Submission: Guilty Pleasures #3 (BBW Erotic Romance) by Adriana Hunter Read Free Book Online Page A

immediately
shot up in surprise and concern.
    “What’s wrong, honey?”
    “I had a meeting with Burke today
and, well, things on the job are a little unsettled. I think I’m just going to
work though lunch.”
    As much as I love Leslie, as dear
as she is as a friend, she wasn’t the person I wanted to see right now. My last
conversation with her, while it had helped me put things in some kind of
perspective, made me feel guilty, as if I’d betrayed both Jake and Chase’s
confidences. After the weekend I’d just been through, I really didn’t feel up
to the mental challenge of editing my words to avoid a repeat guilt-fest later.
    “Oh. Well, yeah. I heard about
that.” She took a sip of coffee, not meeting my eyes.
    “What? You heard about what?” I
pushed my keyboard away, looking at her closely. Leslie, unlike me, can play
poker. I’ve seen her. She can hide her emotions if she wants. And now, she was
hiding something. But she was also itching to tell me. I could see the conflict
flicking in her eyes.
    “Oh, you know. Burke was up in HR
earlier, looking through your personnel file.” Her eyes flickered up to meet
mine. They were blank and unreadable, the confidentiality aspect of her job
apparently kicking in, the desire to gossip momentarily quelled.
    “Okay. So you know something I
don’t know and you can’t tell me, because it’s confidential.” That familiar
sensation of anger, which seemed to always be there recently, that tight knot
in my chest, rose up again. My nerves were frayed, my mind exhausted and my
patience at its end. I snapped.
    “You know, Leslie, that’s fine.
Don’t tell me. I won’t pry it out of you. But for all this time that I’ve been
seeing Jake, when I told you there were things I couldn’t discuss, you managed
to make me feel guilty for not telling you, because you were my friend. And
because I felt guilty, I told you things I really wish now I hadn’t said.” I
stopped for a breath. My voice had risen, taking on that tone I hate, the tone
I get when I’m on a roll, apparently enraptured with the sound of my own
righteous voice.
     “Abby, it’s not the same...”
Leslie looked back at me with wide eyes.
    “How is it not the same?
Confidentiality is confidentiality, whether it’s you in HR or me with a request
from Jake. It’s exactly the same. But you have some deep need to get all the
juicy details out of me, now that I actually have some. And I’m finally fed up
with it.”
    I watched as Leslie stood,
silently gathering her lunch, her coffee, moving to the door. She stopped,
speaking to me without turning around.
    “I know you’re under a lot of
stress right now, Abby. I’m hoping that outburst was a result of that and not
something else. Let’s just pretend we didn’t have this conversation.”
    She was gone before I could say
anything, the only thing left behind the smell of her coffee. I massaged my
temples, willing myself to push the encounter out of my mind, for now. I had
enough things to drive me crazy and this, at this moment, wasn’t something I
could dwell on. I was being a lousy friend, but I had to trust that my
friendship with Leslie could withstand the other issues complicating my life.
    ––––––––
    L ate that afternoon, as I was
diligently working through my emails, the phone rang. I prickled at the
interruption, contemplated letting it go to voice mail but decided to answer
it, thinking it might be Leslie. In hindsight, I’m not sure it was such a good
idea.
    It was Stacy.
    “Abby, I know I told Chase I
wasn’t going to get in the middle of his personal business, and I’m not. But I
am getting into the middle of yours.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I mean I’ve talked to Jane.”
There was a moment of silence.
    My heart was thumping
uncomfortably in my chest. I closed my eyes, not wanting to hear what Stacy had
to say, but powerless to stop her.
    “Abby, I think we should talk.
Come to the