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After dinner at the restaurant, we spent the weekend together. He took me to the beach, I brought him to a golfing range, we ate dinner on the rooftop terrace of his apartment right in the center of downtown. We danced.
He set up a radio and had a small dance floor installed on the roof. When the music came on, and he asked me to dance, I didn't resist. We slow danced under the stars, to the sounds of the city. And then we made love. . . Not love, but something that felt really close to it.
Obviously, we didn't make love. Love is something two people share. And if anything about this remotely came close to love, I would have heard from him by now. Instead, he's nowhere to be found.
All my texts and messages are going unanswered. He's not returning my calls at all. A part of me is even getting worried. Did something happen to him? Is he okay? These thoughts are driving me insane.
Where the hell could he be?
I've worked here for over a month now, and he's never missed a day. This just doesn't seem like Manu. Maybe I'm overreacting. I don't really know him. I know the person he wants me to see. I don't know the man inside well enough to say this isn't like him.
But I can't deny the fact that this isn't sitting right with me. I'm trying so hard not to seem overly concerned because no one else around me seems to be worried. The office is still functioning like a productive hive without their king.
I can't escape the curiosity. The need to know is too strong to ignore. There's one person I can probe a little without drawing any attention.
“Hey, Irene,” I say as I walk up to her desk.
She looks up at me from behind her computer, pulling her glasses off, and rubbing her eyes. “Ugh, my eyes are killing me. I can't stare at this screen much longer. What's up?”
I rest against the side of her desk, picking at my nails nervously. “Have you seen Mr. Reeves? I wanted to run something by him, but he hasn't been here since last week.”
I fudge the truth. I don't have anything to run by him, but I don't want her to get suspicious. I'm highly aware of the little pitch in my voice, but I'm doing my best to stay clear and steady.
If anyone will pick up on my concern, it's her. Irene has a mother's intuition. She pays attention to details, to body movements, to facial expressions. And she's damn good at picking out changes.
“What’s wrong?” she asks as she arches a brow.
Shit. Calm down, Ronda, just relax.
“Nothing, I'm fine. It's just this new article I’m working on. I have a couple questions about the layout. I can't finish editing without his input.”
Her brow stays high for a second, then her suspicion vanishes. “Oh, you know what, I don't know. I haven't seen him either.” She looks around the office as if he's going to just pop up out of nowhere. “Did you ask James? He probably knows where he is, and even if he doesn't, you can run it by him. He'll know how Mr. Reeves wants it.”
“Does he usually just disappear like this? He doesn't strike me as a boss who would just go AWOL.”
“Mr. Reeves doesn't need to report to us, he's made that clear over the years. There have been a couple times he went away for meetings with potential investors, so maybe that's what he's doing. Just ask James, he'll know when he'll be back, for sure.”
“Yeah, sounds good. Thanks,” I say calmly with a smile.
Irene goes right back to work, and I head to James Balar's office.
James is Manu's right-hand man, his second in command. He's the man who hires all the new employees, and even gave me my interview. Irene is right, if anyone knows where Manu is, it would definitely be him.
James's door is open. He's relaxed back in his chair, reading the newspaper. I knock on the glass with my knuckles. “Excuse me, James?”
“Ronda, hey, come on in and have a seat.” He sets down the paper, and pushes it to the side, sitting up straight. “What can I help you with?”
I sit down, my hands anxiously fumbling in my lap. “Actually, I was looking for Mr. Reeves. Do you happen to know where he is?”
“Mr. Reeves is out of the office for now. He decided he wanted to get away for a bit. He'll be back when he's back.”
“Wait, what? Why? Is everything okay?”
What the hell is he talking about? Get away because of what?
Manu never mentioned going away to me at all. Why wouldn't he tell me this?
It's hard for me to understand why, after all the time we've spent together recently, that he'd take off and not tell me. It seems so out of the blue. When we were together, we talked about our childhoods, and how differently we grew up. He's a city boy, I'm a country girl. He talked about taking trips around the world, and the little place he'd like to buy one day in Venice when he's ready to retire.
