Page 11 of Fierce-Zander

He wasn’t inappropriate by any means. Just flashy. It fit his personality and made her smile more than not.

Best hire of her life.

She went into her office and left the door open. It was four thirty and her call with Katelyn was at five. That gave her time to eat the other half of the sub she’d picked up at lunch. She’d be lucky to get out of here by eight since her second call was at six-fifteen. She wanted to give herself fifteen minutes between the calls as a buffer so no one was waiting.

New clients tended to be longer than an hour while she got some background information.

As she was taking the last bite of her sandwich, Miles popped his head in to wave. “Hang on,” he said.

She finished chewing and waited to see what he was doing. Then he showed back up in the doorway and tossed something in the air.

She reached out to catch it and saw it was a candy bar. “Oh, yum. What’s this for?”

“I got it earlier today,” Miles said. “I went to get one for myself and two popped out. Consider it your lucky day and you might need the sugar to get you through.”

“I’m so honored you’re sharing your chocolate with me,” she said. “What do I owe this surprise to?”

Miles waved his hand in front of his long body and took a bow as if he were soaking up applause for the closing act on Broadway.

“Just me being nice,” Miles said. “By the way, I updated your website for you. I said you were taking clients and pushed the video appointments. I also made a list of physicians I thought you could call or reach out to and extend services for referrals and Roni got some basic information a few weeks ago to push you as the new tenant in the building.”

Regan laughed. “You’re great for business,” she said. “I’ll look at it tomorrow and we’ll put something together. I know you enjoy making those calls too.”

Miles was silently clapping his hands. “I love selling you.”

She coughed out a laugh. “That doesn’t sound right.”

“If I could sell you another way, I know who I’d try it with.”

She rolled her eyes. “Let me guess,” she said. “The sexy PI next door.”

“You said he’s seeeexxxxy,” Miles said.

“No, you say it. I’m just repeating your words.”

“Because you think it,” Miles said, doing a spin and whistling as he walked out. “Enjoy your calls.”

She heard the door shut and the alarms set. Most times she wasn’t nervous about her clients, knowing they came to her withproblems and issues of their own. But she was smart enough to look out and protect herself and be reasonable about it too.

Being alone at night and locking herself in was just plain smart.

A few minutes before five, she set up the video call and waited for Katelyn to join.

“Hello,” she said to Katelyn. “How are you doing this evening?”

“I’m fine,” Katelyn said. “Good. I mean, getting there.”

“I noticed you and Zachery canceled last week.” She wouldn’t say what she’d heard through Zander or Miles. “Is everything okay?”

“We canceled because I moved out,” Katelyn said, crying.

“Do you want to share what happened? I know you told me in our session together that you didn’t love Zachery anymore and that you didn’t want to work it out, but then when he came in, you didn’t speak up.”

Katelyn sniffled and blew her nose. “I just get so intimidated around him. He talks circles around me and makes me feel like such a fool. I hate that. I’ve never felt good enough for him. But when we left two weeks ago, he’d leaned down and told me that my pants didn’t look good on me and I shouldn’t wear them again.”

Regan felt her shoulders drop. “I’m sorry he said that to you.”

“It just struck me that I was tired of being walked over. I yanked my hand out of his and he wanted to know what he said. But I saw it in his eyes. He knew what he was saying and I wondered why I never noticed it before.”

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