Page 1 of Married Into Love

ChapterOne

Alessia

“You’refired.”

If I hadn’t already been sitting, I would have fallen down at that news. I’d asked to speak with our human resources director because my boss had made a heavy-handed pass at me last night after keeping me well past my shift when nobody else was left in the office. I’d expected to file a complaint and request a transfer because I didn’t feel comfortable working with him any longer. Not after he’d grabbed my ass and told me I could get some additional perks if I was willing to give him some benefits in return. I hadn’t trusted the anger that had flashed in his eyes before he’d masked it and tried explaining the whole thing away as a misunderstanding when I’d shot him down, but I didn’t think he’d get me fired me becauseofit.

“But—”

She held her hand up. “Don’t bother. This is already a done deal, and nothing you say is going to change the outcome. Nevada is an at-will employment state, and as such we can terminate any employee at any time for any reason. Based on your boss’s most recent evaluation of your performance, we’ve decided to let you go. Effectiveimmediately.”

“I get that, but I think you should know whathappenedlast—”

She shook her head and sighed. “Like I said, this is a done deal already. But you’re not without options. Since we’re letting you go because you’re not a good fit for the position, you’re entitled to file for unemployment benefits. The Nevada Department of Employment, Training, and Rehabilitation will review your application and determine if you’reeligible.”

I jumped to my feet, beyond frustrated at her unwillingness to listen to what I had to say. “You don’t care about my side of the story! Aren’t you even the tiniest bit curious about why I asked to meet with you this morning? Don’t you find it oddly coincidental that Jared”—I spat his first name, the same one he’d told me I should use the night before...right before he’d hit on me—“decided to fire me on the same day that I asked to meet with you; a female member of the human resourcesstaff?”

How the woman was promoted to a director-level position would forever remain a mystery to me since she rolled her eyes at my question. Then she pressed a button on her phone, and I went from surprised and disappointed to flat-out stunned when I heard the greeting from the person on the other end ofthecall.

“Security.”

Her icy blue eyes narrowed on me. “This is Helen Johnson in Human Resources. I have a former employee in my office who needs to be escorted from the buildingimmediately.”

“Yes, Ma’am. I have someone on your floor who’ll be thereshortly.”

“Thank you.” She pressed a button to disconnect the call, stood from her seat, and placed her palms on her desk as she stared at me. “Security will escort you to your cubicle to grab any personal items you’d like to take with you.” Her gaze lowered to the badge hanging from the lanyard around my neck. She held her right hand out towards me. “And I’ll need to take yourbadge.”

Contrary to what my now-former boss apparently thought, I wasn’t dumb. There wasn’t anything I could do to make Helen listen to me, so I ripped my lanyard over my head and tossed it at her. Then I swiveled on my heel, stormed out of her office, headed down the stairs to the right, and marched over to my cubicle. I yanked open the bottom drawer of my desk and pulled my purse out. After unzipping it, I tossed the picture of my sister that I kept near my monitor inside. I also grabbed my favorite pens out of the cup next to where the photo frame had been and shoved them into my purse too. As I opened the top desk drawer and pulled the stapler out, I heard a muffled chucklebehindme.

Twirling around, I found one of the security guys standing there. He yanked his gaze up from where it’d probably been glued to my ass to smile at me. “You’re only supposed to take your own stuff with you; not company property.” He slid his thumbs into the front pockets of his pants. “Then again, you’re pretty enough that I could be easily convinced that stapler is yours if you’d like to meet me for a drinktonight.”

I barely refrained from throwing the darn thing at his head instead of dropping it back in the drawer and slamming it shut. “Am I wearing a sign that says I’m the perfect woman to harass or something?” I muttered as I elbowed my way past him and marched towards the elevators. I tapped my toe against the floor while I waited for the doors to open. “A stapler,” I huffed when I stepped inside and pressed the button for the first floor. “At least my douchebag boss thought I was worth a heck of a lot more than a stupidstapler.”

“Huh?” the security guy asked. With his brow furrowed and his eyes all squinty, his confusion was obvious. But I wasn’t about to take the time to explain my anger and frustration to him. I didn’t hold much hope that I’d be able to make him understand, not when he was stupid enough to think that hitting on a woman he was escorting out of the building after she’d been fired was a good idea. Not to mention that his idea of flirting was limited to offering to let me steal a stapler, instead of being sympathetic over me losingmyjob.

“The bar has been set so low, I should snap up the next semi-attractive guy who’s even half-way nice to me and be happy for it,” I grumbled as I marched through the lobby and out the glass doors at the front of the building. My bad mood grew when my car sputtered before starting and almost died twice on the way back to the apartment complex where I lived with my mom and sister. “There goes my plan to trade you in for a new car. I’ll never be able to get a loan withoutajob.”

My feet dragged as I climbed up the steps to our apartment. I felt like the day couldn’t get any worse, and then I saw the red piece of paper taped to the door and realized how wrong I was. “You’ve got to be freakingkiddingme!”

I ripped the eviction notice off and crumpled it in my hand as I thumped my head against the solid surface. When I heard the locks turning, I jerked back and waited for the door to open. Ariana, my sister, looked surprised to find me on the other side. “What’re you doing home soearly?”

“I got fired because my jerk of a boss made a pass at me and couldn’t handle working with me when I said no.” After I stormed past her, I dropped my purse onto the kitchen counter. Then I tossed the balled up eviction notice at her. “And as if that wasn’t bad enough, apparently Mom’s been doing God knows what with the rent money I’ve been giving her because she sure as heck hasn’t been giving it to thelandlord.”

She smoothed out the red paper and read the notice, her eyes filling with tears. “What’re we going to do,Alessia?”

Ariana and I were Irish twins, born only eleven months apart. She was older than me, but our roles had reversed when our dad walked out on us six years ago. I’d been a freshman in high school and Ariana had been a sophomore. It’d hit her harder than me; or at least more than I’d allowed anyone to know. Someone had to step up to the plate and make sure stuff got taken care of, and it quickly became clear to me that it wouldn’t be her or our mom. It’d left only me to pick up the slack, and without another option that’s whatIdid.

Even though I was only fifteen, I got a part-time job to help my mom cover the necessities like food, rent, and utilities. It cut into the time I had for studying and after school activities, but I still managed to pull in mostly B’s throughout high school. After graduation, I found a full-time job as a waitress and worked late nights while taking classes during the day at College of Southern Nevada to earn my Associate’s Degree. I’d planned to go the full four-years for my Bachelor’s but when I got the job offer to work as a personal assistant a few months ago, it was too good an opportunity to pass up. So I switched to working days and taking only a couple of classed online for a semester while I adjusted to the newschedule.

Where I was the good girl trying to make things easier for our mom, Ariana was the bad sister who didn’t care about anything other than having fun. She went off the rails shortly after our dad left, and she hadn’t found her way back from it yet—blowing through all the money she earned at her cocktail waitress job by partying after each and every shift and not coming home until I was either heading out the door or already on my waytowork.

“When’s the last time you saw Mom?” I asked, dropping down on the old, ugly brown couch in the living room. Since I got the new job, I hadn’t seen much of either of them because I was working days while they were workingnights.

Ariana joined me, resting her head against my shoulder as she leaned back on the lumpy cushions. “A week?Maybemore?”

“Has she been actingweird?”

“Weird as in are there any signs that she’s gambling again?” Ariana asked, tilting her head back and offering me an apologetic smile. “Yeah, probably. Now that you mention it, I guess so. She hasn’t been around much the last couple of months, and she’s asked me for cash the rare times we’ve been home at thesametime.”

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