Quitting this Family after Being Abandoned for Laughs novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: The Layoff List

Declan's POV

I had rehearsed it on a hundred walks home.

None of the versions had her back against a glass door with her hands in my shirt.

The doorman had found a very interesting corner of the ceiling.

"Not here," I said. "Come and sit."

There was a stone bench under the hotel awning, out of the wind.

She sat. I stayed standing for a second, because if I sat next to her I would not say it.

Then I sat anyway, a hand's width away, and kept my eyes on the wet street.

"Eight months ago," I said, "a letter came to the regional director from Beller Wireless."

"From Colin's company."

"It said one of Brightline's engineers had been unreasonably hostile in her tower audits. It named you. It asked, politely, for a more cooperative auditor."

Tara did not move.

"The regional director put you on a reduction list," I said. "Your pay was cut by a fifth that quarter, and a note went in your file about attitude."

"I got a note." Her voice was very flat. "I thought it was my manager. I thought I'd been too blunt."

"You were exactly as blunt as you should have been. Every finding in your reports was true."

"How do you know?"

"Because I checked each one. I drove out to two of the towers myself, in March, in the rain."

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