“You know Gunnar’s upstairs right now, fighting for you,” Tim said.
For a moment that warmed my heart, but then it all crumbled. I used my shoulder to swipe away the tear on my cheek. “He shouldn’t have to do that. All I wanted was for my work to stand on its own. Instead…” I’d made everything so much harder, so much worse. He was busy doing damage control because of me. Why had I ever thought we could make this work? My voice cracked. “I need to go.” Tears streamed down my cheeks, which is why I didn’t see Jay. I bumped into him as I stepped into the hallway and stumbled back. He gripped my elbows to steady me.
“Don’t touch me,” I snapped. “Don’t ever, ever come near me again.”
“Z—”
“Leave it, Jay,” Tim snapped as we continued down the hall. “I told her to watch out for you, but clearly none of us knew what a true jerk you were. Now, the rest of the team and I will be marching your ass upstairs so you can tell Gunnar exactly what you did.”
“I didn’t do anything?—”
“Then it won’t be hard to explain your weekly lunches with Lydia Flores or Jeff Cross?—”
“Are you spying on me?” Jay cut across Tim’s tirade.
I frantically pressed the elevator button.
“I didn’t have to,” Tim replied. “Everyone knows you’ve had it out for Zaila since the mascot?—”
I stepped in, and the elevator closed behind me, so I didn’t hear the rest of that argument. Just as well. I was too busy falling apart.
Chapter 33
Gunnar
This meeting was a farce, one I didn’t have time for. It seemed obvious that Jay had ambushed Zaila. According to Paloma and Vivian, Jay been at lunch multiple times with our former social media director, Lydia Flores. Still, I couldn’t walk out of this meeting—not until I fully understood the board’s issue with Zaila and the media backlash with Jeff. Protecting Zaila was my priority, even above the franchise.
That realization gave me a moment’s pause, but then I decided I’d finally found my happiness, and I would not let anyone destroy it. Dammit. I’d just signed off on the press release about Zaila and me, and instead of celebrating that happy news with lunch in my office, I was neck-deep in this shitshow because I’d been overly confident in thinking I’d handled Jay.
Clearly I had not.
As if I’d conjured him, Jay stepped into the boardroom, fidgety and sweaty, with seemingly the entire third floor behind him. Tim led the group, his cheeks flushed. “Mr. Evaldson, Jay needs to speak to the board for a moment, please,” Tim said. Even his clipped voice showed an anger I wouldn’t have believed possible from the mild-mannered graphics director.
“We’re in the middle of a meeting,” snapped Don Rosenfeld, the president of a large regional bank and my oldest director.
“Which is why you need to hear this directly from the acting social media director,” Tim said firmly. “It will be enlightening and should speed up the review process.”
I would never have expected Tim, of all people, to interrupt a board meeting, but clearly, whatever Jay had done made it necessary in his mind. I studied Jay, wondering why I hadn’t fired him. Well, I couldn’t do all that work myself, and at first I’d needed to maintain distance from Zaila—and now I wanted time with her. Both those reasons had now come back to bite my ass.
“You really should hear what he has to say,” Tim said, wiping his upper lip. “Especially since it has to do with the board’s desire to censure Ms. Monroe for activities she never took part in.”
With that, the board erupted.
“What?”
“How do you know that?”
“Why is everyone so captivated by this young lady?”
The questions flew around the room, fast and furious, but I kept my gaze firmly on Tim, and he met my eyes when he spoke again. “Some individuals inspire loyalty because of their actions. The team has made it clear that they will not let this go because Zaila is one of those people. I didn’t just miss her this past week…”
I gritted my teeth, jealousy rearing its ugly head.
“…I found the quality of what we produce to be lacking while she was out on bereavement leave. Notably, that’s the timeframe of the posts in question, while her laptop was on her desk.” As Tim laid out the details, Jay flinched, his expression pinched.
“I’ve noted that our social engagement is down by half, outside of Jeff’s posts,” Silas Whittaker noted.
“That’s because Zaila is the best at navigating our accounts,” Tim explained. “And while she created most of the content that ended up on Jeff’s pages?—”
