The Boss Project

He winked. “I’ll have to try harder.”

I smiled. “Give it your best shot, bossman.”

Merrick chuckled. He leaned down and took off his shoes before kicking his feet onto the coffee table. “So who did you see this week?”

I rattled off my appointments in order as I mentally went through my schedule. I knew I’d met with sixteen people, so I counted on my fingers. At fourteen, I tapped my pointer to my lip, trying to figure out who I was missing. “Oh, I know. I forgot John McGrath. He was my first appointment when I got back. And Colette Archwood. She was my last session before I left today.”

Merrick frowned. “How did things go with Colette?”

Confidentiality kept me from telling him that her days with Crawford Investments were numbered, and it also kept me from mentioning what she’d said about him and Amelia. So I answered vaguely.

“She was actually pretty open and forthcoming.”

Merrick hung his head. “Oh boy. I guess I should be grateful you came back tonight if she was open with you.”

I smiled and sipped my wine. “You’ve mentioned that you think she hates you.”

“Not think, know. Mostly because she’s told me as much. If I remember correctly, that was right before she spit in my face.”

My eyes widened. “She spit in your face? Or do you mean she was so upset when she was yelling at you that she spittled?”

Merrick shook his head. “Spit. As in hock-choo. Coughed it up and all.”

“And she still works for you? Is that because she has a contract?”

“All of my employment contracts have an insubordination clause that allows me to terminate anyone for being unprofessional or disrespectful.”

“So why didn’t you fire her?”

“It’s complicated. At the time, emotions were running high. She was close with my ex and didn’t know all the facts about what was going on. Trust me, I wanted to fire her. But what she did had nothing to do with business. It didn’t even happen at the office, so I waited to see how she acted when I saw her at work the next time. I wasn’t sure she’d show up the next day. But she did. She was frosty, but did her job, and she does her job well. And I was too caught up for months in other things to let it bother me much. By the time I had my head screwed back on, Colette and I had fallen into a speak-when-spoken-to relationship and mostly ignored each other. There’s always been a management level between us at work, so we don’t need to interact one-on-one much anyway.” Merrick paused and looked down for a long time. “My ex, Amelia, had an accident. She was in the hospital for a long time. Colette didn’t agree with some of the decisions I made as time progressed.”

I nodded. “I’m sorry. I heard she was in an accident. But I didn’t know any of the details. That must’ve been tough.”

Merrick nodded and gulped back the rest of the wine in his glass. “Do you want some more?”

“No, thanks. I actually had two on the flight. I’ll wind up with a headache in the morning if I have any more.”

“Lightweight.” He smiled and got up to refill his glass.

When he sat back down, it looked like his mind was elsewhere. He stared off at nothing in particular with wrinkles in his forehead. Eventually he drank down half of his new glass of wine and turned to face me. “You want to know a secret now?”

I rubbed my hands together. “Absolutely. I love secrets. My mom always teases that it’s the reason I became a therapist.”

Merrick smiled. “Well, don’t get too excited. My secret isn’t that thrilling.”

“I’ll take it anyway.”

“I may have been biased against bringing on a therapist at the office for more reasons than I originally indicated.”

“Oh?”

“Amelia and I were having some problems before her accident. We went to a therapist a few times. It didn’t go well, so I might’ve been prejudiced by that.”

“Wow. Okay. Well, that makes sense. If you didn’t have success with it, it’s no wonder you thought it was a waste of time.”

Merrick nodded.

“Thank you for sharing that with me.”