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I dropped his gaze, my mind spinning. What was I going to say? I shook my head, searching for words to capture my own disappointment in myself. “I’m not upset with you,” I tried. “I’m angry at myself.”
It was his turn to shake his head in confusion. “About what?”
I let out a breath, wishing for clarity. “I feel like a fraud, Oliver.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The promotion. The new office. The deal. I feel like I got everything I wanted and deserved none of it.”
“You deserved every bit of it. You’re the one who revised the technology. It was your idea. You got the meeting.” He shrugged and shook his head. “I really don’t get it.”
“Even if I did deserve every bit of it, it doesn’t matter,” I said, staring at my hands. “Because no one would believe it.”
Oliver said nothing, waiting for me to continue.
“Everyone will think I got where I am by sleeping with you.” My voice was a harsh whisper.
“What?” Oliver barked. “Bullshit!”
I pressed my lips together, determined not to cry.
“Who even knows? And whose fucking business is it, anyway?” Anger fueled his words, but his rational mind was taking over. I glanced at his face, saw the dawning understanding there.
“It doesn’t look right,” I told him. “It makes it hard for me to be at work, to feel like I can hold my head up in meetings. I feel like a fake, Oliver. I can’t stand having people talking about me.”
“Tell me who’s talking, and I’ll take care of it.”
“I don’t think this works that way. You can’t fire or demote everyone your girlfriend doesn’t like.” I let myself stare at his chiseled face for a long moment more as we both remembered the analyst he’d demoted after I told him how he’d taken a position over me. My brain had kept spinning around the only clear answer, and my stomach turned as I gave the thought a voice. “I think we need to stop seeing so much of each other. Maybe work harder to keep it away from the office.”
Oliver’s mouth pressed into a tight line. “I won’t let the opinions of other people determine what I do or don’t do.” The words were like steel.
I sighed. How could I make him understand that our situations were completely different? “That’s easy for you,” I said. “Don’t you see that? You’re the CEO. And you’re a man. Things just roll off your shiny reputation, but it doesn’t work that way for women. Especially at a company like this one.”
“Like this one…” Oliver repeated. “What does that mean?”
“Where you don’t get the job unless you have a dick. Where men do the deals, where men make the decisions.”
He shook his head once. “I hate that you think Cody works that way.”
“It does. I found that out early, and I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think I could still make a name for myself—and maybe even change things a little bit. Maybe if I’m successful it will be that much easier for the next woman who comes out of her grad program on top and wants to work for you. But I can’t do any of that if people think the only reason I’ve got the job is because of you.” I watched his face, saw his eyes clear with understanding. “I don’t know what to do. I can’t think of any other solution. I think it’d be best if we didn’t see each other.”
“At work.”
I chanced a quick look into the dark eyes, and the confusion and pain I found there ripped my heart to pieces. But I knew I couldn’t see Oliver and work at his company. And I couldn’t leave my job. “I don’t know. Maybe at all,” I said, hating the words and feeling my heart tear apart. “For now. People would know, even if we tried to hide it. Maybe if we just take a little time…” It wasn’t what I wanted, but I didn’t know how else to make the ache of shame vanish from my gut where it had begun to burn constantly.
“You really think you got where you are because of me?” he asked.
I didn’t meet his eye, keeping my gaze on the supple leather of his dash where my fingers were tracing a line. “That’s the problem. I don’t know anymore. It doesn’t feel the way I thought it would.” I thought about the plans I’d made, the way I’d imagined I’d feel when I’d checked the first big item off my plan.
“I understand,” he said, and I felt the warmth that usually emanated from him click off like a space heater, and it was suddenly cold.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t want…”
“I’ll drop you off a block from the building,” he said, his voice icy and stiff. “I wouldn’t want anyone to see you getting out of the CEO’s car.”
“Oliver, I—”
His eyes had hardened to coal and he drove us to the Cody Tech campus with aggressive speed that frightened me. When he pulled over at the corner of the block that held the four Cody towers, he stared straight ahead, waiting for me to get out.
I stared at his profile, a muscle clenching in his jaw as his hands stayed on the wheel.
“This isn’t how I—I mean, I don’t want…” I didn’t know what to say. I felt the way I had as a kid when I’d been dared to drop my favorite Polly Pocket doll into the roiling water beneath the ferry’s railing when the orphanage had taken us on an outing to Catalina Island. The second the doll’s tiny head disappeared beneath the foamy dark waves I’d regretted it with everything inside me. And as I stood on the curb, watching Oliver’s car glide away as soon as I’d shut the door, my heart squeezed with a similar regret. What had I done?
