Never Got Over You

“Don’t I get to voice my concerns about the candidate first?” I asked.

“You’re the only ‘no’ vote, Mr. Holmes,” he said. “You’d need at least seven more for that.”

“I really don’t want to hire this woman.” I voiced my thoughts anyway. “I believe that she has severe loyalty issues, and she’ll continue to select the things in life that are second best.”

“With all due respect, if that’s what you got out of her presentation, then I don’t think you were paying attention.”

The rest of the board nodded their heads in agreement, and he looked away from me.

“What salary should we recommend to HR?”

Carol flipped through Kate’s portfolio. “None of the places where she worked previously paid her more than fifty thousand dollars a year.”

It’s not like she needs the money… I groaned. “Let’s pay her the same amount then.”

“We paid our last marketing director three hundred thousand a year, Mr. Holmes.”

“Who the hell approved paying someone that much?”

“That was even less than the director before.”

“I’m sorry, what?” I made a mental note to look up all the salary levels at this company and make some adjustments.

“I propose four hundred thousand a year,” Carol said. “Especially since she’ll be coming in to not only clean up the messes made by the last marketing director, but she’ll have to construct multiple campaigns within six weeks before the next shareholders’ report.”

“That sounds like a good enough number to make her say ‘yes’ on the spot.” Joseph smiled. “Would anyone else like to propose another number?”

I wanted to suggest zero, but I held back.

“All in favor of hiring Miss Kennedy at a salary of four hundred thousand a year, say, ‘aye’!”

“Aye!” They all said in unison.

They didn’t bother with the nay vote.

“Meeting adjourned, ladies and gentlemen,” Joseph said, signaling their exodus.

As they filed out of the room, I stood to my feet and walked over to Joseph.

“Wait,” I said. “I need to talk to you in private for a second.” I waited until the last board member left the room, until I heard the door click shut.

“This is about Miss Kennedy, isn’t it?” he asked.

“Yes. I need to explain why you all just made a huge mistake in hiring her.”

“Mr. Holmes, I don’t think ‘hiring’ is your forte. However, if we ever need to fire her, I can promise that we’ll let you handle that.”

“I used to date her,” I said.

“Okay, and? With your track record, I’d be more surprised if you’d never dated her. You’ve dated almost all of the high-profile women in Seattle.”

“We dated intensely.”

He raised his eyebrow. “How long ago was this?”

“It was almost like yesterday.” I paused. “Nine and a half years ago.”

“That’s not like ‘yesterday’ at all.”

“Can we stay on topic please?” I narrowed my eyes at him. “I believe that Miss Kennedy will be distracted by me and I don’t want her to suffer by being in any of my buildings here. I can find us someone better for this position, if you just give me a few weeks.”

He stared at me in silence, then he let out a long sigh.

“So, let me get this straight.” He crossed his arms. “As the CEO of a billion-dollar company that is publicly traded, you want your board to rescind an offer of employment from a candidate because ‘nine and a half years ago,’ you two had a ‘relationship’ and you don’t think you can push that shit to the side and be a professional?”

“Yes.” I smiled. “Thank you for finally understanding. Let’s call the board back in for a second vote.”

“Mr. Holmes, don’t take this personally, but—” He looked me right in my eye. “You’re out of your fucking mind. We’ve voted, and she’s hired. Sign off on the HR clearances and get the hell over it, okay?”

I didn’t answer him.

“She seems to be fine with the idea of working under you.” He patted my shoulder. “She shook your hand and everything.”

I shook my head. The mere touch of her hand against mine had opened a floodgate of memories, and I was already drowning.

“There was a girl I couldn’t get over once,” Joseph said, pulling out his phone. “Do you want to know how I got over her?”

“Not particularly.”

“I moved on to someone else.”

I’ve already tried that shit.

“Anyway,” he said, looking at his watch, “can you promise me that you’ll sign off on her clearance forms by the end of business day? That you’ll embrace this new era you’ve thrown this company into and be a complete professional?”

“Yes.” I forced a smile. “I’m going to be more than simply professional…”

I can try to pretend

Kate

I STARED AT THE COCKROACH that was crawling up my motel room’s crumbling cream wall on Friday night. In between refreshing my inbox every few seconds for a response from Pier Autumn Coffee, I was trying to focus on anything else that would prevent me from thinking about James effin Garrett.