
inches below the rest of the flooring.

Really,
unless Jessica comes out here with a list of changes sometime in the next day
or so, we’re pretty much done here.

The
old storage room was taken out weeks ago, the floor—well, we’ve already covered
that—and my team is now in the process of setting the window.

There
are a few more things left to do, mostly small and cosmetic, but maybe this
won’t be the end of the world after all.

I
really need to learn how not to be optimistic about anything.

Jessica’s
door opens and Mr. Burbank comes walking out with a smile on his face.
Jessica’s smiling, too, but hers is strained.

She
waits for Burbank to pass hosiery before turning toward me and motioning for me
to meet her in her office.

This
should be fun.

I
step into the office and close the door.

“You’re
probably going to want witnesses,” she says. “In fact, knowing that someone
could see what I would really, really like to do to you right now is probably
the only thing that’s going to keep me from doing it.”

“I
know I took a hard line before, and I just—”

“I’m
not done talking,” she interrupts. “It’s bad enough that you forced that
ridiculous decision onto me, but doing it where one of my most important
business contacts could potentially hear you was beyond irresponsible and I
can’t tell you how livid I am at you for it.”

“You’re
absolutely right,” I tell her. “It was wrong of me to do that. So, to make it
up to you, I’ve decided not to bring Alec back onto my team until we’ve
finished up this contract.”

“Great!”
she says manically. “That’s just great! I was so pissed off at you that I
wasn’t paying close enough attention to what Mr. Burbank was proposing, and I
just agreed to a cost structure that’s going to completely gut my profit margin
on everything he’s going to supply for me.”

I
wince.

“How
much does he supply for you?” I ask.

“All
told,” she says, “about a third of everything I carry.”

I’m
about to tell her that a third isn’t that bad, but then I pull my head out of
my ass.

“Shit.”

“Yeah,”
she says, “shit is right. Do you want to know what’s worse? Do you want to know
what’s even worse than that?”

I
cringe. “It gets worse than that?”

“Yeah,”
she says. “You know how I wanted you to remodel the plus section so I could
expand it?”

“Yeah,”
I answer, confused. “That’s kind of why we’re here.”

“Oh,
I know,” she laughs. “What’s worse than everything else is that I just agreed
to make Mr. Burbank my
sole
supplier
of plus-sized clothing. So now, all of the extra business I was going to do
giving women something chic and sexy to wear for a price they won’t have to
sell their firstborn to afford is fucked! I have two choices: Either I can keep
the prices where I want them and lose thousands of dollars a month on clothes
that I’m actually selling, or I can raise the prices on everything in the
store—
‘cause
I’m sure as hell not going to make one
demographic of women pay more than another—completely obliterating my whole
mission statement, business plan and just about the only reason that I got into
this stupid fucking business in the first place.”

It’s
certainly not my fault that she blew it in her meeting, but I really didn’t
help matters, either.

“But
hey, at least you had a change of heart and decided not to follow through with
the threat that put me in this position in the first place. That’s just
perfect,” she says.

I
don’t know what to say to her, but she’s waiting for me to say something.

“I’m
sorry,” I tell her.

At
least it’s a true statement.

“You’re
sorry,” she says. “Well, that magically makes it all better. You want to know
what pisses me off even more than
everything
else I just told you?” she asks.

“Do
I?” I ask.

“Oh
yeah,” she says. “It’s actually good news for you. I’ve already sunk so much
into the whole remodel that there’s no way it would be cost-effective for me to
just fire your ass once and for all. So, even after this situation
which you and your men caused
by
breaking into my store, letting the wrong guy quit while protecting the one who
actually did it, yelling at me in front of my employees—”

“Hey,
we both did that,” I interrupt.

Apparently
my attempt at levity is not appreciated.

“Then,”
she says, “to top it all off, you all but blackmail me into agreeing to do what
you want me to do in the first place which, let’s face it, boils down to me
covering your ass for a mistake
you
made, putting me in a position where I wasn’t in any way prepared to negotiate
a business deal with one of the top clothing suppliers in New York, and I can’t
fire you!”

“Hold
on,” I tell her. “I know you’re upset, and I know it’s because of me, but will
you just take a quick walk with me? I want to show you something that might
cheer you up.”

“What
do you think could possibly cheer me up right now?” she asks.

“Just
come with me,” I tell her. “It may not make everything better, but it might
just turn things around enough that you can go home tonight with at least one
thing to be happy about.”

I
would tell her that it’s not my fault she couldn’t stop her emotions from
affecting her business transactions but, ironically, I would feel too guilty.

“Just
give me a minute,” she says and takes a deep breath.

“Okay,”
I tell her.

“
Outside
,” she says.

I
walk out of the office and I can hear her heels behind me. I turn around and
she stops in front of me.

“What?”
she asks.

“Follow
me,” I tell her.

From
there, I walk her up to the front where the guys are putting the finishing
touches on the window.

“Now,
we’re going to keep the grating up on the outside—permanently if you’d like it,
otherwise, at least until the window cures—but that’s basically done. I need to
get my carpet guy in here to take care of this section, but I can call him
tonight and have him here by tomorrow. Every possible bit of space that we
could get without encroaching on another section is here, the sunken floor is
set and ready to be carpeted with the rest of it and other than a few things
here and there, we’re basically done.”

“That’s
great,” she says, smiling. “You guys have done such awesome work. Thank you so
much.” She leans in toward me, saying, “So you knew that you were this close
and you still went through with your intimidation tactic?”

She
has a point.

“It
was kind of a principle thing,” I whisper back, hoping the guys aren’t paying
too close attention to what Jessica and I are talking about. “I am very sorry
about that, though. I should have thought it through.”

“That’s
okay,” she says. “Hey guys. Everything looks great, but seeing all of your
amazing work has given me a few more ideas that we can do to make this space
even better than it is right now.”

“What
are you doing?” I murmur into her ear.

“You’ll
be doing a few upgrades free of charge,” she says. “If you don’t like that,
I’ll simply nullify your contract for unwillingness to complete the project as
requested.”

“You
can’t do that,” I tell her, becoming acutely aware that it’s not so fun to be
on the business end of a personal vendetta. “The project that was requested is
hardly the project that we ended up with. If anyone violated the contract, it
was you.”

“Actually,”
she says, turning toward me seemingly just so she can look me in the eyes when
she says it, “I had my lawyer add in a clause before we signed that changes to
the initial plans could be made at my sole discretion at any point during the
contract. So,” she continues, “here’s an ultimatum for
you
: You either do exactly what I tell you to do, free of charge,
or we tear up your contract and you and your men are going to be getting a much
smaller paycheck than you thought you had coming, and I’m not just talking
about a few bucks either. I’m talking six figures.”

This
is why you shouldn’t let a client pay you in installments and why you always,
always
read a contract twice.

Chapter Seven

Setting Boundaries… Or
Not

Jessica

“So
why don’t you want me to know your name or age?” he writes.

“Just
because and you haven’t told your name or age either.”

My
new phone buddy and I have been chatting it up on a daily basis, and I think
Kristin is onto me.

“Well
I’m just around thirty but my name…I like to keep the suspense.”

“Same
here…”

“Why
don’t you want to talk about what you do for a living then?” he writes.

“At
this point, I’m pretty sure that I couldn’t talk about it without coming across
as bitter and, really, there are better things to talk about.”

He
writes back, “Yeah, I can understand that. So, what do you want to talk about?”

“What
do you do when the thing you love doing gets soiled by someone who can’t help
but ruin everything?” I ask.

“I
thought we weren’t talking about work,” he writes.

“You’re
right, of course,” I respond. “How long was your longest relationship?”

“One
year,” he writes. “I know that doesn’t sound like much, but I really thought
she was it. You?”

“I
really wouldn’t feel bad about that,” I answer. “My longest relationship was
for a couple years with an older guy.”

“What
happened?” he asks.

“It
turned out that he didn’t really like me, so much as he wanted to make someone
else jealous. It kind of sucked figuring that out.”

“If
it makes you feel any better,” he writes, “my last relationship ended when I
came home to find my girlfriend packing up my things.”

I
smile. “Yeah, that might be worse.”

“Oh,
what’s worse is that she’d apparently been ‘dating’ someone else for a large
portion of our relationship. He was there helping box up my stuff.”

“All
right,” I type, “I think you win this round.”

“So,
have you ever gotten close to tying the knot?” he writes.

It’s
really not a question I want to answer, mainly because it’s one of the few
questions to which I really don’t
have
a good answer.

“Work
always seemed more pressing,” I write. I send another, saying, “Of course, I
always thought that work was going to be the catalyst for the right kind of
life, but apparently that’s not exactly as advertised.”

“Isn’t
it great how we’re always told that work is going to make our lives the most
livable, but it just seems to get in the way of everything else?” he writes. A
few seconds later, I get another message from him, saying, “I know it’s trite
by now, but aren’t we supposed to work to live, not the other way around?”