Page 4 of A Conflict of Interest

“Oh, that—” Liam Danielson poked his head out through the doorway, a guy in his early thirties with messy blond curls and a lean build, looking somewhere between posh and charmingly scruffy. He was kinda cute, and under other circumstances I’d have gone for it, but I didn’t like to shit where I ate. “It broke. We’ve just been shoving things on the shelf.”

“There’s no room to shove anything on the shelf.”

He scrunched up his face. “Why’d you even bring that much stuff? It’s only forty degrees…”

“What, you just want me to freeze to death? Jesus Christ. Fine, I’ll just die. You knew what you were getting into, calling me in here for something last-minute before Christmas. I’m wellwithin my rights to up and burn the place down if I want to stay warm.”

He walked through the doorway fully, stepping around shelves, boxes, equipment that hadn’t been used in a while, equipment that was used every day, and a random filing cabinet in the middle of the room that had always been there and so we’d all kind of just normalized that there was a filing cabinet in the middle of the room and that became its home. I was still the newest one here, only six months in even though that was a long time for me to stick to any one job, so I was the one least likely to just nod and accept something like a filing cabinet in the center of the room, but I also didn’t give enough of a shit to move it, so there was a filing cabinet in the middle of the room. “I think everyone else here has thought about it at one point or another,” he said. “We’re getting all hands on deck, so it’s not just you.”

“Ugh, I hate when all hands are on deck. That always means I don’t get any time off.”

He shrugged, likeit’s kinda your problem if you’re expecting time off.He was the worst boss I’d had in six months. “We’ll be able to relax after the holiday rush. This is big. We just got contacted by someone from a big corporate client I’d worked with back at Bayton, and it could be our best lead ever. We arenotletting this go.”

I slumped. “Can’t I be on duty going there and charming their executives and our contacts there with my irresistible wit?”

He lit up. “That’s exactly what I want you to do.”

Oh, sweet. Forget the complaints. I was going to get to go to a party full of well-off, repressed corporate types who would absolutely shell out big money to flatter me and make me feel like a spoiled princess for a while if it got me in bed. These were the best assignments in the world. I hadn’t gotten to have a casual fling since I tried… something stupid with Kelcey Huntington and got my ego bruised, and maybe this would begood to help me move on. “Great,” I said, perking up. “I’m so there. What’s the company? Who’s our contact? Someone cute?”

“I…” He faltered. “I don’t know if she’s cute. That’s not my highest priority in a phone call.”

“Okay, fine, whatever. Who is it?” I’d take anyone and anything if it wasn’t Kelcey Huntington.

“Her name’s Kelcey Huntington, with Lakeshore Logistics.”

Son of a bitch. “Kel—what,” I said, my voice coming out like I’d stepped on a frog mid-croak. “I’m sorry, can you say that again?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Kelcey Huntington. Do you know her?”

Maybe I should have quit right now. I had a decent bit of money saved up. I could coast to my next job. That was something I did a couple times a year and I was a little overdue now anyway. “Kelcey… Huntington. You, uh—” I cleared my throat. Had to find something to recognize her by other than being the girl who… I didn’t want to think about, at any cost. “You mean the Silverfield General Hospital director’s granddaughter? That Kelcey Huntington?”

Liam’s eyes just about lit up with dollar signs. “The what? She’s related to the hospital director?”

I shouldn’t have said that. “Uh… yep. The one and only. Man, probably a bad client.”

“How do you know that?”

Ugh, I didn’t do lying. I was a straightforward person. I hunched my shoulders. “My sister is her direct supervisor at Lakeshore.”

“Are you kidding me?” Liam looked like he’d burst, eyes sparkling. “She never mentioned that.”

“Yeah, my sister doesn’t know I’m working here right now. Last she checked, I was a wedding photographer.”

He frowned, thinking it over, before he shook it off. “Well, either way, that’s the best opportunity I’ve seen in my life. What do you think? You can go talk to Kelcey and—I don’t know, bond over your sister. Make absolutely sure we get the gig. She’s strongly considering it but we still have to get her to sign on the dotted line.”

“Uh.” Kelcey would cut all ties with the firm if she knew I was working here. “Well… erm. Yeah. About that.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Something wrong? Kelcey’s lovely. I’m sure you’d get along well with her.”

That was exactly the problem. We’d gotten along great until we hadn’t, until the moment I’d caught myself staring at her contact waiting for her to come online, and I’d been, like,ew, I don’t even recognize myself, this is weird,and I’d cut her off.

I’d just been planning on fucking her a few times because she was cute and stupid rich, my favorite combination. But onetinylittle thing getting her off under the table at her office’s holiday work party—as small and casual as anything—escalated into another thing and then another thing, and the next thing I knew, I was getting nervous suggesting getting dinner or something even though it was just to convince her to buy me a fancy dinner and then get her in bed after.

It kinda icked me out, being nervous and excited about the prospect of getting dinner with her. So I kind of fucked things up on purpose to make her hate me and ran away, except then I saw her again at another event later on and, well, she was cute and I was horny, so one thing led to another, and just onetinylittle thing fucking her in the bathroom at her company’s press release escalated into me getting even worse over her, so I cut her off harder.

And then a few months later, I crashed another one of my sister’s work parties, and there was Kelcey. The scary thing was that I wasn’t even horny that time, I just couldn’t stop myselffrom going and talking to her. And when she’d put up even more resistance that time, I hadn’t been able to help myself, and I’d committed to it day and night until I won her over again, and we had a whole series of dates until I’d realized, with a feeling like getting kicked in the nuts by a horse—at least what I imagine that would feel like if I had nuts and a horse—that I’d caught feelings for her, so I cut her off even harder this time.

Anna had torn me a new asshole after that, telling me to keep my hands off Kelcey or she’d take them off my arms. And I’d been kind of grateful, because it turned out I needed all the help I could get to keep my mind off Kelcey. I’d even gone and gotten into my best attempt at a serious relationship with a guy I knew from a previous job as an event coordinator, and it was a relationship with all the soft, sweet comforts of sandpaper.

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