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“I’d be better if we didn’t have a problem. I’m sorry to call you on your vacation. I know it’s kind of late in the day, but I need your help.”
“I’m not near a computer, but tell me what’s going on andhopefully I can work through the problem with you.” She spent the next fifteen minutes looking at pieces of code on her phone, trying to see the errors and coming up with fixes on the fly, while her boss and the team back at the office tried out the various fixes until they got the program working and performing to the customer’s specifications.
“You’re a lifesaver, Rose. Thanks for working this out. We’ve been stuck on it for two days. We couldn’t have done it without you.”
Something about this past week, and Gray’s belief in her that she was an asset his company needed, made her bold. “Did you have Thomas look at this before you called me?”
“Yes. We’ve had him and two others working on it.”
“So what you couldn’t fix in two days with three guys on the project I did on the phone and in my head with clips of emailed code in minutes.”
“Yes. You’re amazing.”
“Remember that the next time you promote someone over me who isn’t as qualified or talented as I am. Which you’ve done twice now.”
Ben paused for a moment, finally catching on that Rose wasn’t simply going to save the day, yet again, without standing up for herself. “Rose, I really appreciate everything you do. That’s been reflected in your pay raises and the projects you’re assigned.”
“That’s a nice way of saying you’re trying to keep me happy by giving me standard pay raises and good projects to work on, but you promote and pay others more than me because they’remen, and I’ve allowed it to happen. We both know this isn’t the only time I’ve been called in to fix someone else’s work. Someone who holds a higher position than me. I hope we can discuss this all next week. I’ll see you when I get back to the office. Good-bye, Ben.”
Rose leaned back against the wall, hung her head, and took a deep breath. She wasn’t used to speaking up that way, but damnit, she deserved a promotion and a big fat pay raise. She’d earned it. And on Monday, she’d walk in prepared to tell Ben exactly why.
“Hey there, gorgeous.”
She looked up and smiled at Marc, trying her best to be cordial and let the past go.
“We really need to stop meeting like this. You can’t keep harassing me, begging me to meet you alone.”
Blindsided by his comments, she decided he was joking—even if it wasn’t funny and was really odd. But he went on. “I’ve told you so many times that it’s over. I know what we had was something special even if it didn’t end well, but you can be happy with Gray now. I love Maggie. I know that’s hard for you to accept. But you’ve got to stop blowing up my phone. I can’t keep lying to Maggie about all these texts being from work.”
She felt like she’d dropped down a rabbit hole. Incredulous, she eyed him. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am. I love Maggie,” he implored with a pleading tone. “Not you.”
She came away from the wall and stood in front of him. “You’re crazy.”
Marc shook his head. “You’re the one who can’t take no for an answer.” Marc tried to walk past her, but she stepped in front of him and planted her hand on his chest to stop him. He seemed to fall off balance and lunge at her, and before she knew what hit her, he kissed her, then pulled away like he was the one who didn’t want it.
His angry gaze bore into her. “I said no, Rose. You need to get a grip and stop coming after me.”
“What the hell is going on?” Maggie asked from behind her.
“That’s what I’d like to know,” Gray said from behind Marc, his words angry and clipped.
They’d come into the short hallway from opposite ends.
From where Rose stood, she couldn’t see either one of them.
Rose felt like her world had gone topsy-turvy and upended itself.
Marc frowned down at her, pulled her hand from his shirt where she’d gripped it to steady herself, took two big steps back, and looked at Maggie with sympathy in his eyes. “I’m so sorry, love, that you had to find out your best friend isn’t a friend at all. She’s been hiding how she feels about me by hanging all over my cousin, but it’s all been an excuse for her to be close to me.”
“Explain,” Maggie snapped at Rose.
“Me? I have no idea what he’s even talking about. I’ve never texted him,” she said, desperately hoping her friend believed her. “I never asked to meet with him. You know how much I care about Gray.”
Marc shook his head, looking at her like she was pathetic.“So much so that you told me you wanted us to have an affair right under both their noses. I could be with Maggie, you with Gray, but secretly we’d still have each other.”
She openly gaped at him. “You are certifiable.” Fury swirled inside her. “I would never—”
