Ryan sat up too, also looking around. “Sorry,” he said.
“It’s okay, I think I can hide it with a scarf. I have one in my drawer, I can g—” Suddenly a voice interrupted me.
“I just don’t understand why it’s locked, it’s never locked.”
The voice came from outside and we both looked up in horror as the door handle started to shake. I stifled a gasp and looked over at Ryan. He was wide-eyed. And then we heard a loud clank. A metallic sounding clank as if . . .
I gasped. A tool box, it sounded like a tool box. Ryan looked at me and shook his head. I could see he was full of fear right now.
“Maybe the lock got stuck on the inside,” a male voice said. “I’ll just open it from here.”
“Please,” the female voice said. “You know what Mr. Stark is like, if I don’t get those files to him, he’ll kill me.”
“Tell me about it,” the male voice returned. He was obviously the building handyman. “He’s something special to work for. Once he made me stay after hours to work on the elevator because he was sure it was moving slower. It wasn’t.”
“It was,” Ryan hissed under his breath.
I nudged him to keep quiet.
“Honestly, that man is a nightmare sometimes,” the female voice returned.
“I think he needs to get laid,” the handyman said, and then they burst out laughing.
I tried to smother my giggle but it quickly stopped when we heard the sound of the drill. We both panicked. We jumped off the table, I searched for my shoes, pulled my skirt down and tried to straighten my hair. My button! Where was my bloody button? Ryan jumped into his pants and pulled them up as quickly as he could.
“Almost got it,” the handyman said.
“Good,” the female voice said.
“Shiiiiit!” I was now running around in literal circles.
We scanned the room, but there was nowhere to hide. Ryan looked down at my missing button. This didn’t look good, at all. And I couldn’t help but think about what Ryan had said to me: Mr. Grey was looking for a reason to get rid of him. This could be that reason. I looked over at Ryan, I had never seen him look so panicked. And then suddenly, the door started opening. We froze and watched in stupefied horror as it started . . . and then stopped.
“There’s something making it stick,” the man said.
My eyes widened. No, not my button, not my—
“Oh, that’s strange, it’s a button.” A hand shot out and took the button out from under the door. “What do you make of this?” he asked.
“Mmmm,” a conspiratorial mumble. “Definitely off a woman’s blouse. I wonder if the filing room is being used for other things too.” A laugh.
“Fuck!” Ryan looked at me. I had never seen him looking so frightened before. “Shit, I’m in such trouble now,” he whispered. His face was pale, as if all the blood had drained out of it.
And then the door opened.
CHAPTEREIGHTY
Ryan
There was this spine-chilling, bone-crunchingly awkward moment as Janice from IT and Jeff the handyman stared at them. Their eyes seemed to flick from him, to Poppy, and then back again. Their eyes were wide and he knew he’d been caught when Janice slowly lowered her head and looked at the button in her hand, and then back up at Poppy.
It was as if time had stopped and they were all suspended in a strange no-man’s-land. Sitting in a silent waiting room, waiting for nothing in particular. There was no way out of this, really, and he felt sick to his stomach when he thought of the repercussions. This story would spread through the halls of the building and be whispered about over lunch and in the elevator too. This would seriously jeopardize his reputation as the boss and would not look good, at all. Not to mention that his board could have him removed over this—in fact, this was tantamount to a crime, having sex in the office. This had such far-reaching consequences that he couldn’t believe he’d done it . . .
And then he turned when Poppy burst into tears. Loud sobs. Everyone looked at her.
“I can’t believe you’re firing me, over this!” she wailed loudly.
Ryan stared at her.What the hell was going on?
