“All right.” Tessa itched to open it now to see if she and Zy had any hope, but she waited for Logan to finish speaking.
Zy wasn’t nearly as patient. He ripped into the envelope and flipped, quickly scanning page after page. Then he stopped and glared at their trio of bosses. “I have a problem.”
Logan raised a dark brow. “Let us finish our explanation. Then let’s see if you want to talk.”
Hunter stepped in. “There are two clauses we won’t bend on. The first is that if you invoke the separation clause to leave EM Security before the term of the contract expires, you cannot work for a US-based competitor for six months. Since we’re investing time and money into your training, we’re firm on that.”
“Fine. I have no issue with that. But—”
“Then you’re objecting to clause eight?” Hunter stepped in. “The one that prohibits intimate relationships between employees? It stands, Garrett. Hookups and romances in the office aren’t allowed. They’re too distracting and—”
“It’s fucking ridiculous. I’m not hooking up with guys who work ops with me.”
“And yet none of them had a problem signing the contract. One-Mile already finalized his. Same with Cutter. When we mentioned the clause to Josiah and Trees, they didn’t voice any objections. Got another argument?”
Zy slanted a glance across the table at her. Tessa didn’t know what to say. She’d been hoping this agreement would be different. They both had. Not that they’d talked about it since Kendra Waxman-Hay’s wedding, but every time Tessa had looked at Zy, she’d glimpsed the desire on his face and felt the answering ping in her body.
Apparently, everyone else had, too.
“Let’s acknowledge the elephant in the room,” Hunter insisted. “You want to take Tessa to bed. And before you open your mouth in some misguided attempt to deny it, everyone knows it. Everyone. My dad knew it. Logan saw it the minute we walked in. If I wasn’t convinced before, I was after the Waxman wedding op.”
“Whatever I might feel didn’t compromise the mission.”
“The fuck it didn’t.”
Zy sat up, looking red-faced and furious. “I was aware of every person, everything, and everyone at that event. At no time was the client in any danger.”
“You were on it,” Hunter agreed. “But I had absolutely no doubt that, if the shit had hit the fan and you’d had to make a choice between saving the bride and saving Tessa, we would have attended Kendra’s funeral.”
“This is bullshit. Tessa doesn’t go on ops.”
“Except when we need her in a pinch. Like last time. And you”—he pointed a finger in Zy’s face—“need to clean up your shit. We both know you don’t have the most sparkling employment record, don’t we?”
As Zy cursed under his breath, Tessa frowned. He’d said he hadn’t left his last job under the best of circumstances, but what the hell had he done?
Tessa cleared her throat. “I think what Mr. Garrett is trying to say is that we’re both professionals capable of—”
“If we sold insurance or fixed people’s teeth or whatever, fine. You two would be free to have at it. But these are people’s lives. Focus matters, and we need operators front and center who have one thing on their mind: keeping clients safe. You’re wonderful around the office. My brothers and I have all remarked that nothing would work half so well without you around here. But we can’t have his head buried between your sheets rather than on his objective. And as much as I hate to say it, demolitions experts are much harder to come by.”
Meaning that she was expendable. If she encouraged Zy, much less gave in, they would do away with her faster than she could snap her fingers. “I need this job.”
“Then act accordingly.”
He was threatening her. Then again, she wasn’t guaranteed a job, and these were management’s rules. Tessa blew out a breath and opened her envelope, scanning the clauses that flowed from one page to the next. Around her, the deafening silence was a bludgeon to her senses. She was painfully aware of her bosses staring, of Zy watching her. When she came to the last page of the contract, she set it down.
“The agreement is essentially the same one your father had drafted?”
Logan nodded. “Except with the necessary name changes and legal updates, yeah. We’ve also given you two extra holidays, more flexible sick time, and added a work-from-home clause for you specifically.”
“I saw that. Thank you.” It would help whenever Hallie was sick and she needed to stay with her baby.
“You’re welcome. We want you to be happy here.”
Tessa realized that he and Hunter were playing good cop-bad cop. Joaquin was watching, seemingly ready to jump in and be the terrible cop.
But what choice did she have? This was one of the few jobs she could find with security where she could make enough money to care for her and her daughter while keeping a roof over her head and still having the balance of a personal life.