Page 23 of Protecting Love

Or the management she talked to complaining that no one showed up on time. And when they did, half the workday was spent doing the minimum possible.

She was hired to point out that positions should and could be consolidated and that was what she’d done based on the information given to her and comparisons to other similar companies and services.

“I’m really sorry. I need you to leave,” she said, forcing her back to stay straight. People fed off of fear, she knew that.

“That’s really all you’ve got to say?” She held his stare. “Well, fuck you! I hope you rot in hell. People like you, you’ll get what is coming to you. Your day will come.”

He turned and stormed out, her body shaking, Molly’s eyes as wide as hers.

“Well now, that was just some lovely entertainment for the end of the workweek.”

Molly blew out a breath. “How can you be so calm?”

“I’m not calm. Internally all my organs are rattling together. I might have peed a little standing there.”

“A little,” Molly said. “I need to go check my underwear now but don’t want to leave you alone.”

She got her feet to move and locked the door. “Go. Do what you need to. I need to stop shaking for a minute.”

She rested her palm against the door until the tremors in her fingers eased. She counted her breaths. In through her nose. Out through her mouth. Long. Controlled. Professional.

Gaining her composure that she rarely lost. Even when she had every right to lose it.

When she turned back around, she had the mask firmly in place.

“I’m good,” she said, giving Molly a small, reassuring smile. “I promise.”

Molly didn’t look convinced. “You say that like someone who is absolutely not good. Which is fine because I know I’m not.”

She hated that even more.

“Fake it till five o’clock,” Paris said. “Sit. I’ll be right back.”

Before Molly could argue, she headed for the kitchen. She moved with purpose, like she’d simply remembered an email she needed to send, nothing shaking, nothing off, nothing like what they’d just experienced.

She’d had angry people before but nothing like that. No one who sought her out after the fact.

Once in the kitchen, she leaned her hip against the counter and closed her eyes for a second.

Then she went straight for the cabinet.

Chocolate. Emergency chocolate. The truffles that she’d bought last week and had to hide because she didn’t want to eat the whole damn bag.

The rest were getting eaten today and nothing was stopping her.

When she came back out, Molly was crouched on the floor, gathering scattered papers with trembling hands.

“Absolutely not,” she said lightly. “You don’t get cleanup duty after that.”

Molly looked up. “I was just⁠—”

“Nope.” She held up the chocolate like a peace offering. “Sit. Chocolate first. Trauma second.”

Molly blinked, then laughed, it sounding short and shaky, but real. “The rest of the truffles?”

“Yep,” she said. “I said I wasn’t going to finish the bag in a week. I lied.”

That earned her another laugh as Molly accepted it and sank back into her chair. Paris squatted to the floor instead, smoothing papers into neat piles, righting frames, restoring order one item at a time as if the longer it took her to do it, the better her nerves would line back up in place.