Then I hadn’t fallen through some sort of black hole into another universe where my awesome ability to intimidate - my superpower, really - had somehow been extinguished.
Carefully, I stood.
I didn’t wear a suit to the office. I hadn’t worn a tie since my last board meeting before Covid. However, I also didn’t do the tech-bro thing with black, heavy metal t-shirts and board shorts. How utterly ridiculous. I wore jeans and shirts that cost a fortune but looked simple.
I was ironic like that.
Now, as I stood there, arms crossed over my chest, I had to think about what just happened.
I’d fired any number of people during my career and it was always a scene, but it was never simply ignored.
What if this was it? What if I’d finally severed touch with reality?
I hated to do it. But I was going to have to leave my office and follow her.
FOUR
ANNA
She recognized it for what it was. She recognized him.
I stoodin my office and shook my hands out until the feeling came back.
All the blood must have rushed from my extremities to my brain in those few seconds after he fired me.
For a second, I blanked out. Then in the next second, it all came to me in a flash. This wasn’t about a stupid bagel.
Poppyseed was delicious.
I just needed to give him time. It was for his own good.
So I was hiding out in my office – which, every time I said it, sounded so freaking cool. It was a smaller space, next to E.G.’s larger office. I had a desk and a chair that spun in circles for thinking deep thoughts. No room for guests, but I didn’t need that. Both offices opened up into the small lobby where I’d waited before my pseudo interview. Anyone E.G. was meeting with waited there, while I tended to their needs.
Coffee, tea, water, soda. Depending on the guest, sometimes I had a box of mini muffins in my bottom drawer. Min-muffins were my secret weapon. Because who didn’t love a mini-muffin? Full sized muffins were too big, bagels, if they weren’t warm, were too much breakfast fare. No one wanted fruit. Fruit was decoration.
It was the little things I excelled at.
Any second, E.G. was going to realize that. Firing me was silly.
I took a seat behind my desk, opened my work laptop, and set the bag with the offensive bagel aside. I took a deep breath, let it out through my mouth slowly, and hoped I had some actual courage.
Not a minute later, I felt him looming in the doorway.
“Do you think you’re being clever?” he asked me.
His voice was dark and menacing.
Sexy.
It didn’t affect me. My lady parts didn’t quiver when I heard it. My lady parts didn’t quiver for anything, really. Survival mode stripped a person of their sexuality.
The fact that I could now acknowledge how his voice sounded, did that mean something was waking up inside me?
It didn’t matter. It was an empirical fact. Sometimes E.G. had a sexy sounding voice.
“Or cute?” he pressed. “You know I don’tdocute.”
Looking up at him, I didn’t blink. In the weeks we’d been working together, I hadn’t learned much about E.G. Where he lived, what he did outside this office, if he had a dog. What I did know after observing him with the people he’d interacted with in person and on the phone, you could not show weakness in front of him.
