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“Shelly!” I tried again. “You can’t do that. You have to communicate with me. You have to tell me things and let me decide if they’re things I want to attach my name to. Then you have to respect that decision.”
“That makes no sense,” she said. “None at all. It was a good tip.”
“Shelly, you can’t work for me anymore.”
She glared at me.
“You’re fired.”
“I don’t work for you, so you can’t fire me.”
“If you don’t work for me, then you shouldn’t come to my office.”
Her face scrunched in confusion. “You have to admit I’ve been helpful.”
My office had never been cleaner, my invoices had never been better caught up, and she’d even installed virus software on my computer. Along with a game of solitaire. “That’s not the point. You’ve stepped across the line. My reputation is at stake.”
She pointed toward her chest. “I did?”
“God, Shelly,” I growled. “You make me so goddamn angry. Do you listen at all?”
She looked everywhere but at me. “I listen well. I hear everything. I just have trouble understanding how people feel about things, okay? I see the facts and they all make sense to me. But what never makes sense is how people feel. So if you feel something, particularly if you feel something strongly, you’ll have to tell me.”
“I feel strongly like you shouldn’t be working for me.”
“Give me one reason why not.”
I could think of about ten, just to start. “You have invaded my space.”
“How does that make you feel?” she asked, her voice getting louder.
“It makes me feel helpless. Like I’m working in chaos. And I hate chaos.”
Her brows drew together. “Oh,” she breathed. “I’m sorry I made you feel that way. It wasn’t my intention. I just wanted to help.”
“Why do you want to help so badly?”
“I want to make Lynn proud of me,” she replied.
“Lynn is already proud of you.”
She shook her head. “She’s trying to be. But I constantly see her bracing herself, waiting for me to mess everything up.” She looked vulnerable all of a sudden, and damned if I didn’t like vulnerable Shelly almost as much as I liked kick-ass Shelly. My heart squeezed. “Can I keep working if I promise to talk to you about things rather than just doing them?”
“Is that a promise you can keep?”
She nodded.
I got up, drained the last of my coffee, and rinsed my cup in the sink.
I suddenly felt like a failure. I’d come here to fire her, and I hadn’t. What was she doing to me?
“You can’t call in any tips from my cases. But you can come to me with your theories. Then I’ll decide what I will and will not do with them. Do you understand?”
She nodded vigorously, reminding me of an eager puppy.
I stuck my hand out and she pressed her palm against mine and shook my hand like she was pumping a well.
I already regretted my decision.
