Bossing My Friend Read online

  “Did you say, Elsie Carr?” I clarified. Ralph had sensed the tension in my voice. I was aware that my team walked on eggshells around me. Morin Constructions may have been a prized company to work at, but those who worked closely with me were aware that I had a temper.

  I wasn’t an easy boss to please.

  “Yes, Sir, Elsie Carr.” Ralph double-checked the file in his hand. He didn’t want to get it wrong.

  I couldn’t believe it, and I’d looked her up online instantly. I would have recognized her face anywhere.

  Now, I was staring at her again on my phone. It seemed like the past ten years hadn’t changed her much. Her hair had grown longer. She now wore her straight chestnut hair to the middle of her shoulders. But she had the same heart-shaped face, the blue eyes and the thick lashes. In this photograph she was in a formal-looking blouse, with her arms crossed over her chest.

  I couldn’t quite tell if there were any changes in her. That would have to wait till I met her in person.

  For two weeks I toyed with the idea of whether to come to Chicago or not. I couldn’t decide if it was a bad idea. Would she even want to see me?

  In the end, my desire to add her to my team overpowered my doubts. I couldn’t give up this opportunity. She would be perfect for my team, and what if she said yes? She might not refuse an old friend. What happened between us was a long time ago. Ten years to be precise. We were both just kids back then.

  So, here I was in Chicago. The plan was to just walk into Elsie’s office and surprise her. Ralph and the rest of the recruitment time were hopeful that I would be able to sway her.

  Today was the day. After ten years of no contact, today was the day I would speak to Elsie again.

  I knew nothing else about her. Where she lived, if she was married or had a family. All I remembered was the girl who lived next door to me. The girl I’d grown up with and who was my first friend.

  Now when I thought about her…I hadn’t thought about her in several years…I wondered, had she been the biggest support system of my childhood?

  Would I be the person I was now if it wasn’t for her? Had Elsie helped me become the self-made billionaire everyone knew me as?

  I emptied the hot coffee down my throat and stood up. I had her official address on my phone. All I had to do was call a cab and walk in to her office.

  For the first time in several years, though, I was nervous.

  I thought I had nerves of steel. I was well known for them. Nothing broke me. Nothing made me doubt myself. It’s what made me successful at this business.

  Now, here I was, standing in the middle of a coffeeshop and too nervous to take another step.

  Elsie

  Back to work after a miserable Sunday.

  I had my sister to thank for that. I knew Mona meant well and I’d forgive her in a few days.

  Now that I’d surrounded myself with work and my co-workers, my mind wasn’t wandering so much. Jared was still there, at the back of my mind somewhere, but it was more like a dull aching throb. Nothing I had to worry about. In a few days, I would forget about him too. Till someone else mentioned his name again or I saw his photo in a magazine.

  I had accepted this reality of my life.

  My mornings usually began at eight and I was at the office by ten.

  Our place of work was always buzzing; the phones were constantly off the hook, people were running around trying to look for files. I was working on a chart in my small cramped office, concentrating hard.

  Highlighter in one hand and a map in the other, I was engrossed deep in thought when Melissa knocked on my open door.

  “Elsie, there’s someone here to see you,” she said. I turned to look at her; my thoughts were interrupted and I was dazed.

  “What? Oh, yeah, sure, send them in,” I told her and turned to the chart again.

  “I didn’t realize you knew him,” I heard Melissa say.

  “Know who?” I asked, still distracted. I needed to get this chart right for a presentation I had the next day.

  “Jared Morin. He said you guys are old friends!” Melissa replied.

  I felt my body stiffen the moment I heard the name. Was I hearing make-believe things? Was this some kind of hallucination after what Mona said the previous day? Surely, I wasn’t actually going bonkers!

  I turned to Melissa slowly, gripping the map and highlighter tightly in my hands.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Jared Morin. The Jared Morin. He’s here to see you and he just told us that you used to be neighbors or something?” Melissa looked concerned by my reaction.

  I could barely keep standing. I felt like I needed to sit down and catch my breath.

  “Elsie?”

  “Yeah.” I was nodding my head furiously. “I know him. Send him in. I knew him, I mean…” I was fumbling with my words.

  When Melissa left, I sat down with a thump on my chair. My office was a mess. Files and books stacked everywhere. I ran a hand through my hair quickly. Ours was not the kind of office where we had to come to work dressed to the nines.

  I wasn’t prepared for this. Ten years of radio silence and now he just turns up at my office out of the blue?

  I looked through the open blinds of my office wall. Melissa was leading him in, weaving him around the other messy tables. I could see many of my co-workers looking up to see him. Nobody expected a man like Jared Morin to just walk into our office.

  We hadn’t spoken in ten years, but this wasn’t the first time I was seeing him in that time. Jared was a media favorite, the country’s golden boy. It was no surprise. He was worth a shit-ton of money, looked like a movie-star, and was still a bachelor. Jared was on TV a lot; he was interviewed by the papers and magazines a lot too.

  There was no escaping him and now he was in my office.

  My brain had blanked. I wished I could behave appropriately, but I stood up shakily when Melissa showed him in.

  I knew I’d lost all the color from my cheeks. I must have looked like I’d seen a ghost.

  Jared thanked Melissa and stepped into my office. In a full three-piece suit and a power tie. His sandy blond hair was styled in a fashionable quiff. I knew from his paparazzi photos lately that he favored a stubble. Smart cufflinks glittered like jewels on his wrists as he strode towards me.

  “Elsie Carr,” he said my name, while his eyes swept over me.

  I felt disastrously under-dressed, and no match for the effect he had not only on me but everyone around us.

  “Jared,” I mumbled, trying hard to keep my head up.

  “I knew this would be a surprise, but a good one I hope,” Jared said. A lot had changed about this guy I’d known since I was a child. But the one thing that had definitely stayed the same was his smile. He had a half-barely-there way of grinning and he still did that.

  It had the same effect on me now that it did before. I wasn’t sure if it was actually a smile. It seemed forced, like it pained him to actually put it on. He was doing it now too.

  “What are you doing here?” I blurted.

  I hadn’t been able to say much since his arrival. My body and mind were both in shock. This was the man I’d tried to banish from my thoughts for ten years. Now, he was standing right in front of me and I had nothing to say to him. He had paralyzed me completely.

  “I was in Chicago, and I heard you live here now. Was I wrong to stop by?” Jared asked.

  When I didn’t reply to him for several moments, he walked over to the empty chair in front of my desk and sat down.

  “We should make ourselves comfortable, don’t you think, Elsie? We have a lot to catch up on,” he added, staring at me. There was a roughish darkness in his clear gray eyes now. He could see I was distressed. He could see I wasn’t exactly happy to see him, but he didn’t care.

  Jared Morin was the most selfish man I had ever known, and that hadn’t changed.

  Jared

  Elsie looked the same, just a grown-up version of her eighte
en-year old self. That was the last time I’d seen her. However, her behavior towards me now seemed completely different.

  I was aware that she would be surprised to see me, even suspicious of me a little. Her reaction to me now, though, seemed almost aggressive.

  I was already sitting on one of her chairs, but she hadn’t sat down. Her office looked like a space she lived in. It was obvious that neither she nor any of her colleagues were interested in making an impression on their visitors. This was not the kind of fully-functional corporate environment I was accustomed to. The kind I had built for my own company.

  “I don’t know where we would even begin to catch up,” she finally said, but not in a friendly voice.

  “Why don’t you sit down and we can try?” I suggested, but Elsie remained standing.

  She was wearing a pair of fawn colored pants that fit her long legs perfectly. An oversized cotton shirt covered nearly half her thighs. She had the sleeves rolled up and her hair tied in a loose knot. With no makeup on, and no jewelry, I could see that Elsie didn’t put much effort to her appearance. She was still beautiful, though; that hadn’t changed.

  She had always been too tall for her age, and now it suited her. Elsie had a sensuous hour-glass figure, which she was hiding under baggy clothes now. I could see it, though, she couldn’t hide it from me. Her face was delicate, to match her blue eyes and her peaches-and-cream clear complexion.

  There was no denying it that Elsie was beautiful in an earthly, untouched way. I would be a fool to not see that.

  “Are you busy? Is that why you’re not sitting down?” I asked.

  “Yes, I’m in the middle of something important,” she replied, too quickly.

  “I can wait. Give you a chance to finish up whatever it is you’re doing and then maybe we could go for a coffee?” I insisted.

  I saw Elsie’s cheeks visibly flush. She clasped her hands together and drew in a deep breath.

  “What do you want from me, Jared? I haven’t heard from you in ten years and you turn up here now? I’ve been living in Chicago for close to eight years!” Elsie spoke with a sizzle in her voice. She was demanding answers. I didn’t want to reveal the truth to her just yet, not like this. When she was in such an aggressive mood.

  “You’re right. We haven’t been in touch,” I admitted, squaring my shoulders with a sigh.

  “Haven’t been in touch? You disappeared one day without a word. I thought we told each other everything!” Elsie was incensed. Her voice was screechy loud and when she realized she was yelling, she looked around sheepishly. Afraid that she’d alerted her co-workers.

  “I can see you’re upset.” I stood up slowly from the chair. There was no point. She wasn’t willing to sit down and have a polite conversation with me.

  “You’re damn right I am! I was worried sick…” She snapped her face away from me. “Forget it. It’s in the past now.” She crossed her arms over her breasts. “Just tell me why you’re here and be done with it.”

  I stepped closer to her, itching to touch her. I knew she wouldn’t like that. She was fuming rage from her ears. Her cheeks were the color of tomatoes with anger.

  “I told you, Elsie. I thought enough time had passed for us to bury the hatchet. I was hoping we could catch up,” I replied, pushing my hands into the pockets of my pants.

  Elsie shook her head.

  “Just like that? Ten years later? You just happen to be in Chicago and decide it’s time to talk to me again?” she snapped.

  I shrugged my shoulders. This was proving harder than I thought. She really had a bone to pick with me!

  “I don’t buy it.”

  “Okay, then, let’s get a coffee and talk it over?”

  “I don’t have the time for you. I’m in the middle of something,” she replied, her lips quivering with anger.

  “Yeah, you said. How about a drink later?” I asked.

  Elsie gulped quickly. I could see that she was trying to think of an excuse. So, I walked to her office door.

  “Eight? You pick a place. Text me,” I said and pulled out a business card from my wallet.

  She seemed tongue-tied and after a moment’s hesitation, she accepted the card from me.

  “Good, I’ll see you later tonight,” I told her and smiled. Elsie was in no mood to smile back at me. She stared at the card in her hand like I’d handed her a grenade.

  “Elsie,” I said her name, snapping her out of her daze and she looked up at me with a jerk. “You look well,” I added.

  She gritted her teeth, meeting my eyes, but said nothing to that. I wasn’t even sure if she’d heard me.

  I walked out of her office, forcing myself to not look back at her.

  I’d hoped that ten years would be enough time for me to get over those darn feelings. I’d hoped that they’d erupted back then because I was just a kid. Twenty was too young to fall in love. Especially with my best friend, someone I’d known since we were both kids.

  Now that I’d seen her again, I wasn’t so sure. Were they just childhood fantasies or was it something that would haunt me for the rest of my life?

  One thing I was sure of was that Elsie hated me now.

  Forget about those fucking feelings! I had to get her to work for me. Nothing was more important to me than my business.

  Elsie

  I knew it was a bad idea to go for this drink with Jared. But how could I not?

  I had so many questions for him. So much to say! I had ten years’ worth of pent up emotions rattling around inside me. Was this venting going to be healthy?

  I’d texted Mona after Jared left. I needed to tell someone to keep my sanity. When I returned to my apartment from the office, she was already waiting there for me.

  “Are you going to go?” was the first thing she said.

  I walked past her, headed for the shower.

  “I think I kinda have to,” I told her.

  “Why? Why do you have to?” Mona called after me, but I was in the shower already.

  She was waiting for me in the bedroom when I got out. A towel was wrapped tightly around my body.

  “You could just blow him off. Isn’t that what he did to you all those years ago?” I could hear the concern in Mona’s voice. She was worried I was going to suffer from a nervous breakdown.

  The thing was, I never expressly told her my feelings for Jared. I didn’t have to. After he disappeared, it was pretty easy for her to figure it out. I’d spent days locked up in my room, refusing to speak to anyone or even eat.

  When I did leave the house, it was only so I could go sit by the lake where Jared and I used to go. It was winter and frozen over. One day Mona found me there, still sitting by the bank. She thought I was going to catch my death from the cold.

  “I need to find out why he left. Why he didn’t tell me where he was going,” I argued, while I put on a dress.

  I was conscious of what I was wearing. Usually I threw on the first thing I could find in my wardrobe. I was always too busy, too caught up with work to think about my clothes. This evening, I picked out a short turquoise cocktail dress. One I hadn’t worn in months.

  “Does it even matter anymore? I mean, Elsie…it’s been ten years. Why do you care where he went? You know where he is right now. You know exactly what he’s been up to!” Mona followed me around the room while I got ready.

  “It matters to me,” I replied, as I put on a pair of earrings.

  “Is that why you’re putting on your best lipstick and your highest heels? To get answers from him?” Mona remarked. I stared at her in the mirror. She was standing behind me with her arms crossed, challenging me with her eyes.

  I rolled my eyes and continued with the makeup. Nothing too heavy. But I didn’t want to look like I’d just woken up either.

  “I know what you’re doing, Elsie…” Mona interrupted me again. I breathed in heavily, regretting telling Mona in the first place.

  “You want him to see what he’s missed, make him regret he left.”
As she finished that sentence, I whipped around to her.

  “He’s not missed anything, Mona!” I was screaming at my sister now. “He’s made himself into a billionaire. He dates the sexiest supermodels in the country. He lives in a mansion! What has he missed?” I was close to tears as I yelled the words.

  Mona rushed towards me, pulling me into her arms now.

  “So, why are you going?” she asked in a softer, more sympathetic voice.

  “Because I want to know what I did. He left without a word. He forgot about me in a day. He would have known I was worried…his family was worried, but he didn’t give a shit. I want to know why!” I clung to Mona tightly. She was stroking my hair as she held me.

  “Because Jared Morin has always been the most arrogant guy around. We all knew it. Come on, Elsie, you knew it too. Nobody knew him like you did. He was always going to leave. Madison Green was too small for him. It was holding him back. He wanted bigger things,” Mona replied, peering into my eyes…hopeful that she would be able to change my mind.

  We hadn’t spoken about Jared like this, ever. I had no idea that was what she thought of him. She was right. I’d always known he was going to leave our little town. I was just foolish enough to hope that he would take me with him. That he would at least tell me he was going!

  I drew away from Mona, slipping into the heels I’d picked out for the night.

  “I want to hear it from him. I want him to look me in the eye and confess that our town was never good enough. That I was never good enough for him,” I told her, without meeting her eyes.

  “Elsie, you’re only going to end up hurting yourself,” she whispered, with tears brimming in her eyes.

  I went over to her and kissed her on her cheek.

  “You should go back to Emma and Dane. I’ll be fine. I’ll call you in the morning when this is all over,” I said and, leaving her in my bedroom, I walked out.

  I’d texted him already. We were going to meet at a fancy cocktail bar not too far from my apartment. I wanted to meet him some place I was familiar with, where I would feel comfortable.