Page 40 of Breaking All The Rules

“What?” she exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air. “Maybe it’s not allmyfault, maybe you have a faulty toaster... you know,Icould seek legal counsel for that...”

“You found the toaster in your office?”

“Yeah,” she replied cautiously. “Why do I get the feeling you’re going to tell me something bad about it?”

I leaned my head back and laughed, trying to hide it behind the palm of my hand.

“You are the only person I know who would have the unfortunate fate of finding that fucking toaster.” I laughed even harder.

“Why? What’s wrong with it?” I could hear the slightest bit of panic in her voice. “Ethan! What’s wrong with the toaster?”

I waited a few minutes for my laughter to subside before I answered her.

“Nothing is wrong with it, other than that thing has been an omen of bad luck since I was a kid. It was the first gift that mygrandma bought Garrett when he went off to college. He hated it and never used it, but because it was from my grandma, he kept it. When he started Roberts and Associates, he brought it with him and would have it out in his office when she would stop by. I don’t think that it has ever been used in all the years he’s had it, and honestly, I’m sure he finally just tossed it in one of the offices until it got shuffled around and made it to yours.”

“Well, then, I’m glad I yanked the plug out of the wall before it caught on fire,” she admitted.

“You did what?” Suddenly, the humor was gone.

“Yeah, it was smoking really bad, and I was worried that it was going to catch on fire. I tried pushing the lever to pop the toast back out, but it didn’t work, so I just pulled the plug out before it could catch on fire.”

I covered my face with my hands for a few seconds before looking at her.

“Promise me one thing?”

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Please don’t go near a toaster again for the rest of your life.”

She opened her mouth to say something at the same time the waitress came back with our food. She set everything down on the table in front of us and made sure we didn’t need anything before she walked off.

We were quiet for a few minutes while we ate, and neither of us bothered to stop to make small talk. The longer we went with the silence between us, the more I felt the pressure to talk to her about Cora. I waited until she had taken a bite before I started talking, hoping that it would be a good way for me to get out what I needed to say without any interruptions.

“I want to talk about what happened the other night,” I said abruptly. She looked up at me with an uneasiness on her face as she chewed the bite of pancakes she had just taken.

“I’m not going to get into the full details of what happened—mainly because I can’t, but also, I don’t imagine that you would care to hear them. However, Cora was a former employee of mine, and one night, while we were working late, we had sex.” I gulped and tried to ignore the hurt look that just flashed across her face.

“I wasn’t interested in a relationship, and I didn’t think she was either. Right after it happened, she started asking me for a promotion to a position that she wasn’t qualified for. When I told her no, she got upset and started making it hard for us to work together. I knew then that she wasn’t interested in a relationship. She simply wanted the promotion. To fix the problem, I asked Regina to transfer her to another department with a slight pay increase. She refused the position and became a nuisance. We relieved her of her position, and at my recommendation, we gave her a severance package.”

I paused for a moment to gather my thoughts as I tried to push the anger away.

“This all happened five months ago. I hadn’t heard anything from her until a few weeks ago when I received the paperwork that she had filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against me. Our legal team has been handling everything, and I haven’t had any contact with her. Regina insisted that from here on out, I don’t take any meetings with female clients or employees unless I have you in the room with me,” I explained. “That’s why I didn’t want you to leave when she was there. I needed you to be there as my witness that nothing happened in case she decided to add more to her false accusations.”

Eva set her fork down on the table beside her plate and leaned back. Calmly, she looked up at me, but I couldn’t read the expression on her face.

“Did you get her pregnant?” she asked quietly.

“I have no fucking idea. I used a condom, so I am leaning toward no. But stranger shit has happened.”

“What are you going to do if the baby is yours?”

“I haven’t really thought about that. I guess I just feel so confident that it isn’t mine that I haven’t jumped down that rabbit hole. Garrett is looking into options for requesting a paternity test, but we’re also waiting on a few other things first. As of now, the lawsuit is only seeking payment for sexual harassment and for being terminated due to it. It doesn’t mention anything about requesting child support, but that doesn’t mean that she won’t try that route.”

“I’m sorry that I didn’t allow you to tell me your side of what happened. I freaked out, and I shouldn’t have.”

“You don’t need to apologize. I probably would have reacted the same way, especially given everything you have going on with your sister. I would have told you about it, but honestly, I was hoping it would just be resolved, and I wouldn’t have to deal with her again. I’ve also been instructed not to speak about it, which made it even more complicated.”

“I have to admit,” she said softly, “I don’t know how to take all of this. I mean, what you and I are doing really isn’t that different than what you guys were doing.”

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