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I look up at her, a dark cloud hanging overhead. “This stays between you and me. HR got a report from an employee that Zach Dupont sexually harassed them. There are two witnesses.”
Mel’s eyes are wide. “You think he really…?”
“I do,” I confirm emotionlessly. “I know he seems nice, Mel, but Zach has a history of these kinds of issues. It’s just never been brought this far up the ladder. Maybe now, it’ll get Roy’s attention.”
She straightens up, feet on the ground and a determined look on her face. “I never thought he was nice, Jenson. Actually, he kind of skeeved me out. He was definitely overdoing it.”
“Probably trying to get his hands on you, since you’re mine.”
It just slips out. The two of us lock eyes, and I wait for her to straighten me out or laugh. She does neither, only holds my gaze.
“You don’t need to go back early for this?”
I shake my head. “No. We can stay for the last day. I’ll take care of it when we get back.”
Standing, I shuck my shirt off and stride toward the bedroom, intending to find a clean one. I can shower later, after lunch. Right now, I’ll probably just angry-sweat anyway. It’s a good thing Zach left last night, because if I saw him face-to-face, I don’t know what I’d do. Probably wrap my hands around his throat and teach him a lesson about how to treat people.
“Hey.”
I look over my shoulder. She’s standing in the doorway, light trousers flowing down her hips and a thin-strapped top slipping down one shoulder. My heartbeat slows, then picks up even faster, but not from anger this time.
“Yeah?”
“You really care about them, huh? The employees, I mean. Everyone you work with.”
“Of course. There’d be no Dupont Analytics without them. And besides—I started right beside them years ago.”
She’s watching me closely, a look on her face that I can’t explain, arms crossed. Mel pushes off the door frame and steps near, then catches me off guard by pressing up on her tiptoes and kissing me on the cheek. The spot tingles as she pulls back.
“That’sthe guy I grew up with,” she says teasingly, walking backward out of the room. At the last second, she spins away.
And everything in me wants to follow after her, forever. Anywhere she’ll lead me.
Chapter15
Melanie
Dinner the last day of the retreat is a huge to-do. Jade Lodge has gone all out, with an actual waterfall feature in the dining room singing prettily against one wall. It’s a gorgeous temperate night and the wall of French doors that lead out to the patio are all open.
Jenson lounges next to me in a shirt unbuttoned just enough to look lazy and content. His hair is slightly ruffled, his gray eyes half-closed as he observes the rest of the team. There are about two dozen people left. At a nearby table, Roy chats happily, laughing and good-natured as ever.
Liza is tucked away at our table, giving us furtive glances. Brian is here as well. I’ve grown to like him on the trip—he’s a retired cardiologist and an investor in the company.
“So,” he says, leaning in toward me with a charming smile, “now that we’ve reached the end of our journey, Melanie, you have to tell me—how did you snag Jenson Sharpe? Or was it the other way around?”
I return his smile easily and push my cleared plate away. “Hmm, well. I’d sayhesnaggedme.”
Jenson raises a brow slightly. “I beg to differ.”
Liza is watching curiously now, as are the other two people at the table. Ben and Jill, the two HR employees who didn’t look thrilled to be here the first few days.
“We grew up in the same town,” Jenson explains, then goes on to tell the story. The one we haven’t had to make up, because it’s true. As he talks about our past—meeting as kids, Aunt Jodie and his mom chatting at the elementary school pick up area, having some of the same classes together in middle school, exploring every summer—I’m lulled into a comfortable swirl of memories. The stress of the last few years doesn’t go away, but it recedes. I feel oddly at peace…like I’m where I’m supposed to be.
“And then in high school, I finally got the courage to ask her out.”
“He didn’t do it well,” I chime in, grinning. “There was a bit of stuttering, if I remember correctly.”
Jenson shoots me a playful glare, and it’s as if it’s just the two of us in the room, reminiscing. “It was hard not to. You were so pretty. Still are.”
