Loathe to Love You by Ali Hazelwood

            “Oh. Um . . .” I think maybe I’m flushing. I don’t really have a reason to—Gianna is cool and very much not the judgmental type—but what happened last night feels so . . . private. And fledgling. I haven’t even told Hannah and Mara (if one doesn’t count the eggplant and heart emojis I sent in response to the seventy How did it go? texts I found this morning on my phone). It feels weird to talk about it with my boss. Though lying about it would be even weirder, right? “Yes. You know him?”

            “That Erik Nowak? ProBld’s Erik Nowak?”

            I cock my head. Are there any others? “Yeah?”

            “Are you guys friends?”

            “We only just met.”

            “So you’re not, like, buddies.” She seems relieved. “Okay. Good. You were laughing together, so I just wanted to make sure.”

            “Why . . . Would it be a problem if we were?”

            “Not quite, no. I mean, I wouldn’t dream of telling you who you should and shouldn’t hang out with. But the two of you seemed a bit . . . chummy, and I just wanted to make sure . . . you know.” She waves a hand dismissively. “If you were friends and talked regularly, I’d want to remind you to be safe and very, very discreet when talking shop with him. But since you’re just casual acquaintances, then—”

            “Why would I . . .” I frown, swiveling my chair to better face her. This conversation is very odd, and I’m wondering if I should chug down another coffee before it continues. “What do you mean by safe and discreet?”

            She opens her mouth. Then closes it, looks around to make sure that none of the interns are here, and opens it again. “A while ago ProBld made me an offer. Basically, they wanted to buy GreenFrame and its client portfolio, and sort of incorporate it as a division of their company.”

            “Oh.” I blink. Erik didn’t mention it last night. Then again, neither has Gianna, ever. “I had no idea.”

            “Well, it was before I hired you. Two, three years ago? Before the kids. And to be honest, it wasn’t the first nor the last offer I got.”

            “Right. I knew Innovus offered.”

            “And JKC. Yeah. But ProBld was kind of . . . insistent.” She rolls her eyes. “The reason they wanted us on board is that they’re trying really hard to expand into the ecologically sustainable market, but they haven’t had much success luring in really qualified people like . . . well, like you. Since most of them would rather go to more specialized firms. Don’t get me wrong, they’ve been hiring some promising engineers, but they don’t have the expertise they need yet. So they made me a really good offer, I said no, thank you, I would rather be my own boss, and for a few months it looked like everything was going to continue as usual.” She pauses. “Then it started.”

            I shake my head, confused. “What started?”

            “A bunch of shitty little things. The worst of which was targeting some of our clients to get them to switch to ProBld. I heard that some of their people were sniffing around our sites, too. Not exactly upstanding stuff.”

            I stiffen. This sounds . . . bad. Real bad. “Gianna, just to be clear.” I take a deep breath. “Last night I went out with Erik for dinner. So we . . . I guess we are chummy. But he’s great, and he wouldn’t do anything like what you mentioned.” I say it with more certainty than I should probably feel, given that I first met him exactly twenty-four hours ago. But it’s Erik. I trust him. “I don’t know what the partners and the higher-ups are doing at ProBld, but I’m sure he’d never condone anything like that.”

            “Well, he is a partner.”

            I blink. “He . . . Excuse me?”

            “Erik is one of the partners.”

            All of a sudden I’m feeling cold. And very, very nauseous. “He is a— What are you talking about?”

            “You said you went to dinner with him. Are you telling me he didn’t mention that he’s one of the founding partners?” She must read the answer on my face, because her expression shifts to something that looks a lot like pity. “He started ProBld right out of school with two of his buddies. And the rest is history.”

            “I’d love to poach you . . . I’ll pay you more. Name a figure . . . I’m very open to negotiating.”