She placed her hand on my knee. “Only if you promise to tell me everything about you guys’ history.”
I shrugged. “I mean, there’s nothing to tell. Me and my sister, Maggie, went to high school with him. Maggie and JoJo dated for a little while and she did some things she shouldn’t have.”
She gasped. “Did she cheat?”
I scoffed. “For starters.”
“Oh, my God! Do you think that’s why Mr. Ryker is such a dick?”
“Hmm?”
“You know, he’s an asshole. Everyone knows it. Do you think it’s because his first girlfriend stomped his heart into the ground?”
I blinked. “First of all, that’s my sister. And secondly, they only dated for, like, five months back in high school. That’s hardly a reason big enough to justify being an asshole to everyone all the time all of these years later.”
Her voice lowered. “You think he hired you just to make your life miserable since he can’t make hers miserable?”
I hadn’t even considered something like that, but suddenly some things started to make sense. “I honestly don’t know.”
She squeezed my knee. “Anyway, enough about that. Ready to hear about the long-ass email Mr. Ryker sent me a few days ago?”
I was much too distracted, though. “Sure, yeah. Go ahead.”
Brit continued to rattle off stupid shit I wanted to smack her for as I tried to make sense of my interactions with him since I’d been hired to the company. Is that really why he hired me? To try and get some sort of sick revenge against my sister? I mean, why deal with it? He and my sister happened so many years ago and all she did was suck off the high school quarterback. Hardly enough for him to justify making an adult woman’s life miserable for shit that happened when we were all nothing but horny-ass teenagers just trying to make it through the day.
And still, I wouldn’t have put it past him.
“He’s always been so fucking childish,” I murmured.
“What was that?” Brit asked.
I cleared my throat. “That email, it’s so damn childish, and he’s always been just a tad bit on the childish side.”
She scoffed. “A tad bit? The man wanted me to cancel my fucking honeymoon in order to jump in on a project he should’ve given me in the first place.”
I looked down at her left hand. “You don’t wear your ring?”
She pulled a chain necklace out from between her breasts, and it held a beautiful diamond ring. “I keep it around my neck, so I don’t lose it.”
I grinned. “You lose it a lot, don’t you?”
She rolled her eyes. “You sound like Mack.”
I smiled. “At least you have a life outside of work.”
“You know, I do notice that he’s giving you a hell of a lot more work starting out than he ever did with some of us. Is there some big shit going on with the board or something?”
I wasn’t sure if this was a conversation I needed to be having with her, but what else did I have to do? Go back to work tipsy?
I took another long pull from my drink. “It’s kind of my fault, but I’ll live.”
“What do you mean?”
I shrugged. “I’m trying to get this promotion since I wasn’t hired to do the job I originally interviewed to do.”
She gasped. “What job did you interview for?”
I snickered. “His top accounting position. That’s what the job interview said, anyway. I mean, don’t get me wrong, the job I’m doing now is great. But I’m hoping that if I really prove myself, I’ll get that original position.”
