Page 67 of The Bargain

I winced at Kaylan as I shut the door. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s not your fault. I’m blaming Sebastian for this nightmare, and I am cooking up plans for how I’m going to torment him when he returns to the office.”

For a full minute, I let myself daydream about all the ways that Kaylan could fuck up Sebastian’s day and make his work hell, but then the minute was over, and I came to my senses. “No, don’t.”

Kaylan swung around, his eyes wide enough to roll right out of his head. “Are you shitting me? You don’t want me to get even? Just a little torture? Wait! Are you still dating?”

Talking to Kaylan could be a roller-coaster ride at times. He had this fantastic way of firing questions at you faster than a machine gun spit out bullets, and he’d change topics midstream.

With a grunt, I took the pizza and beer from him and nudged him toward the futon. “Sit. No, we’re not dating…technically…I think. We’re…on a break, I guess. I need some time to get my bearings. Besides, regardless of what’s happening between Sebastian and me, you can’t be unprofessional at work. You’re better than that.”

“He’s not,” Kaylan muttered under his breath, and his sense of loyalty was touching.

“Sebastian was. Mostly,” I corrected him. “What happened between us was unprofessional, but the personal side all occurred outside the office.”

Mostly.

I’d never gotten to fulfill my fantasy of giving him a blowjob in his office or having him fuck me on his desk, but that was for the best.

“How did you even find out where I live?” I asked, trying to get us off the topic of Sebastian and Courtland Enterprises for a second.

Now it was Kaylan’s turn to wince as he opened the box holding the beers. He handed me one and offered an apologetic smile. “So, I might have gone begging to Janice for it. I told her I’d been unable to contact you, and I was worried. That I just wanted to check on you. Are you mad? I would have asked you, but you’ve always been so private, I was afraid that you wouldn’t tell me.”

How could I be angry with him? It didn’t sound like Sebastian had put him up to it, and Kaylan had always been sucha good friend to me in the office. The only reason I would have avoided telling him was out of shame for my place, but sitting there with him as I opened a beer, it didn’t feel like it mattered.

“No, I’m not pissed. I’m touched that you were worried about me.”

“Of course! I loved working with you, and how things went down was fucking wrong.”

“How’s morale in the office?”

Kaylan shrugged one shoulder as he grabbed a slice of pizza loaded with toppings. “Not great. Everyone is worried about earnings and if there are going to be layoffs this winter. Of course, there’s the thing with you and Sebastian. Last week was rough. I’m kind of hoping that things improve this week after everyone has time over the weekend to chill.”

I took a big bite of pizza and moaned. To make my money stretch, I’d already slashed my meager food budget to the essentials. A greasy, hot pizza loaded with meat and veggies was just the thing I needed to fill my stomach.

“However, Mr. Courtland is planning to announce later this week that they are going to implement your proposal to improve earnings and save jobs. They’ve still got one new product they are planning a big splash for, but he said that he thinks your proposal is brilliant and will save the company even without the new product.”

The bite of pizza was forgotten in my mouth for a moment as I struggled to digest what Kaylan had said.

“Really? He told you that?”

Kaylan nodded. “He did, and it wasn’t Sebastian pitching it to his dad. Declan Foster and a bunch of the other executive VPs all pushed it. They’re excited about your plan.”

Wow…

Just…fucking wow.

More than anything, it showed my termination wasn’t personal if he was willing to hang the company’s future on my plan and that so many people supported it. Now, if I could get someone to admit that during a reference call, I’d be golden.

“How are things with you?” Kaylan asked as he snagged another slice of pizza.

I shoved to my feet and went to the kitchen to grab a hand towel for us to share. “It’s about as good as you would expect. The job market isn’t all that great right now. I’ve sent out about twenty résumés so far, but I’ve heard nothing back.”

“Yeah, but it’s too early. It takes forever for those big companies to work through the stack of résumés and then send the ones that meet the qualifications to the manager and then the manager has to go through them. You’ll start hearing from people later this week.”

The smile that grew on my lips felt so damned forced. I knew Kaylan was trying to help, but the idea of waiting and not knowing was the worst part. Plus, most of these enormous companies were using algorithms and AI to weed through applicants. There was no telling if my application was getting through the AI sorting or if I was being rejected before a human even saw my qualifications.

Thankfully, Kaylan was good at reading people and wandered off to a new topic. This one was the more enjoyable random gossip he still heard, despite being on the top floor. Unlike me, he was always smart enough to make a trip to the coffee cart in the first-floor lobby at lunch and always volunteered to deliver random documents and other things to the various other departments. He said it was to “stretch his legs” but I knew it was his chance to chat with other departments and get all the good tea.

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