Allie was just past forty, and as she stood, arms crossed, worried expression stamped on her stunning face, she looked barely over thirty-five. “She wasn’t in her office when I walked down, but I will have words with her as soon as I see her.”
“It’s okay, Allie,” I said. “You don’t have to do that.”
As the owner of one of the most financially successful football franchises of the past decade, Allie wasn’t accustomed to people telling her what she could and couldn’t do. “I know I don’t have to,” she said calmly. Underneath that calm was steel. “But you, your sisters, Emmett, you are part of my family. And I do not like people messing with my family.”
Logan rubbed a hand on my back. “Let her help, Molly. You don’t deserve this happening to you.”
I gave him a sad smile. “You don’t even know what I did.”
“Because it doesn’t matter,” he replied instantly.
I rolled my eyes. “Yes, it does. What if I punched her?”
“Did you?” Allie asked.
“No.”
“Did you sexually harass her?”
“Of course not.”
Logan shook his head. “I knew I didn’t like her. Not from that very first meeting.”
“Come on, you guys, people get fired all the time. It sucks, but I’ll be okay.”
Allie propped her hands on her hips, which were wrapped in a sleek black skirt. “People who are phenomenal at their job do not get fired all the time.”
Logan chimed in. “Exactly. And you are good at your job.”
The two of them started building off each other, tossing ideas back and forth. Words like harassment. Unlawful termination. Performance Improvement Plan. Firing Beatrice. I closed my eyes and tried to tune them out, but finally, I held my hands up, and yelled, “Stop, please!”
They went quiet.
“I screwed up, okay?” I looked at both of them. “I-I slept with Noah on a filming weekend, then lied to her about it when she asked if I’d violated her contract, which included a no-fraternization policy.”
Logan’s face flushed red, his jaw clenched tight, and he stared at the floor like it held the world’s secrets.
Allie deflated like a snipped balloon. “Oh,” she said weakly.
“I’ve stayed away from him since then,” I continued, tears building in the back of my throat, “but it doesn’t matter. She knows. I-I thought that I’d thought it through all the way. That I knew what I was getting into. That’s always been my problem, right?” I wiped my face, daring Logan to argue with the look on my face. “How many times have you had to step in over the years when I didn’t think something through? When I did something because I felt like it or because it was fun or silly or … felt right at the time.”
“Molly,” he said on an exhale. “You’re young. Making mistakes is a part of life.”
“I know. But so is stuff like this, Logan.” I shook my head. “I don’t regret my time with Noah, but I knew it was a risk when I did it. If this is the fallout of the weekend I got with him, then I’ll take it.”
Allie sighed. “It still feels wrong, Molly. There’s no rule in the Wolves handbook that prohibits a relationship with a player and another employee.”
“No, but Beatrice’s contract is different. It’s separate from that.” I swallowed. “It was a stipulation that Beatrice specifically added to my job description, which hinges on the relationship with Amazon.”
Logan glanced at Allie. “So she’s right?”
Allie shrugged. “I’m not involved enough when it comes to those types of situations, but”—she nodded—“I think she’s right. And not only that, as long as Beatrice isn’t firing her for any discriminatory reasons, Washington is an at will employment state. She can fire her at any time without providing a reason.”
“That’s dumb,” he said sullenly.
“You sound like Emmett,” I told him with a reluctant smile.
My brother wrapped his arm around me. “I’ll take that as a compliment, kiddo.”
Allie watched us with a sad smile. “Do you want help with your desk?”
I shook my head. “I’d rather do this alone, if that’s okay with you guys.”
“Of course.” She met me in the middle of my office and gave me a tight squeeze. “You’re a rock star, Molly. If there’s anything I can do moving forward, let me know, okay? We’re always looking for help at the Team Sutton Foundation.”
Another job I’d get without blinking because of my last name. I smiled at her all the same. “Thank you, Allie. I will.”
Logan took longer to convince, but after three more hugs and five more offers to stand outside my office while I cleaned up to make sure whoever came from HR was nice to me, I all but shoved him out of the room that wouldn’t be my office anymore.
He was just beyond the corner when I called his name. His head popped back through the open door. “Yeah?”
“Not a word to Noah.”
Logan opened his mouth to argue.
“No.” I pointed a finger at him. “It happened weeks ago. I am an adult, and so is he. You don’t get to interfere this time.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Define interfere.”
After a second, I ticked off the most obvious answers on my fingers. “No yelling, no telling him what happened, no threatening, no embarrassing him or me in front of the guys, because Logan Ward, if you march back in that practice and get in his face about this, I am the one who is embarrassed. Do you understand me?”
Paige had these scary eyes that she used on my brother when she went from
I’m serious to
I will end you if you cross me. I’d seen them often over the past ten years, and I gave it my best attempt. It must have worked because he grimaced. “Fine.”
“I mean it.”
He held up his hands. “I promise! Geez. You’re as bad as Paige,” he mumbled before he left.
I was grinning as he went back to practice. And given the current situation, that was pretty impressive. Everything after that went as smoothly as possible.
I signed some papers. Filled two file boxes. And the security guard who walked me out started tearing up because I’d known him since I was five.
“Ain’t right,” he said under his breath.
I wrapped my arm around his thin waist and gave him a squeeze. “I’ll be okay, Rod, I promise.”
He hugged me back, wiping at his face with the sleeves of his shirt after he took my security badge from me. Before I walked out the door into the parking lot, my eyes watered up again as I stared at the red and black logo of the wolf tossing its head back in a howl.
I let out a slow breath and left the building.
Everything held a surreal quality as I walked numbly to my car. Like when you have a cold and your head feels disconnected from your body. Or everyone around you is moving at a different speed. There were boxes in my hands, but I hardly felt them, like someone else’s arms were holding them up.
My car was right where I left it, and I set the boxes on the hood so I could dig my keys out of my purse. With the trunk opened, and the boxes set carefully inside, I couldn’t get over the strange sense of detachment I felt.
Later, I’d probably cry again at the loss of a job I loved.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.