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‘Everything’s okay,’ I whispered, trying to sound reassuring.
He kept his eyes on mine, binding me to him for a few more seconds, then he pulled his hand back and I could breathe a little more easily. I rested my hand on my lap and rubbed the spot he had touched to get rid of the stupid tingles.
William’s phone rang so I took the opportunity to lean towards Stan, who was sitting next to me and writing something on his notepad.
‘What did I miss?’ I whispered.
He didn’t glance at me. ‘You’re good. You’re still on the statements and we’re heading to their offices tomorrow.’
I nodded. ‘Okay, thanks Stan.’
‘Charlie.’ William said, and I turned back to him. ‘You’re not working on something outside of the team, are you?’
My anger and frustration almost gone; I shook my head. ‘Oh, no, I’m just yours.’ Then the words reached back to my own ears, and I was blushing for a completely different reason. And I’m afraid this time I had everybody’s attention. I looked around and, yup, all eyes were on me. ‘Oh, come on. You guys know what I mean,’ I spluttered.
My gaze jumped back to William. ‘I’m committed to this team. My dad asked me to do something, and I took care of it outside of work hours. That’s all I meant,’ I added the last sentence for the sake of everyone else.
I could see a small twitch starting on William’s lips so I heaved a sigh and ignored everyone in the room, focusing on the work I needed to do. ‘I’m gonna prepare the statement that will go out in their emails,’ I said to no one in particular and got down to business.
We took a late team lunch break around three. Or, I should say, they took a late lunch break, but I had to resend the proposal email to my dad so I stayed in my office instead. I was heading back to my office with my cup of tea in my hand when I decided to drop by my dad’s office just to make sure he got the email this time.
I knocked on his door and entered. I was standing halfway inside and halfway outside to make a quick escape.
My dad looked up from his phone.
‘Everything okay with the file I’ve sent?’ I asked.
‘Yes, yes. Thank you for taking care of it so quickly, Charlie.’
‘You’re welcome. I’ll see you later, Dad.’ I was already closing the door when he stopped me.
‘Oh, wait. Come inside for a minute.’
I pushed the door open and stepped inside, choosing to stand in the middle of his room instead of taking a seat. ‘I still haven’t had lunch, Dad, and we have another meeting soon. It’ll have to be quick.’
His eyes moved on my body. It was a quick motion, but I caught it anyway. And I could tell what he was thinking, but trying not to say: you can afford to skip a lunch. I ground my teeth.
He called someone on his phone.
‘Charlie is here, you can come.’
I frowned. Holding my mug in between my hands I took a sip, wondering what he was gonna ask me to do now.
‘Who is coming?’ I asked when he hung up.
‘I’m starting to get tired of this thing between you two. You work together, you need to…’
Before he could finish his sentence, Kimberly walked in with her red pant suit and the temperature in the room dropped a few degrees.
‘Hi Dad. Hey, Charlie.’
I stood a little bit taller and gave her a nod, taking another sip of my drink. I wasn’t a vindictive person. Not necessarily. But after the whole situation with her husband, things had never gone back to normal between us and to be honest I was fine with that. Because our normal had never been great either. It wasn’t like we hated each other, but we’d never had a close sibling relationship.
‘I’m in the middle of something, so I have to be quick,’ she explained as if she were the only busy one. She looked at Dad, then at me. I just raised my brows, waiting.
Dad sighed. ‘Charlie, in a week or two I need Kimberly in Michigan for a few days, but she has a dinner meeting with a client here. The timing isn’t working, I need you to handle the dinner meeting.’
I lowered my mug and addressed Kimberly. ‘Can’t someone from your team handle it? I mean, wouldn’t they know more about your client?’
She shook her head from side to side. ‘No, Charlie. He is an old client of mine. This is more like a babysitting job to appease him. I’ll be here for our meeting the next day. And my team are working on other things. I can’t pull them out for this.’
Right. But Charlie could leave whatever she was doing and dance to their tunes. Not so much anymore.
