Corner Office Confessions

“Because I love you, that’s why,” Kassidy called after her.

Gathering the silky robe tighter around her, Arlie padded barefoot to the foyer. Disengaging the dead bolt, she swung the door wide.

And there, to her complete and absolute astonishment, was Samuel Kane.

In a tuxedo.

Caught in some strange interval between fantasy and reality, Arlie had a flash of how this moment would unfold in one of the soap operas her mother had so religiously followed. Dramatic lighting. Tight camera angle. Golden hair tumbling over her shoulder. Erratic breath pushing her breasts outward, hand pressed to her sternum, glossy lips forming the breathy sentence, “What are you doing here?”

What came out of her mouth instead was “Whaaa?”

Samuel’s mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. Clearly, this had not been the greeting he’d been expecting. And Arlie suspected that the speech he had prepared for this occasion went out the window.

“I have something for you,” he finally said.

As the initial shock of his presence wore off, additional details began to surface in Arlie’s vision. The arm still bound in the sling rested against his chest, a leather padfolio tucked beneath it. He liberated it with his free hand and slid it into hers.

The leather was satiny in her fingers. Warm from his body heat. “Roses are considered a more traditional apology offering, you know.”

“I was hoping you might appreciate a more practical gift,” he said. “May I come in?”

She was on the point of telling him that it wasn’t her house, and therefore he’d require the permission of its owner, when she noticed that Kassidy had made herself conspicuously absent.

Arlie stepped to the side.

“Nice place,” Samuel said.

“Not mine.” Moving past him, Arlie plopped down on the couch, the padfolio in her lap. “Make yourself at home.”

Samuel hung in the entryway, green eyes skating from the couch, to the love seat, to the club chair opposite them, clearly trying to calculate where he should go.

The man had been inside of her and yet couldn’t quite navigate how to share a couch.

Feeling a tug of protective tenderness at his plight, Arlie patted the cushion next to hers. He crossed the room and sat, not quite next to her but not exactly at the other end of the couch.

Progress.

“I’m assuming you’d like me to open this now?” Arlie asked.

“Only if you’d like to put me out of my misery.”

Truth be told, Arlie wasn’t sure that she did. In the dim world of her blanket cocoon, she could stoke the coals of her anger, the humiliation she had endured. But now, with Samuel seated near her, the main thing his presence did was remind her how much she liked being in it.

The bastard.

Sliding her fingers along the folder’s crease, she opened it. Documents had been tucked in the pockets on either side. Her stomach flipped as she ran headlong into Gastronomie’s logo.

“Read it,” Samuel urged, clearly seeing the blind panic on her face.

Scanning down through the address block and lengthy formal greeting, her eye snagged on a particular word.

Apologies.

Running back to the beginning of the line, she read it in full.

We have received additional information from Mr. Samuel Kane’s counsel regarding the events surrounding your departure and are prepared to return the settlement collected as a result of your civil matter. Please contact our offices at your earliest convenience so we may discuss the necessary arrangements.

The words began to blur as the sheets of paper trembled in Arlie’s hands. Her knuckles were white. Heart throbbing in her chest.

Could it actually be?

“How?” was the only question she could manage.

“I gave a copy of Taegan’s PhillyGossip smear job and the information about Project Impact she’d been attempting to blackmail you into giving her to our lawyers. They then contacted Gastronomie to make the management team aware of this situation, and suggested that we might negotiate an arrangement instead of making this an extensive and embarrassing legal matter. Kane Foods is notoriously protective of its employees, after all.”

Arlie blinked at him. “But I’m not an employee of Kane Foods any longer.”

Samuel cut his eyes toward the other document in the folder.

With fingers still twitching, Arlie pulled it from the sheath. An offer letter inviting her to rejoin Kane Foods International at a significant raise.

Looking up from the paper, Arlie examined Samuel’s face. What she saw was a tangle of many things. Pride. Terror. Remorse. Hope.

“Why?” she asked.

“I don’t know if you can forgive me,” he said. “But I need you to know that I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I wasn’t man enough to tell you how I felt when we were teenagers. I’m sorry I pretended to be my brother so I could kiss you. I’m sorry that I hired you thinking that you might still want him.” His broad, suit-clad shoulders sank, his gaze fixed on her. “Most of all, I’m sorry that the morning after we were together the first time, I didn’t tell you that there isn’t a single thing that you could say or do that would change the way I feel about you.”

Tears stung Arlie’s eyes.