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I ran a hand through my hair and shook it for the hundredth time since I had sat down. Jeremy would probably be looking for me by now, scouring the offices, ready to drop a shitload of paperwork my way. It was one thing to deal with Dennis’s wrath at home; Jeremy Karp was a completely different story. It wasn’t easy being the secretary for the CEO of KarpTech. People kept telling me that I was lucky to have the job.
I wanted to slam a fist in those same people’s faces and dare them to walk in my shoes.
Getting fired is only going to make it worse.
Dennis would kill me for it. He already had his hands on half my salary, and that was only because he didn’t know just how much I earned. Otherwise, my entire paycheck would be used to fund his nighttime sex-capades and barhopping. The money he got from working at Ford was never enough, or at least that was what he claimed. Then again, I believed him. How much could a good-for-nothing mechanic make anyway, even at Ford?
I shifted in my place, and the plastic pregnancy stick tapped against the toilet porcelain, reminding me that there were bigger problems looming. Being married to a drunk and cheat was one thing, but there was nothing worse than constantly fearing, I could get beaten up because the chicken was too dry. Telling Dennis I was pregnant would get me a one-way ticket to the emergency room, and that was if I was lucky.
You’re going to have to get a break sooner or later. Maybe this is it. Check the fucking stick!
I closed my eyes, took in a deep breath, and brought the stick up. I opened my eyes slowly, my vision blurred by the tears already forming, my body shaking with the anticipation of what it meant to see a positive sign.
It was negative.
The stick fell from my hand and clattered across the floor, and my sigh of relief was quickly followed by a rush of tears. I cried freely, having had dodged a bullet, and I fought to stay seated as my legs turned to jelly.
It took me half an hour before I could finally get up and wash my face.
***
“Where the hell were you?”
Karen Briggs pulled me into the conference room just before I could make it to my desk. A fiery redhead with the body of a Greek goddess, she was Jeremy’s right hand woman and the only person in the company who kept him from firing everyone left and right. Of course, there was the added benefit that she actually liked me, which made my job just bearable, but I wasn’t stupid. I knew that if push came to shove, she’d throw me under the bus.
Karen closed the conference door and turned down the blinds, turning to me with a frown that made me cringe.
“I had an emergency,” I said. “That time of the month, wasn’t prepared for it.”
“He’s been asking for you for the past hour, Andrea,” Karen shot.
“I’m sorry, I really am,” I said, hating how small my voice sounded. Don’t look down. Don’t you dare!
I lowered my eyes and mentally slapped myself about it. If there was one thing Karen hated, it was lack of confidence, and unfortunately, I had a bucket load of that. Thank you, Dennis.
“Hey,” Karen cut through my thoughts, finger under my chin and tilting my head back up. She looked at me for a few seconds, and for a moment there, I could feel the tears threatening to come again. The problem was, I knew she could read me like an open book, and if she didn’t say anything, it was only to save herself the agony of listening to my excuses.
Karen sighed. “Fix your make-up, you look like a whore on a walk of shame,” she said. “Then get back to your desk. I told him that I sent you out on a photocopying errand, so find some memo and make enough copies to validate the lie.”
Karen opened the conference door, stepped out, then stopped and turned back to me. “And for fuck’s sake, stop crying.”
She disappeared, and I quickly wiped at my face. I took a few deep breaths, adjusted my clothes, and raced out towards the copying room.
KarpTech was a bustling beehive of employees, and I tried to avoid eye contact as much as possible. I knew quite a few of the people who worked here and stopping for some friendly chit-chat would only make my situation worse. Still, I couldn’t help but feel a lot lighter than when I had first signed in this morning.
I’m not pregnant. That’s all that really matters. For now, I’m going to be okay.
The copy room was on the other side of the floor, tucked in between the break room and the ‘deck’, a row of cubicles devoted to the constant turn-over of interns and newly hires. The rule was, if you could survive three months on the ‘deck’, then you could withstand the stress and hard work that came with a full-time position at KarpTech. I avoided the deck like a plague, mainly because I couldn’t stand to see the pale faces and bloodshot eyes of newly hires who were in over their heads. But also, Kyle Hannigan ran the deck, and for every woman in the company, yours truly included, he was a starting player for the majority of our wet fantasies.
Of course, none of us actually did anything about it, although the rumor was, Karen enjoyed a little Kyle every now and then after hours. I never asked her to confirm it, and she never brought it up. But I couldn’t ignore the sexual tension when the two of them were in a room together, as if they were mentally undressing each other, yearning for everyone to sign out and go home so they could go at it like bunnies.
You just had a pregnancy scare. The last thing you should be thinking about right now is sex.
I shook my head in frustration, pushed into the copy room, and grabbed the first memo lying discarded on the table by the machines. I scanned the contents quickly, making sure that it could pass for something Karen would want photocopied, and went about solidifying my alibi.
“Mission impossible?”
I almost jumped at the sound of Kyle Hannigan’s voice behind me and turned around to find him smiling at me from the doorway. I immediately felt self-conscious, wondering why I hadn’t gone to the bathroom first to recheck my make-up.
