Page 68 of A Conflict of Interest

“Actually, yes, more or less.”

“Oh. Jeez. Um.” I fussed with my hair, adjusting my hairclip. “I mean, I know I’m in love with her… and she acts so much like she’s in love with me, too, that I want to believe it. But it’s hard to trust when you’ve been burned so many times.”

She nodded, slowly, before she said, “You don’t need to rush. If it is as real as it seems, it will stay that way for a while yet. I mean, Veronica’s fully suckered in… she’s not rushing anywhere.”

I shrugged. “I guess I’m just… scared.”

“Of getting hurt again. That’s natural.”

“Of that, but also…” I folded my hands in my lap. “I dunno. Of letting myself get fooled again. Just because I… well. I don’t want to be an idiot.”

She studied me for a while. I fixed my gaze on the cute little Christmas tree with its little white lights, which were the prettiest kinds.

“I know I kind of am a lot of the time, but I just… wish I weren’t. And I’ve been trying to make a point, prove that I’m not some hapless girl who’s easily taken advantage of, so… it’s silly, but I’m just as worried about looking stupid as I am about getting my heart broken.”

She watched me a while longer before she said, quietly, “That’s not stupid, Kelcey. I think a lot of people feel that way all the time. On the contrary… it’s a sign of self-awareness that you notice it and know how it’s affecting your decisions.”

I chewed my cheek, kicking lightly at the floor. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. For what it’s worth—if you choose to love somebody and get the rug pulled out from under you, it reflects on them, not on you. But I get why it feels like that.”

“Thanks…” I took a long breath, forcing myself to perk back up, pushing the heavy haze of thoughts away. “So—um—how is that relevant to why you’ve called me in here? Are we doing a bring-your-girlfriend-to-work-day event? Because that’s every day for you.”

“It really is,” she said with the dreamiest smile, looking at the picture of herself and Anna she had on the desk, which was so adorable I wanted to scream, especially given how often Anna was in here with her and she still needed a picture of Anna to get her through those slim times where she wasn’t in. “I’m lucky like that. Whereas for you, bring-your-girlfriend-to-work day is a one-time event.”

I paused. “Wait, thatiswhat’s happening?”

“The event coming up, the one Comms has been on—well, mostly while you were out of office. It’s topersonally thank and value our suppliers, partners, contractors, investors, and everyone else who makes our work possible.Some of the outside teams we’ve been working with are sending their reps, and we’re spoiling them a bit. Standard stuff. HR loves the videos enough they want to invite ERC’s reps and make sure we keep them in our pocket… Liam Danielson said yes. And since ERCinsistedyou be their contact, well—we can’t exactly not have you at the event, even though Berg about had a prolapse when I mentioned it to him.”

“Ah.” I scratched my head.

“Assuming you’re not planning on throwing anybody into a Christmas tree,” she said cheerfully, “it’s a good opportunity for you. You get to attend and put on a good performance and reassure everybody that the last event was just one little fluke. So long as… you’re okay with attending an event with Veronica Preston, since she’s ERC’s outreach coordinator and it’s going to be Liam Danielson and her.”

“Of course,” I said, perking up. “I’ll be, uh… maintaining… a reasonable distance from her and barely acknowledging her, actually.”

She gave me a wry look. “That’s exactly it. You probably don’t want it getting around that you and Veronica have anything going on. Luckily we have a nice solid contract with ERC in general now and it’s not going to jeopardize that, but… well, I don’t think you want to deal with the personal fallout if people find out the one who was going to bat for your case is your girlfriend. Or whatever you’re calling her,” she said, putting a hand up. “Not after you worked so hard to get back into the office.”

I folded my hands in my lap, nodding. “Right… will do. Thanks, Boss Lucy. I, uh, I appreciate you and Anna stickingup for me.” I paused. “And how cute you two are. I hope she absolutely loves her cookies.”

She smiled. “She will.”

I gestured to her desk. “And—I hope you have a good cathartic time crying into your muffin!”

She closed her eyes, still smiling. “I will. Thanks, Kelce.”

I puffed out my chest a little on my way out of the office. One more event before Christmas. One last major event before Christmas, with something to prove to Berg, and a girl I had a maybe-relationship with that I was keeping secret—did that remind me of something I couldn’t put my finger on?

Probably not. It was going to be fine.

Chapter 19

Veronica

Liam Danielson arched an eyebrow at me, hands in his coat pockets. “You’re not going to freeze to death with fewer than thirty coats on?”

“I am, so that’s why I’m going to run to the car and then run from the car into the building. You see the sacrifices I make to show up looking nice. You could have honored my sacrifice by keeping the office temperature above thecryogenic preservationsetting.”

“It’s sixty-nine degrees…”

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