The rest of the office was empty, a lot of the lights were already off, everything was quiet. “Got a sec?” she asked.
“Uh, yeah, sure,” I replied. “I was just finishing up.”
I had no idea what this was about, and while it wasn’t uncommon for us to speak privately, I had a bad feeling about this. There was something guarded in her expression, as though she was about to deliver bad news.
She came into my office, sat in the chair opposite me, not quite smiling, not quite glaring, but a mix of both.
It was definitely bad news.
I put my pen down and leaned back in my chair and met her gaze. “What’s up?” I aimed for casual but we both knew I didn’t pull it off.
She studied me for a too-long moment. “We’ve always been honest with each other, yes?”
Fuck.
“Yes.”
“In a professional context,” she added. “Anything work-related has been straight down the line between us, and I trust your decisions.”
Okay, so this was going to be worse than bad.
I had no idea what she was aiming for, but I wasn’t offering anything until it was necessary. “And I trust yours,” I replied.
“So would you care to tell me what went on between you and Mr Schroeder?”
I kept my face neutral, and in one second that seemed to last an eternity, I weighed up whether I should deny or confirm her suspicions. I very almost lied to her, but I had no idea if Bryce had said something to her or if she knew I’d be lying. For all I knew, she could have seen us out together. She knew something was up between me and him.
To be caught out in a lie would be worse than the lie itself.
I sighed and went with the truth. “I know him. Personally.”
Her eyes hardened. “Explain.”
“I’m in a relationship, of sorts, with him.”
Her eyes widened before narrowing at me. “Did you secure the King Street Wharf property early because of your relationship with him? That property wasn’t ready to be signed off and yet you secured it for him.”
“No. Not at all.”
“Michael—”
“Okay, here’s the truth,” I replied sharper than I intended. “I’d been seeing a guy for a few weeks on a no-name basis. It was very deliberate not to know personal details. It was purely physical and fun. I did not know his name, nor did he know mine, if you get my drift.” I gave her a pointed look and thankfully didn’t need to explain friends with benefits to her. “Then you called me asking me to meet your client in fifteen minutes because you were stuck in traffic. Which I did. I ran there with no more than a job folder and the name of a man I was supposed to be meeting. And who should it turn out to be? None other than the guy I had a personal arrangement with. And until that very moment, I didn’t even know his name.”
Natalie eyed me as if she was looking for a tell that I was lying. “You expect me to believe that?”
“I don’t care what you believe,” I replied. “That’s the truth.”
She didn’t like me saying that. If looks could kill. “But then you showed him the King Street Wharf anyway.”
“The York Street location wasn’t suitable.”
“The King Street property was not ready for viewing. The ink on the contract we signed wasn’t dry yet.”
“You told me to do whatever it takes to secure the client,” I replied. “Did you not?”
She didn’t answer.
“You wanted him because of his name,” I continued. “I didn’t even know his name.”
“But you learned it that day. You gave an unauthorised site inspection of a property you had no right to show. Because you were involved with him.”
“I still am involved with him,” I admitted. “And I handed the contract over to you. We decided it was in everyone’s best interest for us not to mix personal with professional. My name is not on any of the paperwork.”
She sighed quietly and looked out the window to the city beyond. “You introduced me to him like it was some kind of joke.”
“I wasn’t expecting to see him this morning. I was caught off-guard.” Which was one helluva understatement. “No one here knows, and I’m only being honest with you because I’ve never lied to you.”
“You should have told me the day you took him to King Street.”
“Well, between you and me, I was in a bit of shock. The guy I’d been seeing was the son of the Schroeder hotel empire.”
“And you didn’t know who he was?” She clearly still didn’t believe me.
“Not one clue. He was incredibly down to earth. He wears vintage band shirts with holes in them. His boots were expensive though.” I shrugged. “Natalie, he didn’t want me to know who he was. He wanted me to know the real him before I found out his connection to the Schroeder Hotels. And honestly, can you blame him?”
She chewed on her bottom lip for a few seconds. “I still don’t like how this makes us look. What if word gets out?”
“Word about what? That we went above and beyond for a client?”
“That’s not how it looks, Michael.”
“Show me in our job specs where I crossed a line.”
She couldn’t and she knew it. My name didn’t appear in his job file. Sure, I’d shown him some properties, but I never signed off on anything and I received no financial gain from our interaction. And that was the critical factor.
Natalie sighed again and stared out the window at the disappearing daylight over the city. “I just wish you’d been honest with me. When you told me you took him to see the King Street property that very first day, you should have disclosed your personal relationship with him to me and you didn’t.”
“Because at that stage, I don’t know if I would have called it a relationship. It was a casual . . . arrangement.”
“But now it’s not.”
I wasn’t sure how to answer that. “It’s not . . . We agreed . . . we are seeing each other, yes.”
“So your boyfriend is a client.”
Boyfriend . . .
Christ.
“Bryson Schroeder is your client,” I replied. “Not mine.”
“He’s a client of this firm.”
“Yes. But he was not my boyfriend at the time he was signed.” I wasn’t even sure that’s what he was now. “And as soon as we agreed to see each other for real, I gave the contract back to you. Honestly, Natalie, I’m not sure what the problem is. If I’d have told you I was seeing him, what difference would it have made?”
“I’m not entirely certain I would have agreed to him signing the King Street property,” she replied coolly.
“That location met every criteria on his brief.”
“That location would have met every criteria for a dozen of our clients.”
“And if I’d met with any of those dozen clients that day, I would have shown it to them. But I didn’t. You said you wanted this client to sign, that he was some big deal, so that’s what I did. He made first contact with you, did he not? Not me. I didn’t even know who he was.”
This was just going around in circles, and quite frankly, I’d had enough.