Over the next few days, I started noticing that April was avoiding me as much as I was avoiding her. She started getting to work earlier than me and leaving my coffee sitting on the desk in a special insulated cup before I’d get there. When I’d walk into the atrium and stop to talk to Susan, April would get up and leave her desk. In the break room, when I entered, she either left or sat on the other side of the room.
Soon it had become a game. I’d find an excuse to come out of the office a few times a day. Every time, she’d leave. I didn’t have time for that shit—except that my brain, of course, thought it would be a great thing to fixate on.
I also wasn’t above noticing how Adam’s creepy little nerd assistant, Charles, had developed a thing for her, too. He was over at her desk a lot, and one day I even spotted him walking her to lunch. I began wondering if they were eating lunch together every day. Okay, so I’d prevented her from going out and picking up someone at a club one night, but that didn’t mean shit, did it?
Only a few days later, I lost my resolve to avoid her because avoiding her meant I couldn’t keep an eye on her. And besides, I rationalized, it was time to talk to her about her project.
After lunch, I entered the atrium where she sat talking on the phone at her desk and took the long way around so she wouldn’t see me coming. I stood beside her, waiting for her to wrap up, but she didn’t notice me immediately.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know the Beast was going to give me all this work today. It looks like I won’t be able to make it.” She paused, shifting in her chair and doodling on the pad of paper in front of her where she had scribbled down Le Chat Noir—the name of a martini lounge not far from here.
I wondered what she was talking about. I hadn’t given her anything extra to work on for days…then it occurred to me that she was using work as an excuse not to go.
“Okay…well, I’ll try then. Just give me the address. Yeah, yeah. I can find it using my GPS. You said it’s nearby?”
She jotted down the address. At that moment, she became aware of my presence and nearly jumped when she looked up at me. I gave her my most convincing glare and frown.
“I gotta go,” she huffed into the receiver and slammed down the phone.
“Who was that? Your little admirer?”
She gave me a wary look. “I don’t have any admirers.” I raised my brow in disbelief. Clearly, she was lying to me. Disappointing, but…did I expect anything else?
Her eyes flicked away nervously. “It was just my friends in marketing. They wanted to go out tonight.”
“More partying? Maybe you need more work to do.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Maybe I do.”
“You still haven’t come up with ideas for your project.”
She turned her chair to face me, folding her arms across her chest. “Actually, I have. I emailed them to you this morning.”
I ran my thumb along my jaw line. “Hmm. Okay, I’ll have a look. Who’s ‘the Beast,’ by the way?”
Her skin reddened like a fresh sunburn. She nervously tucked a long, silky strand of dark hair behind her delicate ear. I swallowed, my eyes tracing over the elegant line of her neck.
Christ. I shook my head. “Never mind. I think I can guess. Carry on, Weiss. You don’t want to keep your little friends waiting. I’m sure you’re all dying to get drunk and laid tonight.”
She bit her plump, sexy lip and again I swallowed, ripping my eyes away. Pushing back from her desk, I went back to my office, disturbed at how I felt about her going out with the giggling interns to meet men. It was her prerogative, of course. It wasn’t like I had any right to dictate what she did and didn’t do. But damned if it didn’t irritate the piss out of me anyway.
I was her boss, after all, so if she were to get drunk and go home with some strange dude, that would affect her ability to work on my projects and get things done. And damn it, she was responsible for this clusterfuck. So I was looking after my own professional interests when I called up Adam’s cousin, William, who worked in the art department, asking him to go along with me that night to Le Chat Noir.
William was an unlikely wingman. I’d known him from the beginning days of the company when Adam had brought him in to work on early concept artwork for Dragon Epoch. We’d developed a full portfolio to take around to venture capitalists who would become our first investors to help us get the company off the ground. After we’d gotten the ball rolling, William had taken a job in the art department.
He was immensely talented but shy, quirky and more than a little awkward.