Page 92 of Love on Deck

“Those contracts change all the time—”

“No, you misunderstand.” He clicked something on his computer before giving me his attention again. “They have a relationship.”

“Outside of the business world?”

He flashed me his teeth in a grimace. “Like I’m talking Olivia Johnson is the niece of Howard Peele.”

I only knew one of those names. “Our CEO is the niece of the Dallas Event Center’s...”

“Owner.”

“Ah.” I leaned back in my seat, feeling the deflation in my mood even further. It was followed swiftly by a flash of anger. “You never told me I was up against nepotism.”

Brad tilted his head side to side, pushing out his chin a little. “You could call it that. Or you could call it maintaining and utilizing trusting, established relationships.”

“Which is fancy for nepotism,” I argued.

Brad didn’t disagree, which still didn’t change the fact that my proposal was doomed from the start. I was never going to be moving the conference to the Hunnam Hotels Group. I’d been sunk from the beginning.

The unfairness of it all tightened the discomfort in my chest. Brad’s text from when I was on the boat no longer made any sense. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. “So when you told me it was worth discussing, you didn’t know about the relationship between our company and the event center?”

Brad’s attention flickered away before landing back on me. “I mean, it is always worth discussing potential improvements.”

That didn’t answer my question, though. An unpleasant feeling hummed through me that could really only be described as icky.

“I hate to do this, but I really have to run,” Brad said, pointing to his computer, where the conference call was probably coming soon.

I stood to leave, my body and mind trying to reconcile the truth of what I just learned: my boss was a liar.

“Oh, Jack. You’ve been coordinating volunteers, right? If you need to send another blast to fill in the openings, go right ahead. And if you have time to assign the board to keynote introductions, that would be great. Just make sure Alex gets put on Michael Chen. They have a preexisting professional relationship.”

“Sure thing.” I walked numbly from the office, adding that task to my already overloaded to-do list.

Amendment: my boss was a liar and a user. In that he would take advantage of others, not drugs. Probably.

When I finally got an Uber home to my dark, empty apartment, I tossed my computer bag on the edge of my bed and fell back on the mattress, staring at the ceiling fan above me. The silence pressed down on my chest until I was practically scrambling for my phone and locating Lauren in my contacts list. My finger hovered over her name before I swiped down to Kevin and gave him a call.

He picked up after a few rings. “Hey.”

“How are... things?”

“No different. She won’t see me. I don’t know what to do.”

“Get the ring back?” I asked. He’d told me how surprised his mom was to find it on her table.

“No chance of that,” he grumbled.

“Then get her a new one?”

Kevin went silent.

“Or not,” I said quickly. “I know how important your grandmother’s ring was to you—”

“No, it’s brilliant.” There was some sort of shuffling sound. “Freaking brilliant. Is anything open this late?”

“You want to go now?”

“Why would I wait?” he asked, the simplicity of the question proving how deeply he loved Amelia. There was silence while he seemed to be distracted—probably looking up jewelers—and I waited for him to remember I was on the phone.

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