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“What announcement?” Julia asked.
“I don’t know what it’s about, but I need to steal Heidi.”
“Okay, I’ll be right there,” I said. I turned back to Julia with a shrug. “I guess I’ll go see what that’s all about.”
“Keep me in the loop.”
“Will do.”
I hopped off her desk and strode out of her office. My office was on the other side of the floor with the rest of engineering. The engineering and project team worked closely together here at Wright Construction headquarters. I was lucky to be on the same floor as Julia even though our jobs were night and day.
I was the only woman working in engineering, and I was damn proud of it. Even if I did have a tiny cubicle, unlike Julia’s swank office. I’d been climbing the ladder to this job my whole life. I’d graduated at the top of my class in civil engineering at Texas Tech and started working as an intern at Wright right out of college. I’d worked my way up and up and up. My job was my life. I made great money, and I loved what I did. I felt so fortunate to be where I was.
“Hey, Heidi,” Matt said, coming up beside me. He had a pink-and-blue plaid shirt under his navy blazer with a bow tie. With him, every day was more eclectic than the next.
“Hey, do you know what this announcement is about?” I asked as we walked to my cubicle. I rummaged through my purse and grabbed my phone. If this meeting was boring, I was going to need something to occupy my mind while I pretended to take notes.
“No idea. You?”
“Nope,” I said, glancing down my nose at him.
I was already five foot seven without my heels on, and I made it a point to wear my heels into work. I liked to be as tall or taller than a lot of the guys on the team, so they couldn’t look down their noses at me.
“Jim thinks someone is getting fired,” he told me, trailing behind me, as I moved toward the conference room.
From the outside of it, I could tell that it was already crowded. Matt must have waited for me. He would follow me around a lot, like a lost puppy.
“Why would they bring everyone together to fire someone? Isn’t that kind of personal?”
“Yeah, true. Maybe it’s a new project or something.”
“After we took over Tarman Corporation last year, I do not want to think about adding on another new project. I feel like we’ve finally caught up from how shitty they were.”
Matt laughed and held the door open for me. “Yeah, definitely.”
We stepped into the brightly lit conference room. It was full to the brim with men in cheap suits who just wanted to go on a coffee run. There were a few guys, like Matt, who were around my age, but most of them had been with the company long before Jensen took over. Those guys really did not think too fondly of women in engineering, even when I schooled their asses.
Or maybe because I did.
I wasn’t sure. Nor did I particularly care.
As much as I detested the blatant sexism that ran rampant around the office, I was getting paid as much or more than my colleagues. Unless someone was sexually harassing me, I wasn’t about to complain to the higher-ups that my colleagues were douche bags.
But that was neither here nor there. I was waiting to find out what the big announcement was, and I’d completely zoned out on Matt.
“What?” I asked, glancing back over to him with wide blue eyes. “Sorry, I missed what you said.”
“Uh…I was seeing if you were free on Friday night.”
Even though he was kind of short and wore strange clothing, he was a cute guy. He just…wasn’t my type. Not that I would date him because of my number one rule—do not mix business and pleasure.
“Oh,” I muttered. “That’s sweet, Matt, but I’m kind of seeing someone.”
Sort of true. If I considered date number three with Nick to be seeing someone. And it counted right now.
“Right. Totally. Of course,” he said the tips of his ears going pink.
I gave him a smile that said, I’m sorry, and then faced the front of the room again. That was when Morgan Wright stepped into the conference room. It went from a loud buzzing to almost complete silence in a matter of seconds.
