Page 40 of Kevin's Destiny

“Nothing, but can I ask you a few personal questions?”

“A few?” She smirked and sucked in her breath at how handsome his embarrassment made him.

He shrugged through his embarrassment, took a sip of his wine, and looked directly at her as he asked, “Have you ever been married?”

“No.”

“Why not? You’re a beautiful woman, and from what I’ve seen so far, you’re good at your job.”

“Thank you, and that might be my problem.” She sipped her own wine, and released a heavy sigh.

“What? That you’re beautiful?” He wore a genuinely shocked expression.

Yvonne laughed heartily, waving her hand before her face. “I’m not laughing at you, I’m laughing at what you said. I like to think my looks are above average. No, I didn’t make that comment because of my looks, I made it because of my job.”

“Oh?”

She sighed as she settled deeper into the couch cushions, cradling her wine glass close to her body as she turned her head to look at him. “Thank you for saying I’m not an old hag.” Shelaughed at his shocked expression, then sobered as she turned fully to study him. “You know what I’m about to say, and I fought it my entire career.”

“What’s that?”

“Being in law enforcement is still a man’s job. No one takes a woman seriously, and God forbid any woman should move up through the ranks on their own merits, and not be harassed by men who say she only got there on her knees, or her back.”

“You’re kidding me?” He looked at her in shock, and shook his head. He held up his hand to stop what she was about to say. “Not that law enforcement is a man’s job, or world, I know that. I’ve worked with some females in the past, and they have to work harder to prove themselves to some. Not all, but some. I thought men didn’t think that about women’s promotions any longer.”

“Believe it. You worked at the city level, I worked at the federal level. I don’t even want to know what happened at your level. I can only go by my own personal experiences, but to answer your question, I was dating someone years ago. We never worked the same cases, but we worked in the same office. We started dating, we were together for about a year when a promotion came up. We were both eligible, and let me say this right here, he was a very, very popular man in the office.”

“With the other women, too?”

“Yes, but not to cheat on me, at least I didn’t think so, I never saw it or suspected it. No, I’m talking about he was the guy that everyone hovered around in the office. The guy that always had the big stories, the bigger take downs, the biggest bragger. Someone did something, but he had always done it better.”

“Ah, one ofthosepeople. The person that did an arrest, but it was better than anyone else ever could have done. No one could ever do it better than him.”

“Correct. Anyway, the promotion was a big deal.”

“How big?” he asked, to encourage her to continue when she stared into the empty fireplace, lost in her own thoughts. She talked, without looking at anything. Kevin could tell she was lost in the past.

“Big enough that whoever got the promotion would have to move to Colorado. We were in Miami at the beginning of our careers. Once the move was complete, the person who earned the promotion would be in charge of a team.” She looked at him again. “They would also be promoted to being an SSA.”

“Which is?”

“Supervisory Special Agent, not just a Special Agent. As I just mentioned, it would be a move to Colorado, become the head of a team.” She looked at him with a shake of her head. “This wasn’t just for the people in the Miami office. It was open for all FBI agents who met the criteria. I had heard there were over two hundred applicants.”

“And you won out of all of them?”

“Yes, I was even called to go up to DC for the next round of interviews.”

“Wow, okay, this might not be any of my business, but what did the guy you were dating think about all this?”

“Gary, his name was Gary.” She sipped her wine, and shook her head. “He bragged that he was the shoe-in for the job. The entire process from when the job was announced to when the applicant was picked was eight months. Thankfully, though we had been dating for over a year before the promotion came about, we never lived together. Maybe an occasional night at the other’s apartment, but nothing permanent. So, for eight months, I had to listen to him in the office brag about how good of an agent he was, and what he would be doing when he went to Colorado. His biggest brag was that he would be spending his weekends in Aspen on the ski slopes.”

“Didn’t he realize that he might have to work on the weekends?”

“You know that, and I know that, but Gary was the type of person that would only work nine to five, Monday through Friday. If he had to work past six at night, he’d put it off until the next day. If he had to work on the weekends, he would pass it off onto someone else. That’s what hurt him in the promotion. Needless to say, I got the job. As soon as our director made the announcement, he ignored me for three weeks.”

“How long from the announcement to when you had to leave?”

Yvonne looked at him with a grin, and laughed. “Two weeks. Again, needless to say, I didn’t tell him when I was moving. The day I left, it was a Saturday, and I sent him a text. I broke up with him, and told him I was gone. He didn’t get back to me for a week.”