Her Best Match: A Romantic Comedy (The Best Girls Book 1) (19 page)

“Well, I’m excited about coming—less than two weeks.”

“What have you been doing? You were too busy for me yesterday?” He pouted a little.

“I was working with Mr. Gherring on a presentation all afternoon.”

“
Gherring
! He is always interfering between us.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t on purpose. He pays me to work, you know.”

“Yes, and I will forever be grateful that he hired you, because if not, you and I would never have met.”

“So maybe you could go easy on him. He’s usually pretty nice to me.”

“Maybe I do not like him being so nice to you. Maybe he is trying to steal you from me.”

“You’ve got to be kidding. Mr. Gherring would never be interested in me like that.”

“Maybe he would just like to steal you so I cannot have you. It is in our history.”

“Well let’s not waste our time talking about Mr. Gherring. I learned how to climb. On Tuesday night, I went climbing at the gym Katie’s fiancé owns. I climbed up to the top twice.”

“I think I would have enjoyed that sight. You are not afraid of falling?”

“I was nervous, but it wasn’t really dangerous. Do you climb?”

“I do. Would you like to climb in Paris when you come?”

Anne grinned. “Maybe I’d just like to watch you climbing. You know… enjoy the scenery.”

“I have a heated swimming pool. We can both enjoy the scenery.” He grinned back at her.

“Anne!” called a voice behind her. “Mr. Gherring is coming!”

“Henri, I’ve got to go. Talk to you tomorrow. Bye.”

“But—”

Anne closed the connection, just as Gherring came through the door.

“There you are. Why are you in here?”

“Uhmm, I was looking for a quiet place to work.”

“What’s wrong with your desk?”

“You’re right. I’ll just go back to my desk.”

She picked up her computer and headed back down the hall with Gherring in tow.

“What did Henri have to say today?”

Anne stopped in midstride.

“I know that’s your computer, not the office computer. And I’ve learned you talk to him in the afternoon.”

“I… I’m…”

“It’s not like I can stop you. Obviously I’ve tried to warn you, and you won’t listen.” He started walking ahead of her. “You don’t have to lie to me. If you like him that much, I’ll leave you alone.” He tried to go into his office and shut the door, but Anne shoved her way in behind him.

“You don’t want me to lie to you? Well here’s the truth! I don’t
know
how much I like Henri—I haven’t gotten to spend enough time with him to know. But the little time I have spent with him, he made me feel special and he treated me with respect. I just don’t understand why you care so much whether I talk to Henri. You know, you aren’t my father! Or my big brother!”

“I don’t want to be your father or your big brother either! I want to—”

“I think you just want to control me! Well you can be my boss about everything
but
my personal life!” She pivoted on one foot and stalked from the room, shutting the door behind her.

The rest of the afternoon passed with Gherring secluded in his office and Anne hard at work on the presentation. Jared emailed the bulk of his presentation information to her by three o’clock, but Jeff arrived at her desk with a file in hand at four fifty-five.

“Hey, there’s a lot of stuff I need to go over with you. What say we talk about it over dinner?”

Anne cringed inwardly, but managed to keep a civil voice. “I’m really too busy with work to do dinner. And anyway, aren’t you dating someone?”

“We’ve gone out a few times, but we aren’t exclusive.”

“Well, I’m sort of dating someone.”

“You mean that French guy, Henri? The one you went to the gala with?”

Anne nodded.

“He’s in France, isn’t he? Surely you’re not exclusive with him when he’s across the Atlantic Ocean!”

“I really don’t think that’s any of your business.”

“Well I say, when the cat’s away… I can just scratch that itch for you. It doesn’t have to be anything serious.”

With a leer on his face, he leaned in close. “You know, you’re so hot—I bet you’re a real tiger in the sack.”

Anne’s mouth fell open and she struggled to breathe. She leaned back as far as possible, but he invaded her space. “I have a really good friend in my pocket who’d just
love
to meet you.”

“I… You…” Anne’s eyes filled with tears. She was mortified. How did she lose control of this conversation and let it get this far? She didn’t even know what to say.

“Jeff,” said Gherring’s voice from his office door.

He quickly straightened up and threw Mr. Gherring a professional smile. “Mr. Gherring, Anne and I were just working out some details about the presentation.”

Gherring walked over to stand between Jeff and Anne’s desk. Though Jeff was over six feet tall, Gherring still looked downward at him. “I heard you ‘working out details.’”

His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “I uhmm, I’m sorry… She’s been giving me signals—”

Anne sprang up from her desk. “I have
not
been giving you signals! Except for maybe a great big
stop
sign! And I’d like to say if your ‘friend’ ever comes out of your pocket when I’m around, I’ll cut his head off with a meat cleaver!”

Jeff’s face was as white as a sheet. “Look, I didn’t mean anything. I just misread you, okay?”

Anne started to retort, but Gherring held up his hand.

“Jeff, we’ve already had a previous sexual harassment complaint. I’m afraid you’re out.”

“That was a trumped up charge! She was asking for it and just got jealous when she saw me with someone else.”

“We have a no tolerance sexual harassment policy at Gherring Inc. You signed a form when you became employed here indicating you were aware of that policy. One confirmed incident is all we need to terminate you, and this incident was confirmed by me.”

“You can’t fire me! Especially not before the big Switzerland presentation. There’s no one else who can do my part. And I already have the connections with the execs over there.”

“On the contrary, I
can
fire you, and I just did. Ms. Best, please call security and have them escort Mr. Murphy out of the building.”

He turned back to Jeff. “Your things will be boxed up for you to retrieve on Monday at the security office.”

Jeff started to speak, his face red and puffed up with fury, veins standing out on his neck, but Gherring silenced him with a glare.

“You’ll wait right over there.” He indicated the reception area across the room. “And I don’t want to hear you speak.”

Anne called security with shaking fingers as adrenaline coursed through her body. Gherring watched her carefully.

“Ms. Best, you should sit down. You look a little pale.”

A few minutes later, after two security guards had taken Jeff down the elevator, Anne felt tears rising to her eyes. “I’m s-sorry. I’ve m-messed up Switzerland for you.”

“How can you possibly believe that was your fault?” Gherring asked, shaking his head.

“I should have handled it. He’s been coming on to me, and I didn’t know how to put him off. If I wasn’t so naïve—”

“The man is a lecherous jerk, and I’m glad to be rid of him.”

“But what will you do about Bern? He’s right, there’s no one to take his place. He’s got all the connections.”

Gherring sighed as he looked toward the ceiling. “Jeff thinks way too much of himself. I have far more connections than he does. And ‘Jeff the Jerk’ has offended a good number of people along the way, both male and female. Jared and I can take up the slack, we can work late every night and some on the weekend.”

Anne felt her stomach churning. Things were getting worse, and it was her fault. “But Jared and his wife have a new baby at home and he’s already leaving them alone for four days.”

Gherring grunted. “Fine, I’ll do the work myself.”

“I’ll help! It’s the least I can do.” She bit her lips, tears shining in her eyes. “You were my white knight today… And last night, too.”

“It’s not often I get the opportunity to rescue a fair maiden twice in twenty-four hours.”

She laughed, choking a bit, but then her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, I forgot—there’s one little problem.”

“What’s that?” he asked, narrowing his eyes.

“I’ll work late tonight and Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday night, but my girls are coming in tomorrow, and I want to spend the whole weekend with them. I know I shouldn’t be making demands, but—”

“Of course you don’t want to miss any time with your daughters. If I had any sons or daughters I would feel the same.” A forlorn look passed through his eyes so quickly, Anne wondered if she imagined it.

“Would you like to meet them?”

To her amazement, his face actually lit up. “I’d love that, but… but I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

“It wouldn’t be an intrusion. The girls would like to meet you, too. They’ve heard so much…” Her voice trailed off.

He lifted one eyebrow. “Really? What have they heard?”

“Oh, you know, they’ve seen stuff in newspapers and magazines.”

“Ah.” He sounded almost disappointed. “So you weren’t talking about me.”

“No, of course not—that would be unprofessional. We’re going climbing again on Saturday morning at nine thirty. Want to come?”

“Nine thirty in the morning? You’re starting early.”

“I’ve got a busy day planned. We have breakfast before that, and lunch after, and then we’re going to MOMA and trying for tickets to a play Saturday night. Sunday we’re going to visit as many sites as possible. You know, Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, whatever we can fit into the schedule. And Sunday night we’re eating with Gram.”

“What play are you going to see?”

“Whatever we can get three cheap tickets for at the discount place. We’d love to see
Lion King
or
Phantom
or
Beauty and the Beast
, but anything will do. Except I don’t want to see something R-rated. It would be so awkward sitting with my girls watching something raunchy on the stage.” Without warning, Anne’s stomach made a huge gurgling noise.

“Sounds like you need dinner.” Gherring sighed. “Was that a genuine offer to help with Jeff’s work? I’ll have to pull most of it off his computer, and first I’ll have to find it. I’m sure he wouldn’t be cooperative and helpful if I called him to ask about it.”

“Yes, it was a real offer, and the good news is I’ve got a lot of the info right here,” she pointed to the file folder on her desk.

“Then I guess we should order something to eat and get to it.”

At nine forty-five, Anne was sifting through the papers spread out among half-empty Chinese take-out boxes, when Gherring let a moan.

“Ughh! That’s enough for tonight. Let’s go home and tackle this in the morning.”

Anne pushed her disheveled mane out of her face. “Sounds like a good idea. My eyes are starting to cross.”

Gherring called for his car as Anne started organizing the mess. “Why don’t you leave that? We’ll be back here in the morning.”

“No, I need to sort these things into organized stacks. Otherwise we won’t be able to find anything tomorrow, and we’ll waste a lot of time.”

By the time they made it to the lobby, the limousine was waiting.

“I noticed this time you didn’t argue about riding home with me.”

“I’m too tired to argue,” she moaned. “And afraid to use the subway alone at night.”

“I’m glad you weren’t stubborn about it. This time I would’ve had to put my foot down.”

“Well,” she said in an exaggerated country drawl, “I’dduh been fine, if’n I’dduh had muh shotgun wit’ me!”

Gherring laughed. “I would’ve liked seeing Jeff’s face this afternoon if you’d pulled out a shotgun.” He chuckled some more. “Did you see his expression when you told him about using a meat cleaver on him?” He laughed again.

Anne laughed at the memory, covering her mouth to stop a snort that almost came out. Abruptly she sobered up. “Mr. Gherring…” she saw the irritation on his face at the salutation, but ignored it. “Tell me the truth. Do you think I was leading Jeff on? It’s so hard to know what to say to guys. I didn’t want to be rude. But he always made me feel uncomfortable. Maybe I just need a little thicker skin. I don’t know.”

Gherring’s expression turned dark. “Stop it! I knew you would do this. You’re always talking to yourself in your head, trying to reason things out. And you make excuses for people’s behaviors because you want to believe the best about them. You’ve got to realize not everyone deserves that trust you dole out so blindly.”

“I know you’re probably right, but I think it’ll be a sad day when everyone I meet has to earn my trust, instead of a few earning my distrust.”