Page 40 of The Reading

“May I come in?”

Her eyes narrowed a bit, but she eventually stepped aside to let me in. “Decided to deliver the bad news in person, did you?”

I glanced around her personal space really quickly before finally settling on that damn face of hers. “It’s good news,” I informed her. “I figured you’d rather hear it now than stress about it all weekend.”

Her eyes perked up at that. “Good news?”

“You’re not being fired,” I finally told her. “You’re to report back to work on Monday.”

Hattie cocked her head, and her eyes narrowed again. “Why?”

“Why, what?” I asked, confused as fuck.

“Why didn’t they tell you to fire me?”

The truth was that Ihadbeen told to fire her. Hattie’s fuck-up was going to cost the bank with the overtime, the paperwork, all kinds of shit. She hadn’t followed proper protocol, and bank owners and managers were very unforgiving when it came to their money. Romantics liked to believe that it was love that made the world go round, but it wasn’t, it was money. It wasalwaysmoney.

Like a hypocrite, I used Hattie’s words to defend her to my boss, citing how her intentions had been noble, and I had even promised to refresh all my people on the proper procedures for a bank robbery. In fact, that was the only thing that had saved Hattie’s job. When I had pointed out that she had signed the policy over two years ago, and that the bank didn’t have refresher training to ensure that all their employees actively remembered our procedures, Franklin Thompson, my boss, had paused in his tirade. When I had also pointed out that some of my employees had signed their policy forms over ten years ago, he had reluctantly admitted that Hattie might have a case for being unjustly fired.

While part of my argument had been legit, the thought of never seeing Hattie again had fueled my fight. I might not ever be able to date her, but that didn’t mean I wanted her gone from my life completely.

“When I informed Mr. Thompson that we didn’t have any annual refresher policies on what to do in case of a bank robbery, he…uh…felt like we might have…uh…we could have done better with our training requirements."

Those eyes narrowed even more. “Are you saying thatyoufought infavorofnotfiring me?

That bothered me. “Are you saying that you really think that I’d want you to lose your job?”

She shrugged. “What would you care? It’s not like I’d be hard to replace. People are always submitting resumes to work at the bank.”

Coming straight from the bank, I was still dressed in my suit as I slid my hands in my pockets. “You seriously think that?”

Hattie rolled those green eyes of hers. “Oh, c’mon, Ethan,” she scoffed. “We both know that I’m not the…easiest employee sometimes. I bet you wish that you had a million Sabrinas. Now that girl is a great employee.”

I nodded once. “Yes, Sabrina is an exemplary employee,” I agreed. “But that doesn’t mean that the rest of you are without value.”

Hattie shook her head. “This is all Madam Brousseau’s fault.”

What?

“Excuse me?”

“She should have just tried to perform the voodoo,” she went on, and I had no idea what in the fuck she was talking about. “Instead, she poisoned our minds with that ridiculous prediction, and they seem to be coming true.” I just stared at her. “I’ve been…distracted ever since Kit and Lucas got together, and that’s why…” She waved her hand around dismissively. “…what a mess,” she trailed off.

“What in the fuck are you talking about, Hattie?” I asked, so goddamn confused.

“My soulmate,” she said as if that were explanation enough. “I’m supposed to already know him.”

My back immediately straightened. “You are?”

She nodded, and it was do or die time.

Chapter 4

Ethan~

“So…this Madam Brousseau predicted that you already knew your soulmate?”

Hattie nodded again. “All we wanted was for her to make Cortland Culpepper’s dick fall off, but she didn’t practice those dark arts, so we got soulmate predictions instead.”

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