She was losing him. Maybe all of them. There was resignation on Cady’s face, and she couldn’t read Gray at all, which was disconcerting.
She couldn’t lose this opportunity. She couldn’t fail again. She might have fooled herself into thinking this didn’t matter, but she wanted this job.
“Anything I am hiding has nothing to do with my ability to handle this position,” she stated calmly. “I can assure you I am a professional. I won’t let my personal life impact my work.”
Hunter just grunted. “If that’s the case, you’ll be the only employee here who doesn’t.” He studied her for a moment. “All right, you’re on trial for a month. And if you can keep your personal life at home then you’ll be employee of the month.”
“Does that come with a bonus?” she bravely asked.
“Don’t push your luck. Why’d you leave the FBI?”
She couldn’t tell them the whole truth—didn’t want to tell them. “I left before I was pushed.”
“That so? What did you do?”
She kept her gaze on him, not looking over at Mr. Perfect. He’d probably never made a mistake in his life. No doubt he was good at everything. She knew she was stereotyping, but she couldn’t help it. He just looked so together, so confident, it was sickening.
“I got an important profile wrong,” she said carefully.
“You were the only person working on the profile?”
“No. But I’m very good at my job, and people listened to me. Especially when I insisted I was right. Turned out I wasn’t. I couldn’t stay after that.”
Most of her colleagues had hated her. They weren’t sad to see her leave. She knew it was her own fault. She hadn’t been there to make friends but she hadn’t exactly been a team player either.
Her own arrogance had been her downfall.
“You know how to work as part of a team?”
“Yes, of course.” No. Not really. If she was going to fail anywhere, it would probably be in this area. She’d never had much of a social life. Her world had revolved around work.
Maybe that was part of the reason Lyle had left her.
That, and he was a class-A asshole and cheating scumbag.
“I don’t like those bastards at the FBI. Arrogant jerks. You’re not an arrogant jerk, are you?”
“Hunter,” Cady whispered, holding her hand up to her head for a moment as though she had a headache. “You can’t say that sort of thing.”
“Don’t see why not. Pretty sure everyone wants to know whether they’re hiring a jerk or not. Should be a compulsory interview question.”
“Sometimes I was,” she said honestly.
He tapped his chin with his finger. “Good. It’s settled then.” He abruptly stood. “Now, I don’t pay you to s
it around and talk, get to work.”
God, he was an asshole.
Hunter leaned down and kissed the top of Cady’s head. “You staying in the office today?”
“Yep. Going to get Lacey settled.”
“Good. You start feeling ill you tell me.”
Cady smiled at him. “It was a cold, Hunter. I’m fine now.”
He grunted again then walked out without a backward glance.