“Why are you still standing there?” she asked angrily. “I am entitled to privacy, Ryan. This is my room, you can’t just come inside whenever you want to.”
He started backing away from her. “Fine. I’ll leave.”
He walked out and closed the door behind him. Well, this evening wasn’t turning out as he’d planned. He’d hoped to have a nice dinner with her, do some work in his study and then go to bed. That was his usual routine when he was home; he liked routines. But since dinner looked like it was off the cards, he headed straight to his study.
He did a good four hours of work that night before finally climbing into bed and falling into yet another restless sleep. He dreamed about his sister again that night. He hated waking up after a dream of her, because for a blissful moment when he opened his eyes she was still alive. But then, as consciousness kicked in, he realized with a painful stab that she wasn’t. It was like losing her, again and again.
When he arrived outside Doris’s apartment, next morning, he was officially running ten minutes late for work, thanks to Emmy. They’d had a disagreement again this morning. She’d walked downstairs and announced to him and his housekeeper, Tamlin, that she no longer wanted to eat a cooked breakfast because she was going vegan. When he’d pointed out to her that Tamlin had already gone to the effort of making her breakfast—and that just because all the celebrities were vegan these days, it didn’t mean she needed to go vegan too just to try and be cool—she’d gotten upset and asked him if he even cared about animals and their suffering? Apparently, he still didn’t “get it.” Well, he hoped he got whatever it was that he was meant to get soon, because life at home was feeling rather unbearable.
Doris was already sitting on the pavement waiting for him. He scanned his surroundings again. This place looked even worse in the morning. The sunlight was very unforgiving, illuminating all of its unsightly blemishes, and there were many. There was a sad, lonely-looking jungle gym on a dusty patch of what had probably once been grass. He sincerely hoped that children didn’t climb it. A rusty abandoned tumble dryer looked like it was now being used by a family of birds. An old car tire lying on the ground completed the “eclectic” look. Doris jumped up as soon as she saw him and awkwardly raced around to the other side and climbed in. Her face was slightly red, as if she’d gotten sunburned from the long walk yesterday. She probably had.
She climbed in silently, and he had no idea what to say to her, at all. A part of him—a very large part—couldn’t believe she was still working for him and, more than that, he was fetching her for work. He’d never had an employee in his car before . . . well, that wasn’t entirely true. But he knew how badly that had ended, and he wasn’t prepared to make that same mistake twice.
“Hi,” she said softly, wringing her hands together in her lap as if she was nervous.
“Hi,” he replied awkwardly. He felt strangely tongue-tied. He was never tongue-tied.
Silence. A long one. An awkward one that seemed to drag on between them painfully. He tapped his hands against the steering wheel and it was the only sound in the car.
“Better weather,” she finally spoke.
“Not raining,” he replied.
“Yes!” she said, and they fell into another strange silence. God, she needed to get her car back. Asap. He usually enjoyed his drive to work, it gave him a moment alone to regroup and focus before the chaos of the day descended. But this was positively painful.
“A little bit windy, though.” She spoke again, after a long pause, and for a moment, he wasn’t sure what she was talking about.
“What is?” he asked.
“The weather. Not rainy, but windy.” She was really fiddling with her hands now, and it was driving him mad. He hated fidgeting. It was repetitive and distracting.
He shot her a sideways glance and looked down at her hands. They stopped moving immediately. The silence resumed, and he had to break it by turning on the radio. A song by some pop star that Emmy probably listened to burst through the speakers. At least they weren’t sitting in silence anymore.
He was relieved when he finally pulled into the parking lot of his office. He heard a terrible sound next to him and looked over at Doris. She was humming away to the song.
He watched her for a moment or two before turning the engine off. The music cut out immediately, but her humming continued for a few seconds before she realized that she was doing it.
“Sorry. I sing when I’m nervous!” She slapped her hand over her mouth quickly and then climbed out of the car and ran into the building.
She was as bad at humming as she was at riding a bike. But for some reason, he found himself smiling.
CHAPTERELEVEN
Poppy
Not rainy, butwindy?
Had I really said that? The second the words were out of my mouth, I realized what a total idiot I sounded. And his reaction had said it all. Well, it wasn’t so much what this man said, it was rather what hedidn’tsay. Those stern sideways glances, those steely, flat responses . . . it was clear he didn’t like me one little bit.So why give me this job?
But what really had me wound up by the time I got to the office, was his smell. The second I’d climbed into the car, I’d been inundated by that warm, spicy, soapy, heavenly, manly—I could go on forever—smell! It was intoxicating and now, as I sat at my strange new desk, all I could smell was him. His scent had velcroed itself onto me and was lingering. When he wasn’t looking, I grabbed some deodorant from my bag and tried to neutralize it with a few squirts—but it didn’t work. His scent was officially here to stay.
The second we’d arrived he’d gone straight into his office and shut the door. I had no idea what I was meant to do, or if he was ever going to tell me. His office was only a few feet away and made of glass. This, unfortunately, meant that he could glare at me all day, which he did. Because every now and then he would look up and eyeball me suspiciously, as if he was trying to catch me out.
I looked down at my desk. Cold hard thing with no character. I opened my drawer and took stock of what was inside. I turned on the computer in front of me and wondered if it had games on it and whether I should dare access my Facebook page; he probably monitored his staff’s computer activities, though. In fact, he was clearly such a control freak that I bet he had listening devices and security cameras secretly placed throughout the office so he could spy on his staff. I looked up at the ceiling and scanned it for devices.None. That didn’t mean they weren’t there, though. I looked into the open-plan section of the office where everyone else was. They all had that same, somewhat somber look about them as they sat in their little cubicles with their heads down. What did they even do here? These sad-looking worker ants that came to this cold steel building at 7 a.m. and worked all day. There was certainly no joy in this place, no life.
With nothing to do and no instructions, I adjusted my chair a few times and sharpened some pencils. And just then, the phone rang. It was so loud and unexpected that it made me jump. I looked over at Mr. Stark’s office; he’d looked up in my direction again and was now glaring at me. I smiled at him and looked back down at the phone.Oh my God, why did it have so many buttons?One of them was flashing, usually a sign to press it. So I did and raised the receiver to my ear tentatively.
“Good day. Mr. Stark’s office, how may I direct your call or be of assistance?” Thank God for that telenovela right now, because all I was doing was reciting lines from the show. Maybe I could do this after all?
