The office has mostly cleared out the following Friday when a delivery guy comes down the hall, his hand truck stacked high with boxes. “I have a delivery for Gemma Charles?”
I direct him to the conference room, then dig into the first box from Fiducia while he goes back to his truck for the next batch. You’d think he was bringing me a dozen roses, as excited as I am.
The files are not alphabetized, nor are they divided by division or location or employment date. It’s going to take forever, and is the sort of job I should farm out, but I’m looking for tiny slivers of information, easily missed, and I don’t trust anyone but myself to find them.
It’s tedious, time-consuming work, but finding those little slivers is like finding clues in a mystery. The thrill keeps me going, chasing the truth even harder. I don’t register the ding of the elevator or the steps in the hall until Ben’s imposing form fills the doorway. His gaze lands on the heels I kicked off, as if they’re the first piece of evidence at a crime scene. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?” he asks. “It’s Friday night.”
I shrug. “The files just arrived. And I could point out that you also are at work.”
“I had a client dinner. I just came back to get my laptop.” His brow furrows. “Can’t it wait? Get the first years in on it Monday.”
I could admit I have nothing better to do tonight, but I refuse to give him the satisfaction.
“I’d rather do it myself,” I tell him. “That way I know nothing’s been missed.”
“What are you looking for, exactly?” He sets his bag down and walks toward the table.
My skin seems to tingle at his approach. “Anyone who was written up but not punished during their review,” I reply. He perches on the arm of a chair. The jacket is already off, but when he reaches up to loosen his tie, I have to struggle to maintain focus. “When Lawson asked for a promotion, they started calling her all these gendered words—shrill, abrasive. I’m looking for all the men worse than her who still got ahead.”
His tongue goes to his cheek. “That seems like a needle in a haystack.”
I smile, because I’ve already found the first of several needles. “And I suppose your suggestion would be to just give up and hope they offer to settle again?”
“No. But it seems like the kind of thing you could trust someone else with.” He unbuttons a shirt sleeve and starts to roll up the cuff.
My eyes narrow. I’m not sure why the fuck he’s acting like he plans to stay, but I certainly don’t want him here. I’m already painfully distracted and he’s only been in the room for thirty goddamn seconds. He pulls out a chair and prepares to sit.
“What are you doing?” I demand.
“Helping you, obviously.”
Ugh.
“On a Friday night in October? Isn’t there a cheerleader waiting for you under the bleachers?”
He gives a tired laugh. “You make that joke so often I’m starting to wonder if you think it’s true.”
“You dated a nineteen-year-old, Ben.”
“For fuck’s sake,” he says wearily, running a hand through his hair. “We went out once, she was twenty-one, and I had no fucking clue she was that young. She owned her own business—how was I supposed to know?”
I smile sweetly. “Most dates involve this thing where you learn about each other. Evidently, yours do not.”
He leans over and examines the piles I’ve arranged. “I enjoy hearing about how dates are supposed to work from someone who has such limited experience with them.”
I don’t have a quick response because, of course, he’s absolutely right.
I focus once more on the reports in front of me and hope he’ll go away, but he takes a seat and grabs a file instead. I do my best to forget he’s here, which is a lot harder than it sounds. Even his small movements—tugging at his tie, running a hand through his hair—throw me off my game. He taps a pen against his mouth, and my eyes fixate on that indentation in the center of his lower lip. I sometimes picture resting my thumb there, measuring the size of that divot.
It’s a welcome distraction when my mother texts to tell me the couple bought a Christmas tree farm together at the movie’s end. I’m smiling as I reply, and Ben’s gaze darts to the phone with a sneer. I swear to God if he criticizes me for two seconds of personal time this late in the day, I will literally explode.
I cross the room to grab another box of files and catch his gaze on the seam of my stockings, traveling up to the hem of my skirt. His jaw shifts, and he throws down his pen in disgust, looking away.
Maybe I’m not the only one who’s distracted.
“You okay?” I ask. “You look like you’re having a stroke.”
“It’s cute that you’re worried about me,” he says, even more irritated than before.
“It’s cute that you think that was worry, not optimism.”
I dump the box on the table and go to the other end of the room, mostly because I need space from him. I pop a coffee pod in the Nespresso, though I’m already so wired I half-expect small sparks to shoot from my fingertips momentarily.
“How are things with Thomas?” he asks.
I turn, squinting in confusion. “Who?”
“Your chef, with his romantic cottage on the shore.”
“You continually utter the word chef as if it’s a euphemism,” I reply. “It’s a real job.”
“And you say chef as if he’s Gordon Ramsay, when he’s probably just the guy in charge of the deep fryer at Bennigan’s.”
The devil on my shoulder is suddenly there, goading me louder than he ever has before, manipulating me like I’m his fucking marionette. I’ve led an extremely careful life. It’s that thing inside me that wants to overthrow the system. That wants to take my career and my future and my carefully honed image and set them on fire. “Someone like that will get a lot further with me than you ever will,” I say.
He’s gone instantly alert, an animal about to pounce. Suddenly all his focus is on me, and it makes my breath catch in my throat with its intensity.
“Oh, is that right?” he asks, the muscles in his forearm tensing as he tightens the grip on his pen. His eyes sweep down my body, and I swear I can feel his gaze like it’s a physical touch. “And why is that?”
There’s a tension to his voice, a challenge. Goose bumps crawl over my skin. My nipples tighten until they’re visible beneath the thin fabric of my blouse, and his eyes dart immediately to my chest.
I touch my neck. “You wouldn’t know what to do with me.”
I am throwing down a gauntlet I know he can’t pick up.
His gaze sharpens. And then he rises from his chair. “What did you just say?”
My breath skitters over my lips while I contemplate repeating it, but I’ve done this before, and it didn’t end well for me. “Nothing.”
His steps glide over the carpeted floor—slowly, purposefully—until he is directly in front of me. My pulse triples.
“No, I want you to say it again.”
His eyes dip to my mouth, and I find words emerging from my throat, words I don’t approve of.