From a Humiliating Bet to the Boss He Can't Have novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Nobody Bets Here

Nate Coughlin hands Jo the desk he kept for two years and bans betting on the floor; then Birdie calls from the school nurse's office.

The video of my engagement party had two million views by the time I reached the twenty-second floor.

Carly had shown me on her phone over cold pizza, with her free hand over her mouth.

Someone had cut it to the part where I put the ring on the table.

The comments called me an idiot, a queen, a gold digger and a hero, sometimes in the same sentence.

I had slept four hours on my sister's couch, and I wore the navy blazer I'd packed for a different life.

The elevator opened on glass walls and a long floor of desks.

People looked up as I walked in, and then they looked away too quickly.

Everyone had seen it.

At the far end of the floor, a man in a navy suit stood by an empty desk with his hands in his pockets.

He was tall and dark-haired, grey at the temples, with no tie.

"Jo Hazlitt," he said. "Nate Coughlin."

His handshake was dry and brief.

"I watched the video," he said. "So did everyone out there. I'll say it once and I won't bring it up again."

"Say what?"

"Whoever wrote those messages is wrong about you."

My throat tightened, and I didn't trust it.

"I'm not here because of the video," I said. "I'd like that to be clear."

"I know. I offered you this job two years ago."

He nodded at the desk.

A brass nameplate sat at the edge of it, with a thin layer of dust on the top.

JO HAZLITT, DIRECTOR OF FINANCE.

I picked it up.

The dust came off on my thumb.

"You had this made before I said yes."

"I had it made before you said no," he said. "I wasn't ready to throw it out."

A woman at the next desk coughed into her coffee.

Nate turned to face the floor, and he didn't raise his voice.

"Quick note, everybody. Jo is our Director of Finance. Her first meeting is at ten."

Forty heads were turned our way.

"There will be no bets in this building. Not on the Bears, not on the Friday lunch order, and not on her."

Somebody at the back laughed once and stopped.

"If I find a pool, I'm in it," Nate said, "and I take the whole pot."

Now the floor laughed, and it was kind.

He turned back to me.

"The contract is on your desk. It's the same one I wrote last year, plus the raise I should have given you the year before."

I read the number twice.

It was nineteen thousand more than I had asked for in the second round, when I'd turned him down.

"I didn't negotiate," I said.

"No. You said no."

"Why would you pay me more for saying no?"

"Because you said it politely and you left a fully reconciled spreadsheet behind." He almost smiled. "Nobody leaves their homework to the person they're rejecting."

I had forgotten that.

Two years ago I had sent him my notes on a freight ledger he was struggling with, along with my regrets.

I had not thought he would keep them.

I sat down at my own desk, and the chair rolled back an inch farther than I expected.

My hands were not quite steady, so I opened the quarterly file and let the numbers settle me.

Nate left me alone for an hour, which I noticed and was grateful for.

At nine forty, I was three-quarters through a mismatch between two warehouse accounts when my phone rang.

The number had a Columbus area code and was not saved.

I almost let it go to voicemail.

"Hello?"

"Jo?"

It was Birdie.

Her voice was small and thick, the way it got when she was trying not to cry.

"Birdie. Where are you, honey?"

"The nurse's office. I have a stomachache."

"Did you tell your dad?"

"His phone is off." She sniffled. "The nurse called Grandma and she's not answering either."

I stood up so fast that my chair hit the filing cabinet.

"They wanted to call you," Birdie said. "But Dad took you off the list. The nurse said you can't come get me anymore."

Across the glass, Nate looked up from his desk.

"I'm still here," I said. "I'm right here. Stay on the phone with me."

"Are you coming home?"

I closed my eyes.

Three hundred and fifty miles away, an eight-year-old was sitting on a paper-covered cot, asking me the one question I could not answer yet.

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