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She stilled at my words and looked up to meet my gaze, the surprise in her arched eyebrows, as if she assumed I was incapable of saying anything like that. Her eyes were locked on my face, as if she heard my voice in her head rather than out loud.
“Thank you for dinner.” I spoke with more confidence than last time, letting my heavy words pierce the silence.
She dropped her gaze and dismissed my words with indifference. Then she turned around to walk away.
She hated me. “Emerson?”
She turned back to me, not even bothering to hide the inconvenience my words caused her, like she had plans for the evening and I was stalling them. One hand moved to her hip, and she regarded me coldly.
I almost abandoned the attempt because she looked so livid, because this felt so pointless. “I wanted to select the interns with you. Can we do that tomorrow?”
“Did you look at the papers I sent you?”
No. I was too busy with my mom. “Yes. We’ll begin the selection process tomorrow.”
“I already organized the best candidates. It’s your call at this point—”
“We’ll work on it tomorrow after lunch.” It killed me to watch this scene unfold, to watch the woman who formerly bent over backward to do everything for me do everything possible to avoid me. She literally wanted nothing to do with me.
She turned away and continued walking. “Whatever.”
It was a day I would normally be home with my mom, but I came to the office so I would have a chance to talk to Emerson. Now, I was only coming to the office two days a week, but she never asked me about it. So she either didn’t notice I was gone or just didn’t give a damn.
Both were bad.
After she dropped off lunch, she headed back to the corporate office instead of staying in the warehouse. She either forgot about our meeting or was hoping to get out of it. Just being in the same room with me was a challenge—and not because she missed me, but because she couldn’t stand me.
How did I let this happen?
How did I let the one person who really loved me hate me?
After lunch, I drove the golf cart to the main building and made the long walk to the office I never used. I was still her boss, so I could demand her to come to me, but I felt like a dick asking her to do anything ever again.
I could see her through the glass doors. She sat at the desk that belonged to me and looked at her computer, like she was going through emails. A salad sat in front of her, partially eaten.
I inhaled a deep breath then stepped inside, the folder of candidates tucked under my arm.
Her eyes shifted to me, visibly annoyed.
I lowered myself into the chair that faced her desk, my desk, and opened the folder.
She gave a sigh she didn’t bother to hide before she opened a drawer and pulled out her copies of the candidates. “We can take up to forty people, but we had 11,000 submissions. I narrowed down the choices to the stack you have now, but there’s not much more selecting that I can do at this point. They’re all qualified, all interesting, all have their hearts in the right place.”
I started to flip through them, only partially paying attention to what I was reading. I tried to think of something I could say to Emerson, a segue into what I truly wanted to discuss, an opening to pitch my apology…and hope that she knew I meant it.
“Every woman and person of color who applied is in that first stack, so they got priority over other candidates who were equally qualified.”
I continued to flip and glance. “It definitely gives them an edge, but I’m not going to take them solely based on that. Thirty percent of applicants should be from that pile, but I also want everyone to have equal opportunity.”
With her cheek propped against her palm, her head was bent to flip through the pages and scan the submissions. She had a slouched posture, like she couldn’t care less about her presentation or her poise.
She didn’t give a damn about anything.
I seized the opportunity to stare at her, to stop flipping the pages and take the time to study her face, to see her blue eyes in that beautiful face, the full lips I used to kiss every single day. The last few months had been a blur of women, booze, parties…darkness. But that fog had lifted, and I could see clearly once more, see the one person who actually meant something to me. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” She kept flipping, only half listening to me, not taking me seriously.
“Emerson.” I cleared my throat, wanting her attention, wanting her to know my deep sincerity.
