Page 39 of The Wrong Boss

“We were picking up the wedding invitations when it happened, and she refused to go to the hospital.” I gestured to the side table where the bundles of invitations and envelopes lay waiting.

“I see,” Alba said, crossing to the table. She tore open one of the packages and pulled out an invitation, holding it between manicured fingers as she inspected it. Tilting it back and forthin the light streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows, Alba pursed her lips. Then she tossed the invitation down on the side table, apparently satisfied.

We both turned as Carrie’s footsteps approached. She’d wiped the blood off her face and fixed her hair, but there was already a shadow of a bruise darkening her temple. Her gaze jumped from me to Alba, and then she painted a polite, professional smile on her lips.

“Hi. You must be the future Mrs. Christianson,” she said, extending a hand toward my fiancée. “I’m Carrie.”

I grabbed the drink I’d fixed earlier and took a sip to distract myself from my discomfort. There was no reason for me to feel uncomfortable. Nothing was going on between me and Carrie. Nothingwouldgo on between us. She was just like the rest of my employees; the fact that we’d had an encounter nearly a decade ago didn’t change that.

“Carrie,” Alba repeated. “I don’t think I’ve heard of you before.”

“It’s my first day,” she explained, and my fiancée’s brows climbed higher. “Just joined the executive assistant team this morning.”

Alba flicked her all-seeing eyes to me and then back to Carrie. “Well, I’m sorry to hear your first day involved a car accident.”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” she said, waving a hand. “That’s just Co—Mr. Christianson being overprote—being a good boss.”

At every stumble, Alba’s head tilted farther and farther to the side. “I see,” she said, and I was very much afraid she saw a little too much.

“Carrie was able to fix an unfixable travel schedule within an hour of starting with the company,” I cut in, which only made Alba’s head turn toward me, but didn’t fix the suspicious look in her eyes. “So I put her in charge of the wedding invitations.”

“The typos are fixed,” Carrie added, looking down at the invitation that Alba had deposited on the table. “Does the gold shade match what you had in mind?”

“Yes, it looks good,” Alba said, but it didn’t sound like she was happy. A chime alerted us to a visitor, so Alba straightened and said, “That must be the doctor. I’ll bring him in.”

Carrie’s cheeks flushed, and she avoided my gaze as Alba walked out of the room. A minute later, Alba returned with Dr. Harnell. My fiancée took a seat on one of the sofas as the doctor examined my newest assistant, her eyes occasionally sliding over to me.

“How was your day?” I asked, taking a seat next to her and extending my arm across the back of the sofa behind her. It felt awkward and uncomfortable to do, which was probably due to the jitters of the car accident and not at all because we were sitting across from the woman I’d fantasized about for years.

“My day was fine. Less exciting than yours, I gather.”

I snorted. “That’s not a bad thing.”

Across from us, the doctor pulled a light out of his bag. “I’ll just have a look at your eyes,” the doctor told Carrie. He directed her to stare at his finger while he shone a light at her eyes.

I glanced away and found Alba staring at me, frowning.

“Everything okay?” I probed.

“I was just going to ask you the same thing. You have some blood…” She reached over to tilt my jaw up, her nail skimming against my stubble. “You have some blood on your jaw and your shirt, darling. Maybe the doctor should have a look at you when he’s done with your assistant.”

“Oh, I’m fine. It’s probably Carrie’s,” I blurted. Alba blinked at me, so I added, “I helped her out of the car after the accident.”

“Of course,” she replied.

Discomfort sloshed through me. I nodded as my fiancée made her excuses and left the room, then tossed the rest of my drink back while the doctor finished his examination.

“I’d recommend taking the rest of the day off, but as long as you don’t get a headache, dizziness, nausea, or blurriness, then you should be okay to resume light duties tomorrow,” the doctor said, packing his things back up. “You feel any of those symptoms, take yourself to urgent care.”

“Thanks, Doc,” she said, getting up to shake his hand.

“And you?” Dr. Harnell asked me. “How are you feeling?”

“Just fine,” I replied, which was a lie. I felt out of sorts and off-balance. I felt torn apart. I felt like a piece of shit, because I’d been caught up in Carrie all day when I should have been loyal to the woman I’d promised myself to.

The foundation of what I stood for—of who I was—had taken a blow today. I saw myself as a man who put loyalty above all else. That’s why it had been so hard for me to quit the Blakely Advertising Agency. It’s why my relationship with Rome had recovered, and why I’d been able to forge a bond with my father when I’d finally reached out to him.

I wasn’t the kind of man who went against his word. I didn’t cheat. I didn’t lie. I didn’t steal.

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