Page 101 of Mr. Fixer Upper
“Did you like being with me?” The change of subject muddled her. “Did you see a future with me… at least before?” he amended.
Paige debated. She was walking a very fine line here. One misstep, and Paige could find herself either pissing Gannon her boss off or hurting Gannon her friend. But she owed him an honest answer.
She took a deep breath. “Before Meeghan showed up on set that day, I’d been planning on asking you where we stood and if you’d be interested in seeing me in the off-season.”
He looked incredulous. “Did you think we were having some kind of fling?”
“Uh. Yeah.”
“We were in a relationship.”
“What?” Paige gaped at him. “We never talked about it.”
“Why do we have to talk about it for it to be a relationship?”
“That’s what relationships are! Talking to each other about stuff.”
“We talked all day long, every day,” Gannon argued.
“We worked together all day long, and then at night we… did other things,” Paige clarified.
“Relationship things.”
She snorted. “Are you telling me you’ve been in a relationship with every woman you’ve had sex with?”
“Of course not. I’m telling you we were in a relationship.”
“Well, it couldn’t have been a very good one if I had no idea about it.”
“How could you not know when my dick was in you every night?” He seemed more incredulous than mad. “I brought you coffee. I spent nights sleeping with you—not fucking you—because I wanted you safe. I let you slobber all over me on planes.”
Paige blinked. Gannon King had been in a relationship with her, and she’d had no idea.
He pressed on. “So to you it was a fling, but you still wanted to see if I’d be interested in something more?”
She shrugged miserably. “I don’t know. It was a thousand humiliating moments ago. It’s hard to remember exactly what I was thinking.”
“You wanted to continue things, and then fucking Meeghan shows up acting like an asshole and shames you, and then you’re just done.”
Shit.
“You’re a strong, capable, smart woman Paige. Yet you let someone run you off of what you wanted because you weren’t willing to stand up for yourself.”
“And now I’m making a fucking documentary about it. It’s relevant to me, okay? Happy now?”
“No! I’m not happy! I’m fucking miserable, Paige. I want to be with you, and the only way I can do that is through work because you don’t want to pay the price or accept the consequences. You don’t want to have to fight for it.”
“People are going to think I have this job because I slept with you,” she argued.
“So the fuck what? Every person? Every person in the industry who does hiring is going to think that? Do you want to work for people who don’t bother looking at your work and only listen to bullshit rumors?”
“The bullshit rumors were true in this case,” she reminded him.
“And did me being in your bed every night lessen your ability to do your job?”
“No, of course not. But again, if I were a man, no one would think twice about hiring me despite my sexual past.”
“I get that. And you’re right. It’s asinine. There’s definitely a double standard there. But what can you do about it? Roll over, walk away from someone who cares about you, so you can stay marketable to assholes who will judge you by who you slept with?”
