AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“And you aren’t my friend either, are you?”
“Were we ever friends?”
His question hit me like a stone to glass. We had never been friends, but that didn’t mean I wanted to hear him say it.
“No, we weren’t. You are my best friend’s brother.”
He nodded slowly, “And your boss. And you skipped out on work today. I’m allowed to be concerned for my employee.”
“Do you take all your employees to dinner?”
He paused, “No.”
“So what makes me so different? Do you not see how confusing this whole dynamic is for me? You say I can’t be friendly at work, so I respect that. But here you are, blurring the boundaries of what is and isn’t allowed. Do you enjoy toying with my emotions like this?”
“I'm not toying with you.”
“Well, you’re confusing me. You are blurring the lines and making it difficult for me to understand what the hell is happening.”
“Recuerdas cuando éramos jóvenes y estábamos enamorados así mi amor?” I heard Alberto ask his wife from the truck.
“We are not in love, Alberto.” I turned to look to the side where they stood in the truck, smiling at us. “Este hombre no es más que un idiota.”
“You speak Spanish?”
I whipped my head back to Daniel, “There are many things you don’t know about me. But that’s not the point here. The point is, you have to draw a clear line for me here.”
“I am your boss, and you are my employee. This dinner here was simply an act of goodwill to you and my sister, who would kill me if she knew I didn’t at least look out for you.”
I wasn’t convinced this had anything to do with Claire, but I didn’t want to press the issue further.
“So this dinner is a one-and-done deal?” I needed to clarify this so I knew that after tonight, I could move forward and know how to navigate our non—existent relationship.
He cleared his throat and leaned back into his chair. “Yes, one-and-done deal.”
I nodded. That was that, then. It was now up to me to navigate this dynamic accordingly. Whatever flame or attraction I held toward this man needed to be smothered and killed immediately.
“Since this will only happen once, I might as well take advantage of your generosity.” I cleared my throat and looked at Alberto. “Alberto, otra order de tacos y unos nachos por favour.”
Alberto smiled at me and nodded.
When I turned back to Daniel, he had an unnerving look in his eyes. I cleared my throat and returned to eating my first round of tacos.
“Thank you, by the way,” I said after I had swallowed. “This was good for me.”
“You’re welcome, Selena. And though we may not be friends, I want you to call me if you are having trouble.”
“Why?”
He gave me a skeptical look, “I’m not a devil, Selena.”
“Could have fooled me.” I shrugged, “You were pretty rude to me the first day at work.”
A flash of regret crossed his features, but it didn’t stay there long. “I was only trying to tell you the truth. I expect perfection from all my employees, and from what I had seen of you in the past, it didn’t look like you took anything seriously.”
His words hurt, but they had been ones I had heard repeatedly from various people in my childhood and beyond. He was not the first and definitely would not be the last.
“I may not like to micro-manage everything in my life, Daniel, but I take my work seriously. I worked my ass off to free—I mean to get myself here, and I want you to know that I take this job seriously too. I can’t risk losing it.”
