Page 35 of Love Not Qualified

Did she even believe herself?

A mocking and barely hearable laugh escaped past my lips. “I have someone else taking care of that.”

Even though I didn’t believe Haelyn Ross could pull off her promise, I wanted Sara out of this. If Gorig changed his mind, no one on this Earth could convince him.

“Who?” she dared to ask.

“Haelyn,” I told her and watched how her eyes darkened and her body tensed. I leaned over my desk, holding eye contact. “Is this how you’re securing your place at the company? By trying to screw up others with our most important goals?” The same as mere moments ago, her painted lips formed an O, only her breaths coming through it. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing, Sara. I was planning to keep you both, but I’m expecting your resignation to be signed and on my desk by tomorrow morning.”

It wasn’t hard to figure out why she set Haelyn up. She felt threatened by her, and she knew if Haelyn had made a mistake like that, I would’ve never let her stay.

She fought raw with her claws when she should’ve been smart about it by proving to me that she was good at her job.

Instead, she put the company at risk and stained its image.

A shadow appeared in front of my open door—which I didn’t bother to close when Sara walked in because there were only three other people on this floor and everyone knew what she did—and my eyes lifted to meet a speechless Haelyn.

Her gaze traveled from me to Sara and our proximity, her arms hugging the documents tighter to her chest. “Am I… interrupting?”

At first, I didn’t understand her question, but when I looked back at Sara who had her shirt open, it was clear why she asked that. I was towering over Sara, yet I hoped Haelyn could see that it wasn’t in a romantic way, despite what it seemed.

Our position was more than interpretable.

“No,” I said, then returned to my seat on the chair. “Sara was just leaving.”

“But—” she started.

“You resignation. Tomorrow,” I instructed, pointing at the door.

She pushed the chair away with her legs, then marched out of my office, knocking shoulders with Haelyn.

Haelyn watched her walk away with an increased amount of disinterest.

“I won’t take long,” Haelyn announced and took two steps inside, but avoided coming any closer.

My heart hit my ribcage when my eyes did the quickest survey of her body. Her dark skin was covered by a black pair of jeans and a white t-shirt that sat too tightly over her breasts. Inodded and chose to move my attention to her face, where a few curls bumped over her crimson cheeks.

“I got a meeting with Gorig.” She gestured with her palm in the air, then bit her bottom lip. “Well, kind of.”

How could she get a meeting with them after that email and this soon? It was only yesterday when I called her to explain what happened—or better, to lash out at her for something she didn’t do.

I hid my bewilderment and eyed her. “What does ‘kind of’ entail?”

A twitchy smile lifted on her lips before she spoke. “Um, they are looking for employees, and after I created a completely fake and polished CV, I scheduled an interview. Today.” She sucked in a breath, pushing her hands forward when she noticed me staring like a fool. “Before you get mad or draw any conclusions, please listen to what I have to say,” Haelyn said, and I couldn’t decide whether she asked me or commanded me to do so.

When she realized I wasn’t going to speak over her, she continued. “If they are as unapproachable as you said, this is our only shot to explain what happened and if you ask me, you should be there personally when I’ll get on my knees to beg them to give us a chance.”

An image of her on her knees in front of me and her hair curled into my fist flashed through my mind.

I shook my head, touching my temples. This was all her fault with her stupid idea of sexting on Unlock. Since then, I’ve had fantasies of her as if I’d never fucked a girl in my life.

Still, her suggestion didn’t make sense to me. “That doesn’t sound professional at all,” was all I told her.

She nodded, taking two more steps toward me. “If you allow me, I think Gorig sees things outside of the box. I spent all night scrolling through their social media and website, and if you want to work with them, you have to show them your company isnot strictly professional. Even their forms for the interview had questions like ‘What would you do if a large number of our cars ended up with factory problems?’ and one of the options you could choose was ‘I would test them on car crashes and film a campaign’.”

My brows furrowed in thought as I leaned back in my chair. Apart from the fact that she said my company was ‘strictly professional’, she had a point. I knew better than anyone that a partnership could be done with firms that had something in common. If Gorig was looking for companies with creativity, Haelyn’s idea could give them that opinion about us.

“It might not even work, but if I’m right, they’ll love your devotion to work with them, and showing up there in person will also prove you are deeply involved in the growth of your company instead of having pawns to take care of it.”

---