Page 10 of Best Served Hot
Nicole looked at Alex. ‘I was desperate to hate you, but you’ve made it impossible.’
‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’
‘You should. Anyway, I think I can handle it solo. I appreciate the offer, though,’ Nicole said sincerely.
Alex nodded. ‘Well, I guess this is goodbye.’
‘I guess it is.’
Nicole smiled and walked away. She had the odd thought that under different circumstances, she and Alex might have been friends.
***
Nicole didn’t go straight home for the inevitable confrontation. She decided to give herself the gift of one more night to calm down. She had so much new information about the person she’d married, and she felt she needed time just to stop her brain from imploding.
And that decision was yet another on the road to what came later. One night in a budget hotel changed what would have been a devastating yet simple divorce into something else entirely.
Eight
Alex didn’t hear anything from Nicole that day. Not that she expected to. Nor did she necessarily expect anything from Ethan, either. But the silence felt loud. She couldn’t turn her mind from it. She was still so very angry. She knew Ethan was going to have a hard conversation with his wife and probably have quite a stressful breakup coming his way. But it wasn’t nearly enough.
She wondered what she was going to do come Monday morning. Because she still had to work with the bastard. Should she leave? Find another job? The thought immediately pissed her off. She wasn’t the bad guy. Why should she have to go? Particularly when permanent producing jobs were gold dust.
But the thought of rubbing up against someone she wanted to strangle in a professional setting was unbearable. But what could she do about this? She wrestled with it for a day and a night.
On Monday morning, it turned out the decision was made for her.
Alex walked in at eight and headed for the offices ofFoundations, where she spent the majority of her time. She went to the set when necessary, but half her job was calling people to say, ‘Hey, we’re waiting on a prop/location/actor and where the hell is it, if you please?’ so she was very office based and of course, so was Ethan.
He was practically never seen on set. He called himself a ‘Big picture guy,’ whatever that meant. But today, there was no sign of him in the open plan office where she sat with several other assistant producers. Ethan’s door was visible from her desk and wide open, empty. Alex had expected that. If there was ever a time for a personal day, it was today, with his marriage in tatters by his own hand.
But then she saw Ethan walking out of the kitchen with a coffee. He strolled past her desk without any greeting, no eye contact, like she wasn’t even there. She watched him walk past without attempting to get his attention. Why would she want to talk to him right now, here? She had unfinished business with him, but not at work. She would wait, do her job, and kill him on her own time.
He was apparently taking a similar tack by ignoring her. That didn’t surprise her. Ethan was apparently the kind of guy who was all hearts and flowers when he wanted to get in there. But once it was over, he was a stranger to you. It wasn’t Alex’s first time being ghosted. But it was her first time having it happen in person. It was a lot more disconcerting to stop existing for someone in the same room.
As Ethan passed her by, she expected him to head into his office. But he kept walking. Alex watched him head down the hall, in the direction of Viola’s office, a producer, someone whose place in the hierarchy was between Alex and Ethan.
Alex didn’t know what business he had in there, but she had a bad feeling. When he came out a few minutes later, he had the look of someone who’d done something unpleasant, yet necessary. Like killing a rat.
Moments later, Viola floated in front of her desk on a cloud of anxiety. ‘Hi, Alex?’
Alex looked up from her emails. ‘Yes?’
‘How’s it going?’
‘Fine, yes,’ Alex said with as much of a smile as she could generate under the circumstances.
‘Would it be possible to have a chat in my office?’
‘OK,’ Alex said, getting up. She could feel the eyes of her colleagues on her. They knew, too.
Alex followed Viola down the hall to her office. She left ten minutes later, sacked. ‘We’re overstaffed on assistant producers,’ was the headline. Alex didn’t hear anything after that. Her ears turned off while her mind whirred. It was bullshit. There were only three assistant producers, and they all had more work than they could handle.
Alex drove home, her blood pressure through the roof. It wasn’t hard to put it together. Ethan had done this. Not the sweet guy she’d been dating. But the real him. The person she knew he was now. He was sending her a message. ‘It’s done and so are you.’
She wished she’d explained the whole thing to Viola, the unabridged truth. But she’d been in shock. The shock was melting now, and she was left with facts.
The facts were that he was her boss, they’d slept together, and he’d sacked her. That broke employment law very clearly. And Ethan thought she’d just go away? Not a chance. He’d just started a fight. Alex didn’t necessarily expect to win it—power structures being what they were. But she wouldn’t go quietly.
