Page 75 of The Boss

“Ah, well…”

“Spill, woman.” We haven’t talked much about Presley’s love life lately. We’re probably overdue since we spend so much time talking about mine.

“There may have been a girl I was seeing off and on over the first half of the year. Nothing serious, of course. She knew it wasn’t serious, either. Sex here and there.”

“Of course.”

“Not like I was halfway to marrying her like you are with Alessa.”

I ignore that. “Go on.”

She looks away. That means she’s embarrassed. Now, is she embarrassed because the girl she was dating is someone I would look down on her for? Or because she had feelings for her?

Knowing Presley, it could go either way.

“It was a fling. That’s all.”

“Must be more than that if you’re looking that wistfully off into the distance.”

I laugh, because even yours truly can occasionally be swayed by good alcohol, but Presley isn’t laughing. Instead, she candidly says, “No matter what, I come off sounding like a huge hypocrite, and I’m not in the mood right now.”

Oh, no. She doesn’t get away with saying only that.

Time for me to employ the kind of gaze I rarely unleash on my business partner. Usually, it’s reserved for misbehaving employees, business associates who are on the verge of insulting me, and everyday citizens who I am not in the mood to deal with. If Presley is getting my nasty eye, it’s because she needs to fess up to something before I discover the truth for myself.

I suppose I finally got through to her. Presley puts her empty glass down with a sigh, smacks her lips, and gestures to the space between us. “Shortly after you started fooling around with Alessa,” she begins, “I may have had my inappropriate romance with one of our employees.”

The intensity of my gaze is giving me a headache. I can only imagine how I look to my blubbering idiot of a friend.

And business partner! May I remind everyone that whatever bullshit Presley gets up to can reflect upon me? And lose me money? Forever?

This is the woman who has given me nothing but shit ever since I started dating Alessa, let alone openly. This woman is such a hypocrite, and I’m not even sure what the whole truth of this matter is yet.

Dare I even ask?

“Who was it?”

Presley waves her hand as if it’s completely inconsequential. “Someone who isn’t even working for us anymore.”

That… is something I don’t like hearing because my brain instantly goes to one woman who might have some grievances to air based on the reasons I fired her. Damnit, I don’t remember her name for the life of me, but from the look cracking between us, I’m guessing Presley immediately knows who I am thinking of.

“Now, Jules…”

“It was not the woman I fired because she was acting like a petulant child, yes?”

“Cher. Her name was Cher.”

“Damnit, Presley!”

“I told you it was nothing!” She dares to go on the defensive so quickly? “She came on to me, okay. Late one night after you and Alessa had already left and most of the office was empty. I was finishing some stuff up when she came by with a stack of…”

“I swear to God if you sayfolders…”

“Anyway. I took her out for drinks. Stuff happened. Stuff, uh, happened off and on after that.” Presley continues to act as if this isn’t a big deal, yet here I am, fuming between my two ears. “It was never serious. She didn’t even care that I was seeing other women as long as I…”

“As long as you paid her favor at work and, let me guess, gave her some kind of financial compensation that quickly came to an end after we fired her?”

Presley kicks back in her seat. The empty glass teeters dangerously close to the edge of our table. “When you put it that way, I sound like a fucking idiot.”

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