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Dusting his hands off, he surveyed his work. “There. How’s that?”
Willing my face to stay blank, I glanced at him before shifting focus to the work he did. I didn’t realize just how much the windows bothered me until seeing the makeshift wall made the tension ease and I practically melted.
“That’s perfect. Thank you.”
He’d found enough drywall and propped it along the windows until they were half the size and no longer so intimidating. I could appreciate the view more when I didn’t feel like I was about to fall to my death. The office had a beautiful view of Lake Michigan and I bet in the summer, I’d be able to see the boats and people on the beach without any trouble. Too bad I wasn’t going to be here that long.
Frowning at that train of thought, I turned away from the view, refocusing on my task. I needed to get this contract done so I could get started on the important work Liam needed to do. I had no intention of drawing this job out.
The rest of the morning was busy. I drew up the renegotiated contract and got it up to Liam. He seemed impressed with how quickly I got it done and gave me a list to start on. I’d need to head to my office for a few essentials before coming in to work tomorrow but for today, I wanted to get a jump start on the list he gave me. At least, that had been my plan before something came up.
“Oh come on.”
Jaime had grabbed a chair from the secretary space and stationed himself by the door, mostly playing on his phone. He glanced up with a frown. “What’s wrong?”
“The internet isn’t working.”
He looked surprised. “They were supposed to finish that by Friday. Hold on, I’ll call down about it.”
He put his phone to his ear and stepped out of the office to make the call to IT. Since I couldn’t use the internet, I decided to look over the work the previous lawyer had done since I didn’t need the internet to do it. There was a box of documents by my desk and I hefted them on top to start digging through them just as Jaime came back in.
Sighing, he ran his fingers through his hair. “Apparently the new head of IT is a little overwhelmed and sent the staff to the wrong office by mistake. She’s a programmer and this isn’t normally her area of expertise but they haven’t found someone to act as her deputy yet. She said they’ll have it fixed as soon as they can but it might be a minute because they’re working on issues in the office upstairs first.”
Well, there was nothing they could do about it. I was pretty pleased that their head of IT was a woman considering it was a male dominated field. If she wasn’t normally in this kind of role I’d have to give her the benefit of the doubt that it was just a slip up.
“It’s fine. I’ll go over these first and if I need to, I’ll head to my office. I need to pick up a few things anyway.”
I begrudgingly had to admit it wasn’t so bad having him around so far. He stayed out of my way and he was pretty quiet. It wasn’t an awkward quiet either where I felt the urge to fill in the lulls. He was at ease and relaxed, one ankle propped on the opposite knee as he scrolled through his phone. He only spoke up once lunch rolled around.
“Do you have any preferences on food?”
I’d been deep into a contract that made almost no sense so I didn’t hear him at first. I blinked a few times, frowning. “I’m sorry, what?”
He chuckled. “It’s lunch time. I was wondering if you wanted to eat.”
Shaking my head, I went back to reviewing the contract. “I’m fine. I normally work through lunch.”
He was quiet for a minute and I thought he’d let it go but he broke my concentration again a second later.
“Any food allergies?”
Sighing, I glanced up at him. “What?”
“Allergies? Or maybe things you don’t enjoy?” When I shot him a confused look, he shrugged. “You’re busy. I’ll get something for us. I just don’t want to bring back something you hate. So…”
He obviously wasn’t going to let this go. “No allergies. I don’t like eggplant though. Or carrots.”
Nodding, he typed away on his phone and stepped out of the office, leaving me to finally get back to work. Whoever wrote this contract was an idiot. It went around in circles and was filled with so many holes, I’m surprised anyone would actually sign it. This was probably why Liam was uncomfortable giving free rein to me. If the last guy was this incompetent, his reaction wasn’t unwarranted. I would have to redo it completely and get it signed by both parties. I could expect some pushback since they already signed a contract but as long as I made the updates benefit both sides, it shouldn’t be that difficult.
Writing down what little I could use from the contract, I didn’t notice Jaime return until a little wrapped package was pushed onto the edge of my desk. I jerked my head up and found him smiling at me, his own package in his hand.
“It’s nothing fancy but I know the owner and his stuff is the best.”
Opening it up carefully, I sucked in a deep breath as the smell washed over me. A meatball sub, still hot, with a healthy layer of gooey mozzarella and sauce. I was almost drooling just looking at it. My stomach growled loudly and I flushed but Jaime was already back in his seat and digging into his own sandwich, groaning after the first bite. Trying not to look too eager, I picked up mine and took a bite. My head whipped up to Jaime and he nodded sagely.
“I know. It’s fucking amazing. I knew when Liam bought this building that’d I’d put on a few pounds being this close to old man Bruno’s shop. I can’t help myself.”
Fucking amazing was right. The meatballs were moist, there was the perfect balance of cheese and sauce, and the bread was soft without losing its structure and getting all soggy. Taking another bite, I sighed softly.
