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Welcome to the building, not to the team,I note, not missing the very specific way she phrased it. Clearly, she’s not at all happy about my presence here.
I thank her anyway, shooting her a vague, polite smile before following Lucas down the hall. I expect him to go to his office, but instead, he leads me into the lounge—and as we step inside the large space, my anxiety roars back with a vengeance.
“I need a few things from the desk in here,” he tells me.
I hesitate in the middle of the room, every fiber of my body insisting that I shouldn’t be here. My heart is racing, and my gaze is stuck on the spot on the wall where he had me pinned. I really thought he was going to snap me in half, the way he loomed over me, his powerful body boxing me in… so why is the memory making my thighs clench together? The fury in his gorgeous eyes, the way his body was rigid with rage, the heat on his breath—
Stop that!
I snap my gaze away from the wall and accidentally lock eyes with Lucas.
Shit. Not helpful.
He’s watching me quietly. His expression is fully neutral, although there’s a slight pinch around his eyes. He’s remembering that moment too, that much is clear. What isn’t clear is how he feels about it. Does it still make him angry? I can’t tell from the way he’s looking at me.
After a long moment, he breaks eye contact, and I could swear the whole room gets a few degrees colder.
“You can go,” he states coolly. “Sherri will give you things to do. I’ll call you if I need you.”
His sudden shift throws me off. Our friendly excursion that morning would lead me to reply casually, but his current tone demands an answer more along the lines of ayes, sir.
My throat tightens around those words, a little worried about how they would come out. I end up not saying anything and leaving him with a little nod. I feel banished and confused, similar to how I felt when he dismissed me yesterday. This man runs hot and cold so often that I feel like I can never quite catch my bearings around him.
A little shaken, I go back up to the secretary’s desk.
She gives me a sharp, annoyed look and turns away. If she’s the one who supposed to give me instructions, I need to win her favor somehow. Hoping that my customer service charm will serve me well in this situation, I walk around to the other side of the desk, put on a friendly smile, and try again.
“Hey, Lucas told me to come to you for things to do for the time being. How can I help?”
She huffs impatiently without ever looking my way, “We need the F. Sayan B12201 file in triplicate. It’s downstairs.”
She spins her chair all the way around, effectively dismissing me.
I clear my throat, and her shoulders stiffen. “Sorry… I’m brand new and not sure where the files are. Would you mind telling me which floor?”
“Thirty-ninth.”
Oh, thank God. That’s Naamah’s floor. She seems to like me—or at least, she doesn’t hate me.
I hurry to the elevator and hug myself on the way down. Every job is overwhelming on the first day, I tell myself, especially when there’s no training.
No paperwork, either…
I’ll have to talk to Naamah about that, since I don’t really want to bother Lucas with it. Or with anything, for that matter. His moods are impossible to navigate, and I’m not sure which version of him unsettles me more.
The doors open, and I retrace the same path I took with Lucas a little while ago. Naamah smiles at me as I approach, a welcome change from the last few minutes.
“Hey, Sophia. Back so soon?”
“Yeah. I’m hoping you can help me,” I tell her. “Sherri told me to get the F. Sayan B12201 file. I think she wants me to make copies in triplicate, but she wasn’t super clear about that.”
Naamah gives me an approving glance. “You just rattled that off like it made any kind of sense. I’m impressed.”
“Waiting tables has transferrable skills, apparently. Like memorizing nonsense spouted off at a hundred miles an hour.” I shrug modestly and give a weak grin. “Could you point me in the right direction?”
“I’ll do better than that,” she smirks. “I’ll take you right to it.”
We walk through the cluttered, open office, and I smile at people as we pass them. Some smile back, but most of them—especially the women—give me dismissive looks, if they deign to look at me at all.
