Things Remembered (Accidentally On Purpose Companion Novel #3) Read Free

you dispute it?” Kyle had asked again.
    I’d ignored him and turned to Keith.
    “You were aware of my background when you presented me with the job offer, were you not?”
    Of course, he had been privy to such information. We’d spoken about it during my first interview.
    I hadn’t seen any reason to tear Keith’s face off, though; it had been obvious that Kyle was the one kicking me out of the position.
    Anxiously, he had leaned forward and folded his hands on the desk, pushing the glasses up on his face.
    “Certainly. Yes, Miss Grayne. Erm, that is, even though we are usually more…well…uh…selective with our employees, Miss Esmeralda Grayne has given you very high accolades. Also, your…” He’d cleared his throat and dared a glance at Kyle, but I kept my eyes on him. “Your therapist and parole officer also spoke very highly of you. We here at Sterling believe in giving everyone the chance to—”
    He’d been cut off once again by Crabby Kyle.
    “You haven’t answered my question,” he’d said in a quiet tone that some may call dangerous, but I just thought he sounded like Batman.
    I’d given him a one-shoulder shrug. “I can neither dispute nor lay claim to most of it, as I do not recall most of those incidences.”
    His eyes had narrowed more. “So you say.”
    Irritated, I’d said, “Yes, so I say. Drugs have a way of addling the brain.”
    “So, you admit that you are a drug addict.” A look of self-satisfaction for surmising such a very obvious thing had crossed his face. He was more than Captain Obvious; he’d earned a promotion to Admiral Obvious.
    “I am a recovering drug addict, but”—I’d smiled sweetly at him—“you already know about that, don’t you, Mr. Sterling?”
    There were many, many faces I had forgotten over the years, but his was not one of them. I’d seen his face at a dreaded meeting before, just as I had known he’d probably seen mine, too.
    The frigidity of his stare could have turned just about anyone else into a shaking and terrified mess, but it had only convinced me that my words had hit home.
    “Do you have anything else to add to your list of reasons as to why you believe I am incompetent?” I’d asked as I inspected my nails.
    He hadn’t hesitated to answer. “You have only just recently graduated from a generic college with an unimpressive transcript and a degree that has nothing to do with the position you were heedlessly hired for. With your offending, derelict background, ineptitude and ignorance, you hardly qualify to even work in our mailroom. Unfortunately, I only have the power to keep you out of my own department, not out of the company as a whole.”
    Even though it would’ve been wise to just take his verbal beating, smile, and prattle my way through it until he went on his way, that was a lesson I had yet to learn. I had yet to utilize the filter that connected my brain to my mouth—even after all these years, it takes a considerable effort for me not to say exactly what I think.
    “You can stand there with your ivy-league education—that your daddy probably bought for you—in your two-thousand dollar Canali suit and say what you will about my arrest record and my history with drugs. You can talk all day about how unqualified and incompetent I am for the position, but if you ever again try to tarnish the one gold star I’ve earned in my life, I will knee you in the balls so hard that you’ll be spitting them out of your mouth. Then I’ll shake some pepper on them, find a pair of tweezers to lift the wee things with, and eat them for lunch.”
    I had suddenly remembered that the man that hired me sat only a few feet away. I’d looked over at Keith and cringed inwardly, so sure that I’d lost any employment opportunities by threatening to eat Kyle Sterling’s balls. I was shocked, however, when the man’s eyes had flicked to me, and one corner of his mouth had—very briefly—pulled up into what could only have been a