“Jesus Christ,” Mina mutters under her breath but it’s more than loud enough for me to hear.
“I have no idea, but you won’t be in the meeting,” Garrett tells me. “Because by then you’ll have both agreed on a concept and you’ll be HNO’s latest dream Creative Team, busy drafting copy and pitch decks. Won’t you?”
“Yes, Garrett,” I acquiesce.
“Yes, fine, whatever,” Mina mumbles.
“Good,” Garrett says but he sounds like he finds the situation anything but. And then he walks to the door behind us. Because I’ve been brought up to be far too polite to people I have barely any respect for, I stand as he leaves the room.
Before the door is even closed behind him, Mina has opened her laptop again and is opening up her Notepad app.
“Right, let’s hear your ideas,” she says.
“Wait a minute,” I say, putting my hands on my hips. “What was that?”
“What was what?”
“This meeting… It was exactly what you said it wouldn’t be. It was awkward as hell.”
“No, it wasn’t.” Mina looks at me and her confusion does appear to be genuine by her frowned expression.
“It totally was. You made it super awkward.”
“I didn’t make it awkward,” Mina replies through a clenched jaw.
“Well, you didn’t exactly make it a walk in the park for me either,” I reply.
She gives me a wry and calculating look. “Last time I checked, not making this awkward is not the same as making thiseasyfor you.”
“But… but…” I stutter as her words sink in.
Mina’s eyes roam around behind my head, as if checking the door is still closed and a second later I know why. She stands and comes closer to me, so close that I can smell hints of her sweet floral smell. So close that the soft give of her stomach presses against the fly of my jeans and I beg my cock not to get hard again. Surely he owes me that much after Saturday’s performance, or lack thereof.
“I still want the lead on this project, Charlie. I deserve it too. Just like I deserve the Creative Director role. And I’m never going to ask or expect you to move aside and give it to me. In fact, I don’t want you to do that. But I do want you to know that whatever we’re doing outside of work – with the pretend dating thing – that is completely separate to this. Because this really matters to me.”
And I suppose I have my answer there, don’t I?
Chapter Eleven
Love, Love, Love
Mina
We have to leave the meeting room in fifteen minutes and we have not come up with anything better than my PowerPoint. And that’s not just my opinion. Charlie very much agrees, and testament to this is the way he’s vigorously rubbing his hand through his hair as if that will stimulate some extra creativity in his brain, all while he chews on his pen so aggressively I’m convinced he’s going to bite the top off.
“You know, we could both avoid a lot of stress if you just admitted that my idea is perfectly good enough,” I say and not for the first time.
“Except it’s not perfectly good enough. You saw Garrett, he was hardly head over heels in love with it.”
“Garrett isn’t head of heels in love with anything apart from his dealer and Pete Doherty,” I quip.
Charlie looks like he wants to smile at that but stops himself. “I thought you had something to prove,” he reminds me. “I thought this was the most important thing in the world to you.”
“It’s not the most important thing in the world to me. That’s Deborah Harry,” I inform him.
“The lead singer of Blondie?” He blinks while frowning.
“No, my cat, Deborah Harry.”
