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He snickers. “You could fire her, and then you could still be involved with her.”
“That wouldn’t be fair. She loves her job, and she’s good at it.”
“You’ve always been so careful not to cross any lines with employees, and now the one woman I’ve heard you express interest in beyond a quick screw, turns out to be working for you. If you have any luck with love, it’s bad luck.”
I chug down more of the bourbon and lick my lips. “Thanks for your inspirational words.”
He shrugs. “What? It’s true. I’m merely stating facts.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t need the reminder at the moment.”
“This is some bad romance movie shit; that’s what’s happening here,” Isaac says.
“You’ve lost me.”
“I feel like Hallmark would make a movie like your story. The heroine starts a new job and finds out her new boss is the one-night stand she recently had.”
I’ll bite at his theory. “So how does it end?”
“If you were a character in the movie, you would try to keep your distance, but the pull between you would be too much to resist, and you would inevitably succumb to your desires.”
“Sounds about right. I’m fucked no matter what I do,” I say, gulping down the remaining bourbon in my glass.
“Yeah, but one of those fuckings is better than the other.”
“For sure. But I need to think about what’s best for Maeve too. I can’t be a selfish asshole and ignore what she wants.”
“Yeah, you’re fucked,” Isaac says.
“Why are you saying that?” I add a shot’s worth of bourbon to my glass and knock it back.
“Because you like this woman. You really like her, and no matter how you look at it, the situation you’re in sucks. There’s no way around it.”
“Yep.”
“I have a great idea. You could send her over to be my assistant, and then she wouldn’t work for you anymore,” he suggests, smiling.
Narrowing my eyes, I shake my head. “Yeah, that’s never gonna happen.”
He shrugs. “I didn’t think so, but you can’t blame me for trying.” Sitting forward, he raises the bottle to add more to my glass, and I raise my hand stopping him.
“I have to go soon. Gwen’s at my house tonight.”
Isaac twists the cap back on and slides the bottle across the desk to me. “Take it with you. You might need it later.”
* * *
“Is everything okay, Dad?” Gwen asks. “You seem out of sorts.”
I smile at her. “I’m fine, sweetie. It was a busy day at the new job and I’ve got a lot to deal with. There’s nothing for you to worry about.”
“Did you meet a lot of your staff?” she asks.
“I had meetings all throughout the day to get to know some of them.”
The first one was disastrous.
“How’s your new assistant? The one Gramps liked so much.”