“I don’t care what he said. I’ll deal with him.”
“Okay…”
“When did he leave?”
“Maybe… forty minutes ago?” he said guiltily. “Again, sorry. He said he had some meetings.”
Forty minutes? That was like halfway through our email back-and-forth. Like somewhere around the time he brought his matcha latte into the conversation and sent me the pic of his fly.
He’d taken our conversation on the road with him? Been emailing me from wherever he was? In his car? A cafe? Between meetings?
I wasn’t even sure why it annoyed me that he didn’t tell me he’d left.
I mean, I’d left, too. I’d snuck out the back door for a quick dash to the bakery to grab some lunch to bring back to my desk. I’d heard the Indian delivery arriving and wanted nothing to do with it. No way was I letting Dane see me eat that food, no matter how hungry I was.
Or how much I loved butter chicken.
Yeah, so I loved Indian food. And damn, if I’d known he wasn’t even here, I could’ve had some.
“It’s okay.” I pointed at Kyle’s laptop. “Do not send him that. Leave it to me.”
Seriously, I already sent him the list of staff duties that he asked for. And now he was terrorizing interns, demanding that they write up their job description for him?
What an ice-cold dick.
Maybe if he’d ever had tobean intern, working for the likes of a bosshole like him, he’d have some human ability to empathize with others and not be such a tyrant.
Too bad for him, I’d been an intern. I’d worked with all kinds of people on my way up to my modest level, and I would not be terrorized, even by atitanlike him.
Since he was out, I seized the opportunity to dip into “his” office and collect some of Janelle’s files, her current model roster, from her filing cabinet. But as I dug through, I realized this wasn’t really my responsibility anymore. Unless Lizzie made it so.
I discovered, though, that she hadn’t thought to grab the files yet, or hadn’t had time. So, this would be my way of helping her out—and subtly letting her know that she’d better pick up her game if she wanted to impress the icy titan in our midst.
Maybe she looked good on paper and she was a great agent, but I didn’t really see Lizzie James holding onto Dane Davenport’s respect for long. The man clearly enjoyed fucking with people, probably had impossible standards, and generally had a heart of solid ice.
I suddenly shuddered to think what kind of manager would actually meet his expectations—and what a bossholetheymight turn out to be.
Okay, no time to worry about that.
One problem at a time.
Files in hand, I stopped short when I noticed my face. Amongst the slew of papers and file folders spread across the desk, there was a photo ofme. I recognized it; a headshot that had been used for my employee ID card.
Why was he looking at my face?
He wasn’t. It probably just slipped out when he was considering who to promote, inspecting your employee file and finding it lacking.
I poked the photo underneath some papers, hiding it from his frozen gaze, in hopes of helping him forget my existence, and slipped out.
Lizzie was just heading across reception and out the door. “I’m running out for a quick meeting,” she told me when she caught my eye. “Call me if you need me. And, you know, if anyone’s looking forthe manager.” She gave me aneekface.
“Of course. See you later,” I called after her, doing my best to projectNothing at all awkward about this.
As she left, I went to deposit the pile of files on her desk, with a sticky note that said,Janelle’s models - let me know if I can help.
Then I stuck my head into Chaz’s office. “Round everyone up,” I told him, “and get your butts into my office. Agents only. Whoever’s in the office.”
“Finally,” he gushed. “Are we getting gossip?”