She also kept him in mind the whole time she typed. He was definitely going to read it, and she’d have to talk to him about it tomorrow. It would, no doubt, be dramatic and she hoped that Pete stuck with her for that meeting.

What she wanted now was a glass of wine, but she had already learned that made her do stupid things like text him so she refrained. Looked like it was going to be a dry night ahead.

Chapter fourteen

Annahadbailedonhim and worked all day yesterday and Brian was pissed. The project was too important for her to take time off this close to the finish line even if difficult things were going on between them.

He hadn’t handled any of this well and if she came in today, he planned to apologize to her for how he’d acted. He’d let his emotions run free when it came to her and he had no excuse to act like he had to her.

Rather than give any more attention to the things he couldn’t control, Brian threw himself into work. For two hours he managed not to even think about Anna until Pete forwarded him an email from her.

To whom it may concern:

After giving time to the position here, I have decided that I do not believe I am a good fit for this company. I appreciate your faith in me to fill this role but believe it is better if we part ways now instead of letting things linger.

The company has been nothing but great and the culture is something that other companies could model their own after. I have no ill feelings toward the company or the team. Everyone welcomed me with open arms and they were all very kind.

I will, of course, see through the launch of the project that I was hired to fulfill. I have a plan for the project moving forward and believe that the team will be able to move forward with loose guidance from Pete until a new project manager is hired.

I understand that this may come as a shock and I fully intend to do a proper handoff of the project to anyone the company designates within one week of launch. I will be here and available until then and if needed can make myself available for questions after I leave to facilitate a smooth handover.

Sincerely,

Anna.

Brian gripped the arms of his chair to restrain himself from replying. No good would come of anything he would send to her right now. She was leaving.

As luck would have it, he didn’t need to set up a meeting with her as Pete had already done so for this afternoon. They would discuss the project and its path forward per his meeting agenda.

Good. That was exactly what they needed to do and then he needed one minute with her to find out what he could do to fix it. His anger was cooling and as it did, he saw his part in making her leave.

In short, he’d screwed this all up and he’d lost a more than capable project manager in the process. He needed to talk to her before the meeting. Apologize and fix things.

Brian stood and made his way to her office. She was not in a meeting so he knocked and let himself in as he would with any other employee.

“How can I help you?” Anna acknowledged him without looking away from her computer.

“Explain to me what’s going on.”

Anna pressed a few more keys and then faced him. “You mean my notice? I have taken a new position with a different company.”

“Why?” he found himself asking.

She stood and walked around him, closing the door to her office. “Really Brian? You’re going to ask me that?”

Brian stiffened. “Yes. I am.”

“I can’t work with you.”

“You don’t. You work with Pete.”

“You put a meeting on my calendar to discuss our stuff while on company hours. So yeah, I work with you. You are also still my boss.”

“Pete is your boss.”

“I told you I didn’t want people here to know about us and you tried to kiss me in front of everyone Monday. Do you have any idea how awkward that has made things for me? This is already a tough job to get and perform well at and you made my whole team doubt my capabilities.”

“I said I was sorry.” Damn, that sounded lame even to his ears.