The Boy Who Has No Hope (Soulless 6)

“Doesn’t matter.” I grabbed her purse off the desk and carried it to her. “Let’s go.”

“Whoa, hold on.” She took the purse from my hands and shouldered it. “It does matter. Tell me.”

I just stared into her eyes.

“She said something mean about me, didn’t she?”

All I did was nod.

She released a deep sigh. “Lily and I haven’t gotten along well. But I think the reason why that’s the case is because she’s threatened by me.”

“That makes no sense.”

“She’s threatened I’ll absorb her job, which kinda did happen…”

It still didn’t give Lily the right to talk about Emerson like that. I would fire anyone for disrespecting another employee in that manner, but with Emerson, it made me furious.

“Look.” She raised both hands. “Instead of firing her, let’s relocate her. She’ll have the same pay, just a different position.”

“Why?”

“Because I know you don’t lay off employees, Derek.”

No. Even if there were budget cuts or lost income because a rocket didn’t work out the way we hoped, I still kept everyone and hoped for better days. Sometimes, I personally took pay cuts because I didn’t need the money anyway.

“I’m not excusing her behavior, but we do stupid things when we’re emotional…and she did a couple stupid things. Honestly, it makes more sense for me to fully absorb her job and be the only person accessible to you since we have a much stronger bond and you’re comfortable with me. We can put her somewhere else. Problem solved.”

“No.”

“Derek—”

“She called you a bitch.”

A smile came over her lips. “If someone’s not calling you a bitch, then you’re doing your job wrong.”

I cocked an eyebrow.

She gave me a pat on the arm. “I don’t care what she called me, Derek. Water under the bridge.”

“I care.”

Her smile faded and her eyes softened. “I know you do, but I still don’t want you to fire her.”

Anyone else would do a victory dance because their enemy was getting canned, but Emerson had more humanity in a single finger than other people had in their entire bodies. I couldn’t believe I ever gave her a hard time…when she was the best thing that ever happened to me.

“Please.”

I stared into those blue eyes and got lost for a moment, got lost in those pools of sincerity. The bad things that had happened to me had turned me into a grizzled and bitter man, but she was like a shiny new penny.

I walked back outside the office to see Lily standing at her desk, tears falling down her cheeks, all of her belongings thrown into her purse. “Lily.”

“I’m going.” She sniffled and turned away.

“Lily.”

She stopped and faced me, wiping at her tears.

I still didn’t feel bad for her and would probably never like her after the way she’d spoken of Emerson. I held grudges…when it came to Emerson. “I’m going to reassign you to a different position in the company. Same pay and benefits. Take the day off, and we’ll have a new schedule for you tomorrow.”

She lifted her gaze and looked at me, her eyes wet but full of gratitude. “Okay…thank you.”

“But talk about Emerson like that again, and I won’t be so generous next time.”

She nodded.

“You can go.”

She turned around and walked away.

Emerson came to my side a moment later and watched Lily turn at the end of the hallway. “You did the right thing. And she’ll always be grateful.”

I started to move forward because we needed to get going. “You did the right thing, Emerson. I would have fired her and not felt bad about it.”The guys left at the end of the day, and I stayed behind because I had stuff to do. Emerson had been working for me for a long time, and when I stayed late, she stayed late. She was like another me, just as committed, using her extra time to find something else to work on to make my life more organized.

She left the lab to grab dinner, and when she came to the table, she had two containers. She sat on the stool across from me and opened the lid of her container, revealing a burger and fries.

I smiled to myself, thinking about the text message I’d almost sent last night.

“What?”

I lifted my gaze and looked at her. “What?”

She took a bite of a fry. “What are you smiling about?” She ate the rest of her fry and chewed, playfulness in her gaze.

I stared at her for a while, enjoying the way her eyes lit up like two Halley’s Comets in the sky. The look took me by surprise, because it made me feel like I was with a friend…my closest friend. But she was also the most beautiful woman I’d ever laid eyes on. “I was craving a burger the other night.”

“Perfect.” She grabbed another fry. “You have a really nice smile, Derek.”