Page 107 of Last Night Was Fun

“I am most certainly ready for it. Thank you, sir.”

“Of course, Mr.Olson. We’ll make the arrangements.”

More shuffling sounds came from the room, and Emmy imagined a handshake occurring over the top of the director’s busy desk.

She’d turned to stone by the time Gabe left the office. He found her standing in the middle of the hall on the verge of combustion from a deadly cocktail of shock and rage.

“Emmy!” he said, and immediately flushed.

She stared up at him while thoughts crashed together in her mind. At the same time, her heart was breaking as realization settled in.

Gabe stared back at her, cool gray polo, sculpted hair, handsome face, but all she saw was her own foolishness.

“What did you do?” she said hardly above a whisper. The earth was falling out beneath her all over again.

He didn’t need to answer because it was written all over his face.

Emmy scoffed in bitter resentment and shame. She gazed around the underground hall, the stone castle ruled by men that she toiled tirelessly inside of and saw it for what it was. A trap she’d walked straight into. And the man in front of her, the orchestrator of the biggest prank to date.

“God, I’m so stupid,” she muttered and spun on her heel.

“Emmy, wait!” Gabe said, and followed her.

But she could hardly hear him. Her own humiliation deafened her to everything except the sound of her heart pounding in her ears and her own mind screaming at her for being so naive.

“Emmy, hang on,” Gabe said. He caught up and gripped her upper arm.

She whirled on him, and something inside her snapped. Something that had been about to break for a long,longtime but that she’d kept bending because she was flexible, a team player, the Only Girl who could always take a joke.

“You couldn’t stand it, could you?” she said. Her words slid out like venom. Gabe flinched, but she didn’t back down. She shook her arm from his grip and poked a finger at his chest. “You couldn’t live knowing I’d beaten you, could you? ThatIwas chosen for something overyou, so you went behind my back andtook it. And of course theygave it to youbecause that’s how things work around here. This goddamnedboys’ clubI thought—foolishly—I’d finally become an equal in.”

Emmy glanced sideways and saw Alice’s office door was shut but the light was on, shining from the crack underneath. Rage roiled inside her that Gabe had skipped Alice, skipped HR, and gone straight to the director to take her job.

She smashed her hands to her face in shame. “I should have seen this coming. I should haveknownthis was how it would end up.” She dropped her hands and glared at him. “I can’t believe I trusted you.” Her voice, which had risen with all the emotions roiling inside her, cracked on the last word. The sound shot a bolt of pain across Gabe’s face.

He hadn’t said anything to defend himself—because what was there to say after such a betrayal?—but he suddenly looked angry.

“Emmy—”

“No.” She cut him off with a raised hand. “You convinced me to agree to give up that job so you could swoop in and take it. You really are Gabe Ruthless after all. First Mikey Walker and now me. I should have known. Turns outI’vebeen the obtuse one this whole time.” She was fully crying now. Tears streamed down her face; her voice wobbled. A gush of heartbroken truth rushed out of her before she could do anything to stop it. “You made me fall in love with you all for a job.”

Whatever retort had been poised on his tongue disappeared as if he’d swallowed it. A look somewhere between shock and tortured pain bloomed over his face. When he spoke, his words came out in a hot rush. “You’re in love with me?”

Emmy didn’t get the chance to respond because Alice’s office door swung open. Her confused face filled the gap. “What’s going on out here?”

A pang of embarrassment hit Emmy. She wiped at her weeping eyes and tried to gain her composure. Alice looked between her and Gabe in concern. “Nothing,” Emmy said. “I’m not feeling well and think I need to take a sick day.”

Alice eyed her like she didn’t buy it, but eventually nodded in approval. “Sure. Take what you need.”

“Thank you,” she managed in a steady voice. She shot Gabe one last hard glare before she turned around. She half expected him to follow her, but the sound of Director Allen’s voice calling him back determined his next move.

“Mr.Olson, one more thing?” the director said from his doorway.

Emmy didn’t stop to see Gabe choose his new job over her because she knew without looking that that was what was happening behind her. It took all her strength not to collapse on the concrete floor. With every step forward, the fury inside her grew hotter andhotter, dampened only by the humiliation drowning her in waves. She wanted to burn the stadium down with herself inside it.

“I’m such an idiot,” she muttered and gathered her bag from her desk. She needed to make it back home where she could collapse without worry of judgment. Without anyone calling her hysterical or emotional or unhinged for bringing her personal issues to work. But the line between personal and work had disappeared. They’d become one and the same, and she saw now what a mistake that was. Letting Gabe close, handing her heart over to him so he could use it as a professional stepping stone, was her own fault. She should have known better.

She’d made it all the way up the elevator and into the employee parking lot before her phone pinged.