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“And to love at first sip.”
“Presumptuous, are we?”
“Confident.”
I take the first drink, and Paul is right. It is love.
“This is delicious,” I moan.
He stares at my lips and drinks some of his own. “Yeah, it’s my favorite.”
I check my phone for the time and realize that I’m going to need to run. “I’m going to have to go. I have an appointment.”
“Can I at least get your number?” he asks, hopeful.
This whole detour was a way to find out more information. I still have no idea what his connection is to Mark. Having his number though would be a great way to do follow-ups if I need to dig up more information in the near future.
“No.”
“No?” Paul asks, shocked. I must be the first girl that has ever turned him down.
“But you can give me yours,” I say sassily.
* * *
“Hey, Angie, what brings you here out of the blue?” Dominic asks from behind his desk, looking as dapper as ever in a beige suit with a crisp white dress shirt. “I feel like it has been ages since I’ve seen you.”
It’s a risk stopping by unannounced. As big as the agency seems to be, it’s selfish of me to think that his schedule would allow for such breaks in time to talk with newbie employees.
“I’m having a problem with a client,” I blurt out. “With one of your valued clients, I assume.”
“Please sit down,” he says, gesturing to the chair.
“If this is a bad time, I can go, I shouldn’t have sprung this on you all of a sudden. I am just frustrated and I don’t know what to do and I have tried to handle things on my own and they don’t seem to be working.” Pauses and literary punctuation are forgotten in my verbal vomit of the mouth. The simmering stress of the day comes to an epic climax—right at this minute—in my boss’s office.
His eyes widen and his posture straightens even more—if humanly possible. I have his full attention as he closes his laptop and shoves file folders in the top drawer of his desk. “Did someone hurt you?”
“No,” I answer with a hard swallow. He scans over my face and limbs, and I am instantly glad that I decided to wear a little makeup under his scrutiny. I shift my weight to my left hip and then back again to my right. “If this is a bad ti—”
“No. Please, Angie. It’s fine. You can always come to me with problems, and I’ll do my best to handle them. Would you like a drink? I have something stronger than water.”
“Oh, no. Thank you.” I can see the anger simmering in Dominic’s body, as I watch the rise and fall of his chest.
“Please start at the beginning. I might take notes as to determine the best solution or course of action. If necessary, I might need to further the documentation process as I see fit. We can fill out an appropriate form and talk about legal advice if necessary. I need to know what has you in my office frazzled on a weekday afternoon.”
The rigidness of his muscles, pushing out against the fabric of his clothes causes me to quiver. The biting tone of his chosen words radiates with contempt and malice. He can’t possibly be mad at me, I reason. I am the victim after all.
“Wait, legal assistance?” I blurt.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, Angie. But you bear the signs that someone has done you wrong, and I want to make sure the situation is handled by the books. If I need to fire someone or end a membership or call the police, I need to know. It is my responsibility to protect you and the company from scrutiny. Thus, a paper trail is warranted.”
“Oh, well, I don’t want anyone fired.” I sigh. “I just want to do my job—which I happen to enjoy—in peace. And there’s a client hell-bent on ruining all of my opportunities, and quite frankly, sabotaging any type of networking I am working hard at doing.” Oh and he’s a control freak and a blunt bastard who does not have a mouth filter. But he’s smoking hot with sex appeal that should be classified as illegal.
I barely catch the sigh that Dominic releases from his lungs. He drops his pen onto his desk with calculated coolness and seems to have relaxed a bit. “I see.” He gives me a look that means “continue.”
“A few days ago, my profile disappeared from your servers. I tried to check it to see why I stopped getting updates. I know that sounds conceited, as if I get booked every day, but I felt something was amiss when previously scheduled dates were getting canceled without the client having a choice in the change. In fact, said client thought I had changed my mind when I had already accepted a string of back-to-back dates. I dug into the issue more and saw my profile was taken down by an unknown source.”
“You contacted the IT department?”
