“This is Ian,” I said.
“You know who this is.”
“You’re right. What’s up?”
“I want to see you in person,” she said. “If you don’t meet with me in person, then I’m just going to keep bothering you about it until you do. I’m available now, if you are. I just want to talk to you face to face this one time, and then I’ll leave you alone. Unless, of course, you decide that you would actually like to be involved in your child’s life.”
She was getting a little too bold for my liking, a little too demanding, but if meeting in person now meant she’d back off, then I might as well just get it over with. “Fine,” I said. “Where are you?”
“I’m at home.”
“Then I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
“Great, I will—”
I hung up. Then I texted Daisy, who by now was probably wondering where I was. There’s one thing I need to take care—running a little late. Be there soon.
I’d do everything I could to make sure this little visit was over as fast as fucking possible.
Chapter Eighteen
Daisy
I got Ian’s text, saying he’d be late, so I ordered myself a drink and sat at the table by myself, watching the other people around me socialize. I thought about maybe calling Caroline and having her meet us; surely she just needed to hang out with Ian again to realize that he was nothing at all like she thought. Well . . . maybe he was a teeny bit arrogant, but, then again, a lot of guys were.
“Now what is a lovely lady like yourself doing sitting all alone?”
I turned to see who was talking to me. It was Billy McAllister. He had on a white button-down shirt with the sleeves pushed up and a pair of blue jeans. “Can I join you?”
“Sure,” I said, glad for the company. Even though I didn’t know exactly what it was that Ian had to do, it was taking him longer than I expected.
“So,” Billy said. “You still enjoy working for Ruby? How’s that going?”
“It’s good. I like working there a lot.”
“Glad to hear it—it’s quite a pleasure to know that your face will be the one to greet me when I stop by there now. The other girl . . . she was a looker, but not nearly as good-looking as you. Had a little bit of a bad attitude, too; more toward the end. Can’t say I blame Ian for firing her.”
“What happened there?” I asked, my interest piqued. That was something Ian and I hadn’t talked about before, though I had been a little curious over why the last girl had left.
“That was Annie,” he said. “Before Annie was Petra, and she was a lot like you—really nice and really cute. She ended up moving out to California. Then Annie got hired to take her place. And Annie . . . you never met Annie, but one look at her, whoa nelly! No way I could’ve hired a girl who dressed like that and had her work for me. She and Ian definitely had a . . . thing.”
My heart stopped for a beat. I tried to keep my face neutral. “A thing?” I said. “What do you mean?”
“You know, they were . . . involved. It wasn’t public knowledge or anything, they weren’t a couple, but I’m pretty good at sensing these things. They were pretty hot and heavy for a while there.”
I let what he was saying sink in. Ian had been sleeping with his last secretary? Was this like some sort of pattern for him? Was it like some sort of game he played, where every time he hired someone new, he slept with them, but told them to play it off like nothing was happening?
But . . . maybe Billy was wrong. I doubted he and Ian had actually talked about it, so he was just going on what he thought he sensed, and since he hadn’t sensed anything about Ian and me, well then, maybe he wasn’t as psychic as he thought.
He was laughing, slapping his knee. “I’ll never forget walking in on the two of them, right there in the office. It was technically after hours, but the door was still open and I was in the area, and I go in, and I heard these sounds, and I thought for a second maybe he was watching porn, but why would Ruby watch porn when he could have the real thing? And he’s got her bent over his desk, his pants around his ankles . . .” He stopped and gave me an apologetic look. “I’m sorry. This isn’t an appropriate topic of conversation. I’m sure you have very little interest in hearing anything about this.”
“It’s okay,” I said, hoping my voice didn’t sound too shrill. I tried to force a smile. “That’s really something—to have walked in on him like that.”
Billy laughed. “Yeah, it really was. That’s Ian, though. He’s a good guy; don’t get me wrong, but he’s certainly got his own way to go about doing things. That’s one of the reasons my dad likes him, though.”
“I see,” I said faintly.
“I’m not sure what happened with Annie; one day she was there, then the next time I went in, there you were. And I’m not complaining. I’m a pretty nice guy, contrary to what you might have heard before. Real pleasure to get to run into you here and all, but if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to take you out sometime. There’s a lot of great places around here that you might not even know about . . .”