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“What for?” He seemed confused by her response.
“For believing me. I wasn’t sure you would. I thought you might side with him.”
“I’d never side with anyone who’d do something like that,” he said, smiling at her, and she nodded her head. “If you sit outside with Livia, I’ll have someone take you home.”
I escorted Jenni from the office and, sure enough, about ten minutes later, a smartly-dressed woman came and asked for her. Jenni went with her, and once they’d disappeared down the hall, I walked straight into Hunter’s office.
“You arranged for a female driver?”
“I thought Jenni might prefer it,” he said, looking up at me.
“And are you really gonna fire Miles?”
He nodded his head. “I’ve just finished speaking to one of the board members.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. I told him what happened and asked him to come here this afternoon. I’ll need a witness, and in this instance, it can’t be you.” He tilted his head to one side, attempting a smile. “The guy coming in is called Patrick Malone and he’ll be arriving around three. I’ve arranged with Miles to come by, too… at three-thirty.”
“You didn’t tell him why you want to see him?”
“No.” He sighed. “I just wish I’d done something about him sooner.”
“B—Because of me, you mean?”
We hadn’t mentioned Miles since my return, but it felt like one of us needed to allude to the elephant in the room, and it might as well be me.
He got up, walking around his desk, and came to stand in front of me, cupping my face between both of his hands.
“No, baby. Not because of you. I hated seeing him at your parents’ place, but I couldn’t fire him for being there.”
“Then I don’t understand.”
“There were rumors about him,” he said.
“What rumors?”
“Nothing specific. That’s always been the problem. I’d heard things about the way he spoke to female employees, and about the way he behaved around them sometimes, but no-one ever came to me with anything concrete. There was nothing I could act on, until now, but I wish I’d…”
I rested my hands on his chest. “This isn’t your fault, Hunter.”
He kissed me then… really hard, holding my body tight against his. I could feel his arousal pressing in to me, and although I was tempted to do something about it, I remembered where we were and pulled back.
“I thought we were being careful.”
“Not anymore. I don’t care who knows about us, Livia.”
“But what if they…?”
“Let them think what they like. We know the truth. I’m yours… entirely yours, and I don’t give a damn about anyone else’s opinion.”
I realized then that I didn’t either.
Hunter fired Miles that afternoon in a heated meeting, after which Miles stormed out of the office without even a glance in my direction.
It was only later that evening, after we’d eaten, when I was lying in Hunter’s arms on the couch in his apartment, that I remembered Miles’s visit to my parents’ house again, and I sat up, looking down at him.
“Miles used the same excuse with me, you know?”
