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Cath was getting ready for yet another party. She had bought a new red dress, for the holidays. Due to not eating well, she was the same size. So far they had only told her family and Trace’s about the pregnancy. No one looking at her tonight would ever suspect.
Trace arrived just before eight. It wouldn’t take them long to get to the restaurant where the dinner was being given.
“I’m ready. I could have met you downstairs,” she said, gathering her purse and wrap.
“Good. That’s not why I came in. We have to talk.”
He closed the door and looked at her closely.
Cath found the words ominous.
“About what?” she asked.
“This and that. How are you and Phil doing?”
She wouldn’t have gone to Trace behind her new boss’s back, but nothing said she couldn’t answer a direct question. She folded her coat over her arm and thought about it for a moment.
“Badly. He takes credit for my work. He doesn’t listen half the time and I think it’s because he’s a guy and I’m a woman. And he reversed some of the strategies Tom and I had put in place a few months ago before they’ve had time to work.”
Trace may not like what he heard, but she wasn’t going to lie.
He rubbed his hand across the back of his neck, nodding slowly.
“Thomas called me today with almost the same report. He’s due to retire in a couple more weeks, now says he isn’t going anywhere before I know the full situation. And that there’s some assurance you’ll be taking over. I couldn’t tell him why you can’t get there next month. He thinks you’ve changed your mind.”
“We could tell him. He won’t blab it around,” Cath said.
She felt a spark of gratitude for Tom. He wasn’t letting her deal with Phil alone.
“Let me ask you something. If it had been a different department, would you have handled things differently? I can’t believe you arbitrarily bring in managers without discussing it with others impacted by the decision.”
Trace moved closer. He reached out and tilted her face up toward his.
“I should have told you before you showed up at work that day. I was wrong. I apologize. Can we get past this?”
“I still want to know how you would have handled a different department,” she said.
“The same.”
“You rushed it all. And the worst part was you never said a word to me. How do you think I felt finding out like I was some lowly peon who had no right to expect anything else?”
He listened to her, his thumb brushing gently against her cheek.
She knocked his hand away.
“I’m serious here, Trace. You need to reevaluate this matter.”
“I don’t want you reporting directly to me.”
“So make it worth Thomas’s while to stay. We’re only talking a few months and then I’ll be ready to take over.”
“Still be direct reporting.”
“But from Brussels. People could hardly think I was influencing you unduly from thousands of miles away.”
He put his hands in his trouser pockets.
“If I reevaluate the situation and still think Phil is the best man, then what?”
