AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Anyway, it's fine. This is how life has always been. I’m not complaining. It has its perks, being a Riordan. But everything is both light and shadow. You have to take the good with the bad.
“Knock knock,” Hannah says, opening door without, in fact, knocking.
I don't turn around. Why should I? She’ll be over here in just a moment.
I hear the slip of her heels on the textured carpet as she strides toward the window. She crosses her thin arms and looks out, admiring the view that's not very different from the one in her office. I see a lot more of Lake Michigan from here, is all. Her view is slightly angled toward the river. It's like she looks back on all the people, while I look out to the horizon. There’s a metaphor in there somewhere, but I'm not a writer. What the fuck do I know?
“I should have taken this office,” she mutters, shifting her weight from one hip to the other. She has a beautiful ass, currently stretching the seams of a cream colored skirt with a slit so high up one thigh that I can almost swear that I see her panties when she walks. It's probably just an illusion, but still. It makes me want to slip my hand in there and pull.
Her weight shifts again. She drums her fingertips against her elbow, sort of a warning twitch. Like a cat swishing the tip of its tail back and forth, letting you know some shit is about to go down.
“You can have my office. How about now, Hannah?” I offer, silently promising the granite coffee table that it's coming with me. “I barely use it. You should get to enjoy the view.”
The fingertips continue drumming.
“No, no big changes, Emmet. I think we should just try to make everything as normal as possible, don't you? No more… upheavals,” she replies tersely.
“Oh, who's gonna know? Live a little, Hannah. In a few weeks you won't be able to take anybody up on this offer. The new guys will be in here with their decorators and assistants and contractors, probably tearing out the entire executive wing. I hear that's what they do, these Google types. Turn everything into the tech equivalent of a dairy farm, right? Stalls and everything?”
She pivots toward me on her stiletto heel, dropping the toe of her shoe onto the carpet with a snap.
“Emmet, we’re going to be lucky to even make it that far,” she growls, venom in every word.
I shake my head. What is she even talking about?
“Look, I'm here, aren't I? You told me to leave; I left. You told me to return; here I am. It’s all going according to plan. Everything is going to be fine.”
“You don't know that,” she shoots back.
I sigh, waving my hand in front of me. I don't need this.
“You worry too much, you know that?”
“I worry too much?” she repeats incredulously, the tone of her voice spiraling upward with every word. “I worry too much? Are you kidding me?”
My chin drops into my the palm of my hand. I am not going to miss this corporate nonsense one bit.
“Fine, forget I said that. You worry exactly the right amount. Okay? Are we done now?”
“No, we’re not done now, Emmet! We haven't even started!”
She starts pacing back and forth, her slender ankles flexing dangerously from side to side as she strides. I almost smell her anger: that fuming, boiling acid.
My hands go up automatically, palms out. I don't need her like this. I need her calm and in control, like she is supposed to be. She's the goddamn CEO. She is supposed to be walking around with iced tea in her veins, not yelling like a cornered bobcat.
“All right, all right. Just tell me what you want to do,” I tell her reasonably.
“I don't even know if there's anything we can do anymore,” she mutters to me, but not exactly in my direction. Her eyes keep floating up to the ceiling, as though there's some magical answer written up there in the plaster.
“Hey, yo
u're the one who told me to get lost for a month, remember? That was your idea. I could've been here, handling things for you. Team meetings, whatever. I could've been useful.”
“Useful?” she repeats, her voice pitched somewhere close to air raid siren levels. “Useful? Are you kidding me? How inspiring was that hashtag? Tell me that, Emmet!”
I feel a smirk coming on. I don't want to smirk, but I can't help it. #RiordanTwofer, that was the hashtag. We trended on Twitter for a whole week.
“Oh, come on. Settle. There's no such thing as bad publicity,” I quip.
