Page 33 of If The Shoe Fits

Helene

Helene had suffered through a rotten week, but she was grateful for everything—the double-booked appointments that had messed her schedule up, and the coffee that stained her white blouse and forced her to run back home to get changed instead of having lunch on Wednesday. At the very least, all that pulled her focus away from a certain Viking with broad shoulders, soft, wavy hair, and the darkest of eyes. And the way he'd made her come, and come, and come again against Cassie's bookshelf. Who'd kissed her until her entire body caught fire in Central Park. And who'd emailed her simple, mundane things every day, making no allusion to either incident.

He was driving her crazy.

All right, so maybe she'd thought about Cade once or twice, but she always caught herself and stopped the train of thought.

"That's unacceptable."

Helene's mouth thinned. Carrie was glaring down at her, trying to conceal her glee like she always did the few times she'd had an excuse to tell her off.

"Mr. Wood was fine rescheduling, Carrie. It was the admin office who made the error last week. We caught it in plenty of time."

"That's not an excuse. You should have double-checked your schedule the moment you were back at work after your lunch break."

She attempted to calm down, speaking in a clear, reasonable voice, as though she were addressing a child. "That's exactly what I did, and why we're rescheduling it."

"Do you know how much Wood Industries brings to our company every year?"

She did, given the fact that they were her clients.

Her phone rang, saving her from saying something she couldn't take back. "Yes. Excuse me, I'd better take this." Her hand moved to the receiver.

"Oh, answering the phone is more important than a conversation with me? Who do you think you are, Helene?"

Calm down. Breathe…

Except there was another voice in her head. A deep, suave voice saying "So, quit."

"Don't think this behavior won't be brought up at your end-of-year review next week."

That was it. "You know what? No, it won't." Letting her hand, still hovering over the phone, drop, she got to her feet. "I quit. I'm off starting Monday, for two weeks. That'll work for my notice. You'll get the email by the end of the day."

She'd write it on her phone on her way home.

Enough was enough. This job was a dead end. She could find another one. Something with a future.

"What? Wait, what do you think you're—"

"Bye, Carrie. Have a nice life."

She didn't need to hear any of her crap. Not ever again.

Crap.

What the hell had she done?

An hour later, sitting down on Cassie's sofa, hands trembling over her cell phone, the full weight of her actions fell on her shoulder. She didn't have a house or a job right now.

Fuck. She should have thought things through. Applied for jobs, gotten a few interviews before doing anything drastic.

But it was too late. She'd sent the email in the heat of temper, as promised.

A noise alerted her from the entryway. Cassie hadn't been in by the time she'd made it back.

Carter walked in, carrying Cassie in his arms like a bride. Both of them were grinning like delighted idiots. The moment they saw her, both of them sobered up, losing their glee.

"What happened?" Cassie asked, getting to her feet and rushing to her side.

---