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“Yes, I’m staying here.”
“Good.” She handed Rowan her drink, sat back down, and tapped her glass to Rowan’s. “It’s a girl’s night. Drink up.”
Rowan took a sip of the smoothest whiskey she’d ever tasted. So smooth, in fact, she opted to dull her senses and drained it in one pull, proud of herself that she only coughed once. Her mother barely batted an eyelash, simply picked up the bottle and refilled Rowan’s tumbler.
She stared into the swirling liquid and ice cubes, searching for solutions.
“How’s the new job going?”
“Not good.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“Yes.”
Rose Murdoch was no slouch. She’d graduated summa cum laude and had gotten her MBA in business finance. However, when Murdoch took the company public, she bowed out and chose charities as her passion. While they had never discussed it, Rowan believed she hadn’t much liked the direction the company was going in. She’d commented once that her work offset the work of others who might not care about the little guy as much.
She needed her mother’s advice now more than ever. Rowan pulled her thoughts together and tried to put the issues forth as logically as possible.
“The funds my team oversees have been going negative.”
“That happens sometimes.”
“For two years, and it looks like someone’s tampering with them. It’s been very slow moving, but there are clear changes at regular intervals that affected the funds.”
“Daily checks can help counter those changes.”
“I agree, but that’s not all.” This was the tough part, admitting to the personal side of things. “Remember why I left Murdoch?”
Her mother nodded and took a sip. “Two primary reasons. The same reason I left—you weren’t happy with the way the company was run. And those unfounded rumors that you were involved in a high level tryst, one of the board members, right?”
“Totally unfounded. I never gave that guy a moment’s notice, but one rumor and everyone began staring at me with knowing eyes. I never figured out who started that rumor.”
“Probably Finn.”
Her eyes widened as her mother sighed. “I love my son, but he’s too focused on power and being on that top rung of the ladder.”
“And money. He and Dad are both driven by those concepts.” Rowan gulped. Here came the really hard part. “I slept with my boss.”
The rest of her drink disappeared as she gulped it down, giving the woman who didn’t make mistakes like this time to digest that news. She stared at the ice in her glass, unable to look up until her mother tipped her chin up with a finger.
“All right. So what you didn’t do at Murdoch, you did at Barrett?”
“It wasn’t like that. Neither of us liked each other at all when I started there. Gerard and I—it was a one night stand we both agreed on.”
“You overrode your instincts?”
“No, that’s the worst part. I followed my instincts, and they led me to him. And now he’s all but accused me of not being trustworthy, that my research could be faulty.”
Rowan set her glass down, hating the hitch in her voice when she spoke again. “We said it would only be a night. We promised each other.”
“It felt like more to you, though.”
“Yes.” She could barely whisper the word. “Then, when we came back to the office, he was…the boss again. Cold, not smiling, all business. In fact, he was downright rude.”
The smallest smile touched her mother’s face as she set down her drink and faced her daughter.
“Really? You can smile about this, Mom? Because I sure can’t. I feel like a whiny bitch right now, and I can’t seem to stop waffling between sniveling and tears. This isn’t me, and I don’t like it.” She threw herself into the open arms in front of her, fresh tears flowing. Her mother held her, once again patting her back and whispering in the soothing voice that had always helped her pain.
