Page 12 of All Out of Love

Everybody turned to look at him. Miss Javits was confused. “Sir, you just told us to leave--”

“Not you. Not them. Her,” Grayson said, motioning toward Toya. “You’ll answer phones at that table.” He motioned toward the conference table. “But the rest of you out. Lois, make sure to get her set up with headphones by tomorrow to erase the background noise, and so that my conversations won’t be overheard when she’s answering the phones.”

“Yes sir,” Javits said even as she and Dena were exchanging glances. Neither one of them liked it. But what could they do about it? Javits and the rest of the ladies, including the former theft-benefiter, and the two executives all left the office. Dena knew his admonition to leave his office never included her.

Toya, however, was the only other person left in that office as Grayson and Dena began discussing his itinerary for the next few weeks. She heard them mention that he was leaving town tomorrow but she wasn’t about to just stand there dipping all into their business. With no direction, she made her way to the conference table and sat on the opposite side of the table, the side where she was facing the boss’s desk, and where the phone was located.

But when Grayson and Dena finished their conversation, Toya asked a question. “What do I say, sir?” she asked him.

Dena couldn’t believe she was bothering him. But Grayson looked at her. “Excuse me?”

“When the phone rings. Do I say Mr. Carrington’s residence, or do I say Thank you for calling Carington Capital?”

“The latter,” he said.

“And if they ask to speak to you?”

Dena couldn’t believe it. “What’s wrong with you?” she snapped at Toya. She was known as Grayson’s blocker and she was playing that role in the moment. “Will you stop disturbing Mr. Carrington? Miss Javits will answer those questions for you. She’s your immediate supervisor.”

“But she’s not here,” Toya shot back, “and this phone is liable to ring at any moment. I need to know what to say.”

Grayson inwardly smiled and answered her question. “If they ask to speak with me--”

“Which they won’t,” said Dena. “Anybody who would phone and ask to speak to you would know the channels to go through to speak to you. They wouldn’t be phoning an open-line number.”

But Grayson answered her question again. “If someone asks for me,” he said, “take a message.”

“Do I tell them you’ll call them back?”

“Oh for crying out loud!” said a now-irritated Dena. “Yes, that’s what you tell them obviously.”

“No. You don’t tell them any such thing,” said Grayson. “The chances of me calling them back are highly unlikely. Like zero. Just take a message.”

“Yes sir,” Toya said and smiled. She’d pegged him as a kind man and despite his outburst, she still believed that. She was accustomed to most people coming hard at her the way Dena did. And they always showed nothing but contempt towards her. But he wasn’t like most people. And she found that she liked that about him.

But Toya and Dena both realized Grayson was still staring at Toya. Toya tried to look away, as if it was no big deal to her, but when she looked back at him, he was still staring at her.

Then he spoke. “You didn’t answer her question.”

Now Toya was staring back at him. “It wasn’t a question,” she said. “It was a comment.”

Grayson was always a good judge of character. And he’d already judged her to be practical, sensible, and smart. All the traits the women he’d ever been interested in rarely had. They were always much younger than he was, like half his age, and always ready to do whatever he wanted in exchange for a purse or a car note payment or a few months payment on their rent. That was how impractical and insensible and, if he were to be honest, dumb they were.

But Jameesha Latoya Morgan was different in every respect. She was much older than any of the girls he was usually interested in. Including Charlotte, the one he was fooling around with nowadays. None of them, not even Dena when he was fooling around with her when she was in her twenties, ever rose to the level of a girlfriend in his eyes. Because it was all too transactional. He wanted them to be available whenever he needed bed attention or some eye candy on his arm when he was forced to attend various functions around the greater Baltimore areas as a corporate titan in the community, and as the son of the beloved former governor of the state of Maryland. But those two activities were the beginning and the end of it for him. No love. No long-lasting endearments. It was all transactional.

When a different young lady interested him, he dumped the former and picked up with the latter. And if they complained about being dumped, or attempted to bribe him in any way, he knew who to call to handle that situation. And after that phone call, none of them complained or attempted to bribe him ever again.

But Latoya was no trophy airhead whom he believed would ever agree to any such transactions. That was why he was convinced she would be perceptive enough to know exactly what he was talking about without the need to ask what he meant. And she would never pretend to not know what he meant.

But she was right. Lois Javits hadn’t asked her a question about her résumé, but had simply made a comment. But he made himself clearer: “Why isn’t your thirteen years of experience included on your résumé?”

Toya hated to have to tell it, because she knew her response could get her fired on the spot, but she wasn’t going to lie to him. And she wasn’t going to sugarcoat it either. “I was fired from that position,” she said bluntly.

Dena looked at her as if she’d just discovered the answer. “Fired? I knew it. I knew there was something off about you!”

But Toya was staring at Grayson. And he didn’t come at her that way. He seemed genuinely interested in hearing her side of the story, rather than taking her firing as the last word and the only word the way everybody else took it.

Instead of accusing her, he even softened the reality of what she’d just told him. Like he was helping her instead of judging her. “Why were you asked to leave your position?” he asked her.