Chapter 103
Chapter 96: One Sided
Cameron POV
Lucian was standing now. He’d moved from my chair to the space in front of my desk, which was
the instinct of someone who understood that sitting in his employer’s chair while his employer was standing in the doorway was a position that needed to be vacated. He was holding himself with the composure he defaulted to when things required managing, but the red in his face was still present and his hands, which were normally very still, were doing something slightly uncertain at his sides, like he had no idea what to do in a scenario like this and was trying hard not to show that he was worried about how this would seem like, he had the same idea everyone had after all.
He was twenty nine years old.
He had dark eyes and the kind of face that was more interesting and handsome, a face that would make people look twice, he had that aura bout being fragile and needed to be taught carefully. His hair was slightly disarranged, which it wasn’t during work hours, which was because Lyra Cheng’s hand had been in the process of-
stopped that line of thinking.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. I meant: it was ten PM, working hours were long past, my office was not a space for-whatever this had been in the process of becoming. I meant: I gave you this position and these keys and this access to my space in trust.
“I was finishing the scheduling for the Singapore trip,” Lucian said. His voice was steady, which I noticed. “I had your office access to pull the files for the Meridian account. I should have been finished an hour ago. Miss Cheng-she came up looking for someone from events and I-” He stopped. Recalibrated. “I should have asked her to leave immediately. I didn’t. That was a mistake p>
He wasn’t making excuses. He was accounting for the specific failure without attempting to soften it by distributing blame. Which was exactly what I’d expect from him, which was exactly
why this was as difficult as it was.
“The Singapore files,” I said.
“On your desk. Completed. I was going to email the summary tonight p>
I crossed to the desk, not to check the files-I believed him, which was also part of the problem- but because I needed to be moving, because standing still in this room with this specific person
was requiring more self control than I had.
SAT
10
1/3
Г
< One Sided
I looked at the files. They were completed. The summary was thorough, organized with the precision I’d come to rely on, the details in the right order, the decisions pre-sorted by urgency. He’d been here until ten PM finishing work I hadn’t asked him to finish tonight, that could have waited until tomorrow, but he decided to be done with it tonight, because that was the kind of person he was.
Claim
I stood at my desk and looked at work that had been done well and felt something that had been building for eighteen months and that I’d been managing for eighteen months with varying degrees of success become briefly unmanageable.
“The Singapore summary is thorough,” I said.
“Thank you p>
“You didn’t need to finish it tonight p>
“I prefer to stay ahead of the schedule where possible p>
“I know you do.” I set the file down. Didn’t look at him directly. “How long has Miss Cheng been coming up here p>
A pause. “Three or four times in the past month. She mentioned she was working on the Portland retreat logistics and needed to coordinate with someone on the executive floor p>
“There are two other people on the executive floor with authority to sign off on retreat logistics,” I
said. “She didn’t need to come to you. Your work is to only answer to me and do what I tell you to do, she had no business being here, did she p>
Another pause, slightly longer. “No,” he said carefully. “She didn’t p>
“And did you indicate at any point that her coming here was welcome p>
The
pause this time had a quality I couldn’t fully read. “I didn’t actively discourage it,” he said, which
was the honest answer and which landed somewhere specific.
I turned from the desk and looked at him.
He met my eyes with the directness he always had, determined to face the problem head on rather
than looking away.
He was very good at his job and he had been sitting in my chair at ten PM while someone else ran
her hand down his chest and he hadn’t told her to stop.
“I’m going to let you go,” I said.
Something moved across his face. Fast, controlled, and stunned before he schooled his
expression into something neutral. “I understand,” he said, and his voice was steady, which it
2/3
O
Г
One Sided
shouldn’t have been, which somehow made it worse. “If that’s your decision p>
“It is p>
“Can I ask-” He stopped.
“Go ahead p>
Claud
“Is this about the work?” He was looking at me directly, “The Singapore file, the scheduling, the access question. Or is this about-” He stopped again, and this time the stopping was different, more deliberate, he did not want to state the obvious reason he was being fired, he was flirting around with someone that I had my eyes on, based on the rumors and I saw him as a competition and I needed him removed. “I want to understand what I’m being let go for p>
It was a reasonable question. It was, in fact, exactly the question I’d have asked in his position, and it deserved an honest answer, which was the problem.
The honest answer was not about the Singapore file. The honest answer was not about Lyra Cheng’s hand on his chest, exactly, or not only about that.
The honest answer was that I had been watching Lucian Park for eighteen months with the specific helpless attention of someone who knew better than to expect anything and I had buried it, but apparently that wasn’t enough when the person in matter cared more about Lyra than my feelings that he wasn’t aware existed because nobody could have guessed that.
1
Comments
SAY
LUCK DRAW >
Vote
Admins2