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No matter what, I’d keep it professional… no more teasing and flirting. I’d have to put an end to it before it went any further. Not that it would, mind you. He might still press on with his behavior, but I didn’t spend all this time and energy to ‘fool around with the boss’.
This was it.
But then, all of a sudden, Gabe was upon me. I hadn’t even heard him approach. For no sooner had I steeled my resolve than he stood mere feet away.
Damn lab booties.
Gabe made his way around my workstation, and I glanced up to see if anyone happened to be looking. Not only was everyone watching but Melissa and Amanda were grinning like idiots.
“Lab coat fits to your liking I see.” Gabe said as he gestured towards my partially covered hands. “And here I thought you'd turned a corner.”
I tried not to smile at his comment. Instead, I twisted my expression into a face of displeasure.
“So this is how it begins…” I muttered.
Gabe paused for a moment and did a double take. “What’s that?”
“Hmm?” I said as I looked up at him. “Oh nothing.”
While a part of me felt a sudden urge to challenge him, my more pragmatic side thought better of it. And anyway, even though our banter had been playful, I had no idea how he’d respond if I accused him of wanting to involve me in an office tryst. In fact, when I realized how close I’d come to being caught at my attempt at an insult, adrenaline coursed through my veins with a fantastic shock.
It terrified and thrilled me at once.
In spite of my internal reaction, Gabe seemed unaware or unaffected. Either way, he shifted the interaction to the work I’d been doing. We discussed the issue I had with the lab results in good bit of detail. I wasn’t sure why, but once again, Gabe’s knowledge impressed me.
It was going to take some getting used to. You know what they say about first impressions. Still, I’d have to get past it and the sooner the better. After all, he was the CEO.
More so, by the time we’d finished our discussion, he had me doubting my own conclusions about the tests. That just didn’t happen. Not in the lab. Not to me.
Ever.
“Well, all right then, enough of that for now.” Gabe began as he leaned away, pointing at my results in the process. “You know what you've got to do?”
I nodded in agreement as he spoke, making notes in my planner.
As I scribbled, Gabe walked around behind me, disappearing from view. As best I could, I traced his movements with my peripheral gaze, as I didn’t turn my head to follow. Perhaps sensing it, once he’d vanished from sight, he stopped.
“How are things going so far?” he asked. I stopped breathing as he paused. “Are you enjoying it here?”
I nodded but didn’t dare turn. I had the strange sensation he was looking me up and down. Searching my mouth for moisture, I flicked my tongue across my lips before I replied.
“Yes. Thank you.”
“Mmm, hmm,” he replied.
Gabe lingered behind me for a moment or two longer. If this had been any other man in any other situation, I would have spun around and gotten to the bottom of his disappearing act. The seconds crept by. I froze in place as uneasiness came over me. What the hell was he doing?
Suddenly, he spoke once more.
“Seems as if you’ve attracted some attention from the other ladies in the lab.”
As he finished, I drew my eyes from the charts filled with numbers and looked in the direction of Amanda and Melissa. But no sooner had I done so than they looked away. Gabe reappeared in my peripheral vision. I turned my head in his direction as he entered my line of sight, smirking.
“Everything okay, Fiona?” he said as he narrowed his eyes at me. “You seem… tense.”
I swallowed and tugging a strand of hair behind my ear, I broke eye contact with him and looked back down at my lab work.
“Yes,” I muttered. “Everything is fine.”
“Lying again, I see.”
My eyes darted towards Gabe. His flickered with a mischievous glimmer.
“I can always tell when you are, Fiona. So, don’t make a habit of it.”
As he finished speaking, Gabe turned and began to stroll away from me. Lifting my eyebrows, but not my head, I watched as he meandered through the lab workstations until eventually he reached the doorway and exited the room.
FIONA
Gabe hadn’t been gone for the lab for more than ten or fifteen seconds before Amanda and Melissa descended on me. Weak kneed, I collapsed into my lab stool as they surrounded me on both sides.
“What. The. Hell. Was. That?” Melissa demanded.
“Yeah,” Amanda said as she nodded her head in agreement. “Gabe made a beeline for you. What did he say?”
As they peppered me with questions, I felt the room start to spin. I didn’t want any of this. I just wanted to do my job and be left alone. Nothing was happening between us. I wasn’t encouraging him to do anything. After propping my elbows up on my workstation, I dropped my head in my hands.
My eyes fluttered closed.
“Please stop,” I mumbled.
They cackled at my request. I felt indignation rise up inside of me. Even though I didn’t suspect they were trying to be cruel per se, the situation was more than I wanted to deal with at the moment. I fell silent and drew inward, squeezing my fingernails hard into my scalp. They chuckled and carried on for a few more seconds until they went quiet as well.
“Fiona honey?” Amanda said after another moment or two. “What’s wrong?”
“Yeah,” Melissa added. “We were only teasing you. Are you okay?”
“Mmm, hmm.” I muttered as I allowed my hands to fall away from my head. Afterward, I began to stand from my lab stool, scooting it with a groan across the floor. Amanda and Melissa moved aside, giving me room to make my way.
“Are you sure?” Amanda asked. “You don’t look so great.”
It was the last thing I remembered.
When consciousness returned, my eyes flickered open. Glancing down, I noticed I lay flat, on what looked to be a leather sofa. Directly overhead, florescent lighting buzzed and illuminated a harsh glow as I squinted up at it.
Lifting my hand to shield my gaze, I rolled my head to one side to try and figure out where I was. I didn’t see anyone as my eyes adjusted to the brightness, but as I looked around, I noticed an assortment of medical and monitoring equipment.
I exhaled and closed my eyes once again as the glare grew to be too much to bear in that instant. While I rested my head, I heard a pair of footsteps squeak as they approached until they’d drawn to within a foot or so of me, when they ceased.
“Fiona,” the voice of an older woman whispered.
As she finished speaking, I opened my eyes once again.
“Oh. Oh good,” she began. “You’re awake.”
My eyes darted around the room as I attempted to get my bearings in the unfamiliar surroundings.
“Do you know where you are, Fiona?”
I blinked as I felt awareness begin to return.
“Fiona?”
“Hmm?” I replied as I looked up in her direction. An instinct to move overwhelmed me, but as I tried to sit upright, the woman bent at the waist and pressed her palm flat into my shoulder, holding me against the couch.
“Fiona,” she said once more. “I need you to lie still and answer my question, dear. Do you know where you are?”
After a second or two I exhaled and managed a reply. “Yes um, my job. Hawkins Biotech.”
After that, the woman, who revealed herself to me as the company nurse, explained I’d lost consciousness in the lab. However, before I collapsed in a heap to the hardness of the linoleum floor, Amanda and Melissa grabbed me.
The nurse also said she’d checked me over for serious medical conditions and hadn’t found any. Instead after helping me into a seated position, she began to ask me a series of questions. I answered ‘‘no’ to all of them except the last one which forced a lie to tumble from my lips.
“Have you been under a lot of stress recently?”
Hmm, let’s see. My grandmother is battling a life-threatening illness. I’ve finally landed a job I’ve been after for most of the past ten years of my life. I’m more than half a million dollars in debt and my boss may or may not be hitting on me, which could or could not cost me the aforementioned dream job.
No.
Stress? What’s that?
“No,” I said with a slow shake of my head. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Hmm,” the nurse began. “Well, I’m going to recommend you take the rest of the day off. I’ll notify Mr. Doyle.”
“No!” I replied with a half-shout as I attempted to stand. But as I did, I felt the sting of dizziness return. My knees wobbled and before I realized it, I collapsed back into the couch.
“Fiona, please,” the woman said, as she reached down and helped to steady me. “You mustn’t make any sudden movements right now.”
I closed my eyes, leaning my head back into the cool leather of the couch. As I did, the nurse walked across the room and a few seconds later, I heard sound of liquid gurgling from a water cooler. After she finished, she crossed the room in my direction once again and offered it to me.
“Here, drink this,” she said, extending a cone-shaped paper cup to me.
I thanked her as I took it. The coolness of the liquid through the paper of the cup felt good in my palm and even better going down, as I took a healthy swig. I gulped it down she continued to speak.
