Page 51 of Exchange of Heart

‘I’m Paddy, by the way. Assistant and best friend.’ He held out his hand and mine shot to it like a magnet.

Too long. It had been far too long since I spoke to him. ‘Nice to meet you.’

‘You guys have to come to mine tonight. I want to meet you properly,’ he said to me.

‘Uh, su—’

‘We have that dinner with your parents tonight,’ I reminded her.

Spending an evening with Paddy would be a terrible idea.

‘Oh, right. Tomorrow?’ she said.

No.

Before I could stop either of them, Paddy agreed and walked out the door. We may survive tonight at my parents, but Paddy will have us figured out before dinner hits the table tomorrow.

‘Corey.’ My dad’s bald head burst through the office.

The chaos wouldn’t end.

‘I’m in a meeting,’ Nora snapped.

My lungs stopped working. Breath wouldn’t come in, and it wouldn’t go out, either. I’d never spoken to my father like that. His chest puffed with air and, for a moment, I thought he might barge over and push Nora out the window to fall ten stories to her death.

‘Your meeting is over.’ His jaw clenched.

‘Don’t speak to me like that.’ Nora crossed her arms over her chest. ‘I’m not an animal that takes orders from my master.’

Her words hugged my heart knowing she really meant, ‘Don’t speak to Corey like that’, but she didn’t realise her words would send me to my grave once I returned to my body. The fine line between sticking it to my father and keeping my job became a blurred mess, and I wasn’t sure how much trust I had in Nora to establish a new boundary with him.

At the same time, I didn’t have much trust in myself to establish a new boundary. I breathed deeply and excused myself. Perhaps Nora knew what I needed more than I did. Perhaps she could save me from this mess I’d created.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Corey

Izzy hurried past me as I made my way back to Nora’s tiny cubicle after arriving back at our building.

‘Got to pick up my daughter. My ex is sick and thinks he can’t care for her and himself at the same time.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

I dropped into my chair and read some boring emails, then Mark’s voice boomed behind me.

‘I’d like to see you in my office.’

I spun around to his crotch at eye level.

‘Is there a problem?’ I asked, feigning innocence about my embarrassing outburst during the meeting.

He shook his head and walked away after using the kind of tone I saved for negative performance reviews.

Shit.

The guilt eased when I considered my father was probably still chewing Nora’s ass off after failing to be the son he expected in that meeting. If I end up having to return to that hellhole tomorrow, it’ll be me receiving those verbal lashings. An eye for an eye, as Nora would say. Besides, it wasn’t my fault. I’d only tried to stop her from outing us to an entire table of colleagues. I headed to Mark’s office and closed the door. He’d regained his composure, his straightened spine touching the back of his chair, hands clasped together on his lap.

‘Nora. About that meeting.’ He paused for dramatic effect.

‘I’m sorry if I spoke out of turn.’ I wasn’t familiar with grovelling, but if that’s what it took to save Nora’s career, I was prepared to flush my pride down the toilet.