The Silencer: A Bad Boy MMA Romance by Aubrey Michelle

is but you can play dumb if you’d like. I don’t have time to deal with you right now so just be there at 11:00.”
     
    Candace, who had been watching the exchange over her shoulder, went back to trying to look busy when I turned to face her.
     
    “Do you know what any if that was about?” I asked her.
     
    Instead of telling me what she knew, she just shrugged her shoulders with her back facing me.
     
    Cowardly bitch.
     
    “Okay, well I have a meeting with Maggie so you’re going to have to take care of all the meds today. I’ll be back out here to help when I’m finished.”
     
    I lied. I didn’t actually have a meeting scheduled with Maggie but I sure as hell intended to go into her office to talk to her. I could almost guarantee what Angie wanted to talk to me about and I would go nuts trying to sit there next to Candace while I waited.
     
    “Are you busy?” I asked Maggie as I knocked on her doorway.
     
    “I’m always busy,” she replied. “But you can come on in.”
     
    I slid into her office, closing the door behind me. I was doing my best to avoid showing the frustration on my face but I wasn’t doing a very good job of it.
     
    “What’s going on?” she asked.
     
    “I just got here and I can already tell it’s going to be a bad day.”
     
    “Is there such a thing as a good day around here anymore?” she joked.
     
    “Well, they are few and far between but almost as soon as I got here, Angie came out of her office and told me that she and I have a meeting at 11:00.”
     
    “Did she say what it was about?”
     
    “No, but Candace wouldn’t even look at me this morning so I’ve got a pretty good idea that it has something to do with the guy I’m dating.”
     
    “Is that the guy that Candace was talking about in the lunch room the other day?”
     
    “That would be him.”
     
    “The only thing I can say is just deny, deny, deny. She doesn’t have anything on you or I would have heard about it already. Whatever she says to you or tries to accuse you of, act like you have no idea what she’s talking about. She may not believe you but it will, at least, put some doubt in her mind as to whether or not her precious Candace is telling the truth.”
     
    “Ugh, Candace is something else altogether. I’m so tired of dealing with her crap. I’ve never done anything bad to her the entire time she’s been here. I do most of her work and she still treats me like this. I just don’t get it.”
     
    “If I were you, I would focus on trying to stay calm and don’t even worry about Candace too much. Just walk into that meeting with your head held high and listen to what Angie has to say. No matter what happens, walk out of that meeting with your head held high.”
     
    “I’ll do my best. Dealing with this all the time starts to get to you after a while. Everyone else here seems to get along with me just fine so I don’t know why she can’t do the same.”
     
    “Oh, her time is coming. I can promise you that,” Maggie’s upper lip curled.
     
    “What does that mean?”
     
    “Let’s just say that I’ve been catching a ton of inconsistencies in her work and I’ve been documenting every single one of them. You come back and see me after your meeting and let me know what is said. If you’re getting into trouble over something she said, then I’m going to file an official report to bring all of her mistakes to light. If she’s trying to get you in trouble so you don’t get my job, I’ll have it spelled out that she certainly isn’t qualified. Let’s see how she’d deal with getting in trouble for once.”
     
    I liked the sound of that. It would be nice if Candace would be held accountable for her own actions for once. I knew it wasn’t likely to happen but it sounded good. I looked up at the clock on the wall and realized how long I had been in her office. I hadn’t gotten anything done and it was already time for my meeting with Angie.
     
    “All right, I