“Claire is very good at what she does,” Barb agreed with a smile.
The compliment eased some of her nerves, and a few minutes later, the presentation was underway and Claire didn’t have time to feel nervous. In a brisk voice, she presented her findings to Sanders, going into detail about every aspect of his company and every flaw she’d discovered during her evaluation. Several times, the CEO interrupted with questions that she answered readily and knowledgably, and when she outlined the solutions she’d come up with in order to make the company run more efficiently and increase its profits, Sanders looked more than pleased.
The meeting lasted a little more than an hour, and after it wrapped up, Sanders took the thick report Claire had prepared and thanked her profusely for all her hard work.
And through it all, Barb gazed at Claire in approval, squashing any notion that something was amiss.
At least until the two women were alone again—because the second they were back in the parking lot, Barb’s dark eyes took on that odd light again. The look was impossible to decipher, and the longer Barb stayed quiet, the more uncomfortable Claire became.
“Is everything all right?” she asked her boss.
Barb donned a thoughtful look. “Let’s grab a coffee, darling.” And then she took off walking.
Confused, Claire fell into step with the other woman. Five minutes later, they were seated at a corner table in the Starbucks across the street from Savvy Tech.
“You did a fabulous job in there,” Barb told her.
She tried to ignore the queasy churning of her stomach. “Thank you.”
“I mean it, darling—that was a thorough, well-prepared assessment.”
She murmured another thank you and brought her cup to her lips. The coffee was way too hot to drink yet, burning her tongue the second she took a sip. Wincing, Claire set down the cup and ran her tongue over the roof of her mouth in an attempt to ease the pain.
Barb continued to watch her with that pensive gleam in her dark eyes. “All right, let’s not waste any time. Something has been brought to my attention, and since you know I’m a woman who doesn’t like to beat around the bush, I’d like for the two of us to clear this up right here and now.”
A sick feeling crawled up her throat. “Okay. What is it?”
“I’ve been informed that you’ve spent the last two months involved in a polyamorous relationship.”
Claire flinched as if she’d been struck. “W-what?”
Barb rephrased her previous sentence. “A relationship with two men.”
But Claire didn’t need a fucking clarification. She knew exactly what her boss meant—and she knew exactly who her informant was.
That bastard.
The goddamn bastard.
Pure blind rage whipped through her like a loose cable in a storm, and it took every ounce of willpower to keep it from showing on her face.
Chris.
Chris had gone to her boss.
He’d told Barb that Claire was sleeping with two men.
The sheer audacity of his actions left her speechless. Was he insane? How could he do something like that? This was her goddamn career he was messing with!
God, and to think, she’d been biting her tongue for the past two weeks, urging Dylan to consider making things right with his brother. She’d assured him all this would blow over, that Chris would eventually calm down and realize as unorthodox as the situation was, the three of them were happy, and weren’t doing anything wrong. Aidan had concurred, speculating that Chris would come to accept it sooner or later.
But she and Aidan had been wrong.
Dead fucking wrong.
“I can see from your expression that it’s true.”
Barb’s voice, which had grown considerably cooler, penetrated Claire’s incensed thoughts.
Taking a breath, she curled both hands over her coffee cup. Not just because they were shaking, but because she feared she might accidentally mistake Barb for Chris and strangle the life out of her.
“I have been seeing two men, yes,” she answered in a careful tone. “However, I don’t see how my personal life has any bearing on my professional relationship with you, or my position at this firm.”
Barb’s cheeks hollowed as she tightly pursed her lips. “But I’m afraid it does. In fact, your personal life directly affects your professional one.”
“I disagree. And I have to be honest, Barb, but I don’t feel comfortable discussing this with you. Who I date is none of your concern and—”
“Actually, it is my concern,” her boss interjected. “I hate to do this, but I must refer you to the contract you signed when I hired you five years ago.”
Barb bent over and snapped her briefcase open, then extracted several sheets of paper stapled together. She set the stack on the table and slid it over to Claire, who immediately recognized the standard contract every consultant at Smart Solutions was asked to sign.
“Turn to page five.”
Clenching her teeth, she flipped through the contract and found page five.