Boss I Love To Hate Read online

  “Thank you,” I say, lifting my cup to her.

  “You’re welcome, honey,” she replies, her voice as smoky as an old jazz singer. “You don’t look familiar to me. You’re not from around here, are you?”

  I shake my head. “No ma’am.”

  She nods, a small smile touching her lips. “I didn’t think so,” she laughs softly. “What brings you down here?”

  “I was curious about the demonstration,” I answer. “I guess I wanted to see it for myself.”

  She nods as if she expected my answer. “It’s so cold, we’re out here in shifts,” she informs me. “Some of us are inside gettin’ warm while the rest of us are out here freezin’ our butts off.”

  Her laugh is infectious. I find myself smiling. There’s such a genuine kindness about her that I can’t help but like her immediately. In a lot of ways, she reminds me of my own grandmother.

  “You seem pretty committed to staying here,” I note. “I mean, sitting out here in the snow?”

  She shrugs. “They tryin’ to take our home. What else are you gonna do? It’s not like some of us can up and move. Can’t afford that. Especially not this close to the holidays.”

  “But my understanding is that this building was purchased legally and –”

  “Purchased legally or not, this is our home,” she laughs coarsely. “I didn’t sell it. I don’t recall the Santiagos next door or little old Mrs. Janosek on the third floor selling the building. We didn’t sign any paperwork. How would you feel if somebody came in and said they bought your home and you had to get out? I bet you’d fight like hell to keep it.”

  I take a drink of the coffee she gave me, absorbing her words. I’ve never had to think about anything like that before. I grew up wanting for nothing – and I certainly never had to fear losing my home. It’s a concept as foreign to me as quantum physics.

  “How long have you lived here?” I ask.

  A wan smile touches her lips. “Forty-three years,” she tells me. “Raised my kids here. Truth is, I don’t remember living anywhere but here.”

  “Forty-three years,” I murmur. “That’s incredible.”

  She nods. “Hardly unique around here though,” she tells me. “We get our fair share of people just passing through, but most of the residents have been here more than twenty years.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  She nods. “Gettin’ to the point where we ain’t gonna be able to live here anymore, though,” she laments. “New York’s changed. It ain’t a city for the common folk anymore. I was born and raised here. It’s all I know. I dunno what I’m gonna do if I have to leave.”

  “Who’s this?”

  I turn at the sound of a new voice to see an older Hispanic man approaching. He’s tall and wiry, with a wool cap on his bald head and a thick, bushy goatee that’s more gray than white. His eyes are dark. He just looks like a man who’s been around and has seen some things.

  “I’m sorry hon, I didn’t get your name,” she notes.

  “Oh sorry, I’m Sawyer,” I reply quickly.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Sawyer, I’m Martha, and this is Julio,” she introduces the newcomer.

  I shake his hand firmly and give him a nod. “Nice to meet you,” I tell him. “How long have you been here at the Jackson?”

  He whistles low. “Going on thirty-five years now, I suppose,” he says, his voice colored with a light Puerto Rican accent. “Yeah, about that. Damn. Time really does fly.”

  “Do you still work?” I wonder.

  He nods. “Every day. I own a bodega around the corner,” he responds. “Almost time to turn it over to the kid. If I can ever force myself to give him the keys. I dunno how to do anything else.”

  “You need to learn to relax and let those kids of yours take care of you for a change,” Martha scolds him.

  He scoffs. “My kids can barely remember to change their underwear – how they gonna take care of me?”

  Martha and Julio burst out laughing, holding onto each other as they crack each other up. It’s amazing to me that standing out here in the snow, in bone chilling weather, that these people can still find their sense of humor. That they can still laugh with each other. In their place, I don’t know that I’d find humor in anything.

  “What about you, Martha?” I ask.

  “Oh me?” she laughs softly. “I was a teacher for thirty years. Finally had to retire.”

  “You don’t look like you live around here,” Julio comments as he looks me up and down. “Nobody around here wears designer clothes like that.”

  Martha cackles. “Because they’d get rolled for those clothes.”

  They laugh together like the old friends they are again. Over the next couple of hours, Martha introduces me to everybody who comes over to get warm by her trashcan. I spend the time talking to these people and getting to know them, hearing their stories, and I find that I’m surprised by them all. And it makes me realize for the first time, just how many deep-seeded prejudices I’ve carried with me for so long and didn’t even realize it.

  Growing up in the circles I did, we just took for granted that the people who lived in projects like the Atwell or the Jackson were ‘low class’. We were steeped in a culture that looked down our noses at these people. We just believed they were inferior to us by virtue of economic status – never realizing at the time we were higher on the socioeconomic ladder because of what we were born into. Not because we’d earned it on our own, but something we’d inherited.

  Hell, I think that’s one reason I’m so driven to expand Compass Development and make it a bigger financial success. In doing that, I think it will make me feel like I’ve actually earned my way instead of having everything handed to me.

  But while we sat in our ivory towers, patting each other on the back for being born into the right families, we let ourselves believe the people who lived in the projects were all lazy, drug users, drunks, and every other form of degenerate there is out there.

  It never occurred to me that these people might actually be hard working, decent people. It never occurred to me that these people made homes here – homes they took pride in. Homes they would stand and fight for. In my head, the people who lived in the projects were transients. I believed there was just a constant flow of human detritus flowing in and out of places like the Atwell and the Jackson.

  So learning that people lived here for a generation or more has been utterly mind-blowing to me. It’s been eye opening – to say the least.

  Some of the stories I’ve heard today do involve drugs, or petty crime, or the kind of decisions that only desperate people would make. But every one of them, without fail, has only done those things in the first place because of how badly they were struggling. Unlike me or people like me, they never had the resources they needed to lend a helping hand to them in their time of need.

  Can I fault the single dad who stole from a bodega to feed his starving kids? Can I truly judge the person struggling to break her addiction, who turned to drugs and alcohol to numb the pain of losing their parents at a young age? I practically did the same myself, with all my partying days in my past.

  These aren’t bad people. They’ve just had a much harder lot in life than anything I’ve ever even had to consider. I feel lucky. And humbled. Very humbled.

  “Well, my shift is almost up. Time for me to go in and get warm and get some food in my belly,” Martha grins. “Hey, would you like to come in for some dinner, Sawyer? We have plenty to go around.”

  “Thank you,” I respond. “But I actually have an appointment I need to get to.”

  “Well, you feel free to stop by anytime,” she adds. “You’re a sweet kid.”

  “I appreciate that, Martha,” I reply. “You have been – amazing. Everybody here has been incredible. I’m really glad I got a chance to meet with all of you.”

  Her smile is warm and engaging. My cheeks burn with the heat of shame for my bigotry. I judged these people without knowing the fir
st thing about them. And as that realization settles down over me, I feel like the biggest piece of shit who’s ever walked the planet.

  “You take care of yourself now, Martha,” I tell her. “Get inside and get yourself warm.”

  “Oh, I plan on it. Believe you, me.”

  I watch her as she ambles back toward the buildings. A new crowd of people comes out, ready to stand their shift. Martha takes a moment to greet them all, and I can see the affection they have for her. The display of community – family – makes me smile.

  I turn and head for my car, my mind spinning with a hundred different thoughts. Today has been enlightening, to say the least. It’s opened my eyes in more ways than one, and I’d like to think, has expanded my mind in ways I didn’t expect. I learned a lot from Martha and everybody else I was introduced to today.

  Something starts churning in my mind. I hope this has provided me with the solution to bridging that chasm between Berlin and me – a solution I think we can both live with.

  As the snowflakes drift down, landing on my shoulders and in my hair, I try to figure out how to apply what I’ve learned today to my situation with Berlin. And just as I reach my Range Rover, a bolt of lightning shoots through me. I realize exactly what I need to do. My stomach flips with excitement.

  I slip my phone out of my pocket and punch in Rider’s speed dial button. I press the phone to my ear and wait for a second until he picks up the call.

  “Rider, it’s me,” I say.

  “Hey, where have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you for a while now.”

  “I know, I’ve been ignoring your calls.”

  He chuckles on the other end of the line. The excitement is flowing through me, but there’s one person I need to speak with who can help pull it all together.

  “No offense taken,” Rider retorts. “In case you were wondering.”

  “I wasn’t,” I cut in, my voice brimming with excitement. “Listen, I need you to do me a favor.”

  “What do you need?”

  “I need you to call and set up a meeting with Haley Palmer.”

  “Haley Palmer? Seriously?”

  “Dead serious,” I confirm. “Text me with the details.”

  “Okay, you got it,” Rider replies. “This should be – interesting.”

  I disconnect the call and drop the phone back into my pocket as I get back into the car, suddenly excited as hell for what’s coming.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Berlin

  It’s been almost two weeks since I last saw Sawyer, and I can say with absolute certainty that staying away from him has been the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life. I’ve been avoiding him – not taking his calls, not returning his texts, and not answering the door when he knocks.

  I assume he’s respecting my boundaries and giving me some space – which I appreciate. I believe it shows the respect he has for me. It tears my heart out to do it when truthfully, I want nothing more than to feel his arms around me. I want to look into his eyes, feel his lips on mine, and hear his voice.

  I just want to be with him again. I hate avoiding him when all I want is for him to hold me, make love to me, and spend the night laughing together. And I hate that this massive divide between us exists when all I want is to sit and talk with him.

  But Gabby was right. Unless we do something to change the narrative between us, we’re going to keep finding ourselves at this point. It will be an endless loop of us patching things up just because we want to be together – and eventually coming back to this point when I inevitably get upset about one project of his or another because I can’t pretend to be okay with some of the jobs Compass does.

  I know that Gabby is right about something else – Sawyer’s lack of concern about the people in housing projects like the Jackson isn’t born of some virulent hatred of the poor. It’s born of ignorance. Sawyer grew up in an upper-class bubble and was surrounded by all the trappings of that world. He has no understanding of the world inhabited by those lower on the socioeconomic ladder than him. When you grow up in a world of nothing but champagne and caviar, you’re not necessarily going to understand the beer and wings crowd.

  I know his ignorance isn’t necessarily his fault – and I always want to give him the benefit of the doubt – so I’ve had to dig deep and summon every ounce of strength I have in me to keep from breaking my promise to myself and answering the door when he knocks. If we want to clear out the elephant in the room once and for all, it’s going to take a massive shift in how Compass does business. And it’s up to me to show Sawyer it can be done both responsibly and without any significant impact on the company’s bottom line – which I know is important to Sawyer.

  So I’ve spent the last couple of weeks doing my research and due diligence. Also, not wanting to get fired, I’ve had Rider send me the work he needs me to do electronically, staying in contact with him when necessary, and have worked from home. It was the only way I could juggle all the balls I have in the air right now and still give myself the time and space I need to put together the package that will – I hope – save my relationship with Sawyer. This is my Hail Mary at the end of the game. With the office about to close for the holiday’s it’s now or never.

  And if this doesn’t work, I just don’t know what I’m going to do.

  I take a deep breath and let it out as the doors slide open, and I step off the elevator. Kyra gives me a frosty smile as I walk through the lobby – she still hasn’t quite forgiven me for blowing past and ignoring her my first time in this office. We’re probably never going to be BFFs, but whatever.

  I head straight for Sawyer’s office with a determined stride – but a wild churning in my stomach, knowing that if this doesn’t work, I’m all out of moves, and it will likely be the end of our relationship.

  “Hey Paige,” I greet Sawyer’s personal secretary.

  “Hey Berlin,” she smiles. “It’s been a minute.”

  “Yeah, I’ve had some things I needed to take care of,” I reply and motion to the office door. “He in?”

  She shakes her head. “No, he had an off-site meeting today.”

  “Huh. Who’s he meeting with?”

  She shakes her head. “I don’t know. I only set the lunch reservation.”

  “Berlin,” Rider greets me as he walks up. “What are you doing here?”

  I look up and flash him a grin. “Last I checked, I still work here.”

  He chuckles. “Touché. I just thought you were still working from home.”

  “I was. Just need to talk to Sawyer.”

  “Yeah, he’s not in.”

  “I gathered that.”

  “I can tell him to call you when he gets in, though,” he offers.

  “That’s okay; I’ll just get some work done here until he gets back.”

  “Don’t sweat it, we’ve got things under control here,” he tells me. “I’ll just have him call you.”

  “No, it’s fine. I have a few things I can work on here.”

  “He might be gone all day,” Rider says. “I don’t know when he’s coming back.”

  Paige looks between us with a curious expression on her face. I look from Rider to her and back again. He’s acting strangely. I can’t help but get the feeling he’s trying to get me out of here. There’s a strange and awkward tension in the air that’s making me uncomfortable.

  “What’s going on, Rider?”

  He shakes his head. “Nothing, why?”

  “Because you’re acting weirder than normal,” I say coolly. “What’s going on? Am I being fired or something?”

  He waves me off. “No, you’re not being fired. I’m just trying to save you some hassle since I don’t know when Sawyer’s coming back.”

  Paige turns back to her computer and starts working on returning correspondence or something – she looks like she wants to be anywhere but here in this moment. I have no idea what’s happening here, and I don’t have a good feeling about it, but my curio
sity is piqued. But it’s obvious that I’m not going to get anything out of Rider.

  “Okay,” I say slowly. “I guess I’ll get a couple of things from my office and go back home and wait for Sawyer to call me.”

  Rider nods. “Great. Then we’ll talk to you later.”

  “Yeah. See ya.”

  He walks off, leaving Paige and I there to stare at each other. She cuts her eyes from me to her computer screen, a meaningful look in her eye. I turn and look down at her computer and see that she’d called up Sawyer’s calendar – and highlighted his lunch reservation for me. I turn back and give her a smile.

  “Thanks, Paige.”

  A conspiratorial smile on her lips, she tips me a wink. “For what?”

  I reach out and give her shoulder a gentle squeeze before heading back to the elevators, my mind awash in questions. Why was Rider acting so strangely? Who is Sawyer meeting with? And why are they trying to keep it a secret from me?

  Knowing Rider like I do – knowing he can always be counted on to carry the water and cover for Sawyer – I don’t have a great feeling about this.

  The restaurant he’s at is called Tommy’s – a deli a couple of blocks away from the office. Since I already have a head of steam up, I make the walk in record time, my dark thoughts chasing me the entire way. I’m standing across from the restaurant when a crack of thunder splits the sky with a deafening roar. A slow drizzle starts to fall from a sky the color of a deep bruise – matching my mood completely.

  I don’t know who Sawyer is meeting with in there, but it was obvious that Rider wanted to keep it from me. That fact sets the red flags waving in my head and fills my stomach with a sick, greasy feeling. In my experience, when one man is covering for another man the way Rider did, it rarely spells anything good.

  I walk across the street, the lead weight inside of me growing heavier with every single step. I step beneath the awning and shake the rain off my coat before I pull open the door and walk into the waiting area.

  Tommy’s is an upscale deli-style restaurant that’s brightly lit and cheery. I’ve only eaten here a couple of times, but I know the food here is quintessentially New York – and delicious. It’s crowded with the lunchtime crowd – there’s nothing but Armani power suits as far as the eye can see. But through the sea of expensive suits, I spot Sawyer and feel my stomach drop.