Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 66453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 332(@200wpm)___ 266(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 332(@200wpm)___ 266(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
All signs of exhaustion left Selena’s body. Her spine went ramrod straight, and her chin jerked up as if on puppet strings. “He’s going to say I’m an exemplary employee,” she said scathingly. “I come in early, I work late. I never skip networking opportunities.”
She was throwing the night of the happy hour in my face, trying to put me in my place. It might have worked, too, if I had any shame. Just now though, I didn’t. I wanted her off this fucking Christmas ball committee, and I was willing to play dirty to do it.
“I need to see everything you have on the party,” I said, abruptly switching tactics. “If it’s going over the budget I set, I’m shutting it down.”
“Oh, come on, Dominic.” Selena was so frustrated I didn’t think she realized she used my first name, but I did. “The last thing you want to do is go pawing through the cost calculation spreadsheets for the stupid Christmas ball.”
I leaned back in my chair, crossing my arms. “It might be the last thing I want to do, but if you insist on keeping this fucking project on my plate, it’s what I will do.”
“It’s not on your plate!” Outraged, Selena came up to the desk, both hands on her hips now. “It’s on mine, and I’m handling it. I’m also handling my responsibilities here, just like I told you that I would.”
“Send them over,” I said as though she hadn’t spoken.
Selena was fuming. Her color was high on her cheeks, her eyes glittering with frustration, her hands knotted into fists at her hips. But there was something else. She had the inside of her bottom lip pulled between her teeth. My friend Landon was an expert at tells, but I didn’t need him to tell me that she was hiding something.
“I can’t send them over,” she said finally. “There are some parts that I need to explain.”
I barked out a short, unamused laugh. So, she’d been doing some creative accounting to make this work. That didn’t surprise me a bit. The only thing that surprised me was that she thought it would do any good to try to explain them to me. “Fine. Come by after you finish up today. I’ll still be here.”
“I’m working late again,” she warned.
“I’ll still be here,” I repeated, swiveling to face my computer screen.
After another moment of hesitation, she nodded and turned to go. I watched her leave out of the corner of my eye. Once the door was firmly closed behind her, I leaned back in my chair and stared out the window, giving up the pretense of working.
What the hell was I doing?
And why couldn’t I stop doing it?
14
SELENA
The time passed slowly. I had work to do, but it was taking me twice as long to get through it because every few minutes, my mind slipped away in one direction or another. It went to just a few nights ago when Dominic’s hands were on my body, his mouth on mine. Then it skipped ahead a few hours, wondering what was going to happen when it was just the two of us, alone in the office again.
I had been serious when I told him I was working late, but something perverse kept me from going straight up to his office when I finished at 6:30. I waited until nearly seven, when the sky outside was a deep, bruised purple and nearly everyone else on my floor had gone. Then I stood up, said goodbye to some of the diehards, and hoped no one would notice that when I summoned the elevator, it took me up instead of down.
The executive floor was similarly quiet. Albert’s door was closed and locked. Mrs. Flannigan’s desk was shipshape, her chair empty. There was a light coming out of an office at the far end of the floor, but Dominic was the only person left at this end. Willing my heart to stop fluttering like a bird trapped in a cage with a viper, I knocked on his door, then pushed it open before he could bark for me to enter.
Dominic wasn’t at his desk. I stared at it, nonplussed for a moment. Had he left? Had all this build up and anticipation been for nothing? Then I realized he was in the room, just sitting at the small, round conference table at the other end rather than at his desk.
He raised an eyebrow laconically when my gaze latched onto him. “You didn’t think I forgot, did you?”
“I thought maybe you realized you had better things to do.” I walked over and put my laptop down beside his. He had a large external monitor waiting, and I plugged into it and connected the screens.
“Better things to do than my job?” Dominic was disturbingly close. He was still leaning back in his chair as I was leaning forward, so I couldn’t see him very well, but his presence was like a solar flare. Burning, crackling energy that made it hard to focus on anything but him.