Page 164 of Positively Pricked

"Think," he said. "You wanna keep your job, pretend there's nothing there?"

I didn't know what to say. When no reasonable response came to mind, I gave yet another hopeless shrug.

In front of me, Zane looked as hard as ever. "You can't have it both ways. You know that, right?"

I looked down at the sheet of paper. What he was offering was actually pretty spectacular. Three year's salary, plus benefits. It was a fabulous deal by any stretch, especially considering that I'd been his employee for only a few months.

And yet, I hated this, and not only because of my job. Mostly, it felt like he was paying me for sex – and then, even worse, paying me to leave afterward.

Talk about insulting.

If I signed on the dotted line, what kind of person would I be?

Again, I glanced at the numbers.

Well, I wouldn't be cheap, that's for sure.

I asked, "So, what'd you do? Have your lawyers draw this up while we were out?"

Wasthatwhy he'd spent the day with me? Had he just been killing time while the attorneys worked to cover his ass? If so, it was incredibly disheartening.

But in front of me, Zane said, "No."

Well, that was informative.

I fluttered the sheet of paper. "So, you keep a stack of these lying around?"

"What doyouthink?"

"Right now?" I gave a humorless laugh. "Trust me. You don't want to know."

He pointed to the sheet. "Look at the date."

I looked down and felt my forehead wrinkle in confusion. The document was dated yesterday. I looked up. "So you were planning to fire me regardless?"

In a gentler tone, he said, "I'm not firing you. I'm terminating the contract."

I had to point out the obvious. "But that's the same thing."

"Not legally."

"And that's supposed to make me feel better?" I searched his eyes for some clue of what was really going on. "And I've gotta ask, why'd you hire me in the first place?"

"You want the truth?"

I nodded.

"I hired you, because I was a fucking idiot."

I stared up at him. "Gee, thanks."

"Jane, listen…" He blew out a long unsteady breath. "When I called you in for that interview, I told myself a shit-ton of lies – that I could keep it professional, that I was hiring you because you were honest and could keep a secret, and yeah, because I was short of people I could trust. But…"

With a low curse, he looked away.

"But what?" I asked.

He looked back to meet my gaze. "But I was lying – not to you. To myself. Because you wanna know the real reason I hired you?"