He Brought His First Love Home Again, So I Left novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Red Nails

Callie notices the lipstick on her monitor matches Corinna's nails, then a lowered quote traces back to Corinna's login, and Gavin slides her a notice to sign.

Somebody had been busy at my desk.

Coffee was soaked through the client folders I had spent a week putting in order.

Paper scraps were jammed between the keys of my keyboard.

Across my monitor, under the sign, someone had drawn a huge X in red lipstick.

Corinna came in behind Gavin and covered her mouth.

"Oh no, Callie. Who would do this?"

She hurried over and reached for the sign.

I caught her wrist.

"Don't touch it."

Her eyes filled right away.

"I only wanted to help."

I looked at her fingers.

Her nails were the same deep red as the X, and a thin smear of it still sat along the edge of her thumb.

"Help me?" I said. "Or make sure nobody looks at your hands?"

Corinna went white.

The whole floor was listening.

Gavin stepped between us.

"Callie Merrow. She's being kind to you. Why are you so ungrateful?"

I ignored him and asked what I had wanted to ask in the lobby.

"Everyone here thinks I'm the other woman, Gavin. Are you going to tell them who I am?"

His jaw tightened, and he glanced at Corinna before he answered.

"This is an office. Our private life doesn't belong in it."

"They put this on my desk."

"If you kept your distance at work, they wouldn't have a reason."

Corinna slipped her arm through his.

"Callie, don't push him. He has his reasons."

I peeled the sign off my monitor, folded it twice and put it in my bag.

"Why are you keeping that?" he asked.

"So I remember what I am here."

He said nothing, and gave me the warning look he used on vendors.

The office manager brought me an old keyboard and told me the camera on this floor had been down since Monday.

That was a lie.

I had seen the red light on it blinking that morning.

I stayed late rebuilding the folders one page at a time, because the handwritten client notes had no copies.

Before I left I wrote to the building's security office and asked them to save every camera recording from the sixth floor for the past three days.

I gave the reason as property damage, and I sent it from my own account.

At one in the morning Gavin came out of his office and stopped beside my desk.

"You'll make yourself sick," he said.

For a second I almost thought he cared.

He picked up his keys.

"Pack up. I'll drive you home."

Then the elevator opened, and Corinna came out with her coat over her arm.

"Gavin, my car's in the shop. Could you take me?"

His keys were already in his hand, and he did not even turn his head toward her.

"Of course."

He looked back at me.

"Call a car. I'll send you the money."

I watched the doors close on both of them.

It surprised me how little it hurt.

At nine the next morning a client called our supervisor, shouting about a quote.

Someone had cut our price on their contract by a third, and the file had gone out that way.

By ten I was sitting in the glass conference room with the supervisor, two vice presidents, an IT man and Gavin.

The IT man put the access log on the screen.

"The last edit was made yesterday at 4:12 p.m. It was made under Corinna Danvers' login."

Corinna sat across from me with a tissue already in her hand.

"It wasn't me. I printed something on Callie's computer yesterday. Maybe I forgot to log out."

"It's your login," I said. "You changed the numbers."

"It was your computer, Callie."

She bit her lip.

"I know you can't stand me. But please don't ruin my career because Gavin is kind to me."

A murmur went around the table.

The supervisor was looking at Gavin, not at the screen.

Gavin said nothing for a long moment.

Then he took a single page from a folder and slid it across to me, with a pen on top.

It was a disciplinary notice with my name typed on it.

"Sign it," he said.

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