Chapter 38

Renee’s POV

I wish I could say it’s nice to be back home, but it’s not. At least not at work. At home, Debbie is happy to see me and loves me. I wish I didn’t have to leave our house every day and I could live out my life hanging out with my daughter, playing games, and watching movies.

Unfortunately, my daughter is sick and requires medical attention that requires money which is why I go to work, and at work everything is not cozy and welcoming like at home.

Currently, at work, I stand in the middle of the designers' room and watch like a fly on the wall as other designers scramble around frantically looking for the last design, invoice, email, or anything related to Mr. Arrington.

Apparently, word has spread like rapid fire that Eric has cut doing business with one of our biggest clients and everyone wants to know why.

It’s Tuesday, Eric and I arrived back a day late from our trip considering the fiasco we encountered, but apparently that same day on Monday when Eric stormed out of Mr. Arrington's house, Mr. Arrington called the company and wanted to place a formal complaint.

And who other than Mia was handling Eric’s tasks while he was away. So, now the whole office knows.

Fortunately, the whole office doesn’t know that I was with Eric but it’s only a matter of time until they piece it together since we were the only ones not here on Monday.

Unfortunately, I think I already screwed myself over here.

When my co-designer asked if I heard that Mr. Arrington is no longer doing this with us, I lied and said that I did not and acted all surprised, so now if people find out that I was in fact there when Mr. Arrington made that abundantly clear all the more suspicious.

I stand amiss the chaos and flip through my design book trying to look just as busy and confused as everyone else. It would be nice to go to my desk and actually get some work done but it seems like that is not what anyone is doing today and the last thing I want to do is draw attention to myself.

I’m staring down at my folder and even though it’s right in front of me, I don’t actually see what I have written down. Instead, my intention is being pulled to the gossiping whispers of my coworkers.

“Who was the last one to see him?”

“Is this going to affect our bonuses? He was the top paying client,”

“I heard his last design got royally messed up,”

I slam my folder, shut and walk out of the design room. I need some air.

As soon as I leave the room I’m run. Smack right into Eric. My first instinct is to yell at him to watch her he’s going, but I catch myself. He is my boss, that’s all he is, and I need to treat him as such.

“Excuse me, Eric,” I say and step to move past him. His eyes with anger and I know it’s not because I wrinkled his nice dress shirt. I could tell that me speaking to him as no one more than just my boss really got under his skin, But that’s not my problem. Even if I do feel guilty.

Especially now more than ever we need to appear as nothing more than colleagues. I shake my head we are nothing more than colleagues, though even as I tell myself, this, I can still feel his hot breath across my neck, and the pad of his thumb smoothing over my collarbone.

I know that moment was wrong in so many ways and even though I don’t like Mia, I know what it’s like to be in her position. You have a man you think loves you but instead willingly cheats on you. It’s because of that and I can continue treating Eric as coldly as I have been.

Eric clears his throat. “I was just coming to announce to the designers there is an impromptu meeting in the boardroom in ten minutes,” Eric says, his voice tight.

“Yes, sir,” I say. Eric’s nostrils flare, but I don’t give him the opportunity to lash out at me. I move past him and go to the ladies' room.

I take the ten minutes to splash some cold water on my face and take some deep breaths. Even if people know that I was with Eric when the business ties were cut, that doesn’t mean they will know what happened in our hotel room, or more importantly, what didn’t happen.

I walk into the board room and it goes quiet. A tell-tale sign that people were just talking about me. A few eyes follow me as I walk to the back of the room, plant myself against the wall, and stare straight ahead. I refuse to make eye contact with anyone here. I should’ve gone to Jaspers stupid birthday dinner.

Eric walks in, the door shutting hard behind him. He commands the attention of the room without even having to say a word.

He’s clean-shaven, in a slick navy blue suit that accentuates his cut figure. It’s a drastic change from the rugged, sleepy look of the airport. Both are still incredibly sexy. My throat goes dry.

Mia sits crossed leg in the seat at the front of the table, pen in hand with a notebook at her side. It dawns on me, then that Mia likely doesn’t know I accompanied him over the weekend, otherwise, she probably wouldn’t be sitting this close to him eagerly waiting to take down the minutes of this meeting.

With this realization comes a wave of relief, that means Eric doesn’t want anyone to know that I was with him anymore than I do.

“Let’s just cut to the chase,” Eric says as his opening statement. Mia’s pen scribbles across the notebook. “I am here to address and confirm that the rumors are true,” Eric says, and my heart rate quickens.

Why does it feel like he is suddenly going to out me? And what is he going to help me for? That I am his ex-wife? That he almost kissed me?

“James Arrington will no longer be a client of Blue Moon Group,” he says, and I fall back against the wall. I need to get a rip. Immediately the questions start flying across the room.

“What happened?” Someone asks this is probably the biggest question that everybody has. Voices trample over one another, trying desperately to be hard. Eric holds up his hands to silence everybody.

“I’ve always believed in honesty,” Eric says, and he looks right at me as he says this but no one seems to notice. “This is the story, it is the truth, it is what you all deserve as my loyal employees,” the room is quiet. Everyone waits for him to continue. When Mia finishes writing, Eric inhales deeply.

“I went to visit our big client, Mr. James Arrington, and while I was there, he and his wife attempted to recruit one of the employees here to be a model,” a few hush whispers break out everybody wondering who Mr. James Arrington wanted.

Eric holds his hands up again and once more the room falls silent. “He would have taken any of you, he knows the people I have who work for me are special and he is trying to build a company for himself by copying what I have. I refuse to do business with an insecure thief.”

He holds eye contact with others in the room to show his seriousness, “It is quite simple, I don’t like when people try to take what is mine.”

Other questions break down in the room and they’re good questions pertaining to how the company will be affected if our bonuses will be impacted, but I find myself not caring about the answer to any of these questions. All I can think about is what Eric just said and if he meant that for me.

“please email me your questions, I will cancel my meetings for today and answer them all in a formal letter that you can all expect on your desk by end of the day tomorrow,

with that Eric ends the meeting.

If Eric had thought that his meeting would soothe the anxiousness of his employees, he was mistaken. If anything, the atmosphere is even buzzing more.

Everybody is wondering who would be a model, and some people outright claim that it was them that James was referring to. The vanity in this place is going to lead to an all-out war.

By lunchtime, all eyes have turned on me. It’s getting impossible to ignore as I sit at a table alone but every time I look up, somebody is up and down and then walking away snickering.

I'm just about to slam my hands down on the table and ask these people what it is they are talking about Over to me. She puts her hands down on the table and leans at me so that I have to look up to see her.

“Where were you over the weekend?” Mia asks her words, slow and boiling with anger. I know it’s only a matter of time before she explodes. I tried to think of the best way to play this. Deny. Deny. Deny.

I was with Eric visiting James Arrington,” I say before I can stop myself. I don’t know what’s come over me, but something about the look in Mia’s eye as though I’ve done something wrong when I didn’t.

Eric is the one who made me, Eric is the one who cut ties with the client, Eric is the one who almost kissed me. And yet I’m the one sitting alone in a lunch room with everyone gawking at me like I’m some kind of zoo animal. I stand up, I’ve already told the truth I might as well roll with it.

“Why?” Mia‘s mouth drops open and she scoffs.

“You’re a whore,” Mia says, and the lunchroom breaks out in laughter.

How insecure of you to think that anything happened between me and Eric, “I say folding my arms over my chest.

A few people break out and sound as though to comment on the hurtful truth of my comment.

“Insecure?” Mia laughs, “Please, you wish. No, I’m just smart enough to have figured it out. If nothing happened, then why would Eric cut ties with a rich client instead of firing you for your ridiculous and stupid mistake?”

Though nothing did happen, it’s a good question. Why didn’t Eric fire me? Unable to answer; I stare back in silence. Mia picks her tongue over her teeth and leans back.

“I knew it,” she looks at me in disgust. “Whore,”