I run.
? EIGHTEEN ?
Christopher
My desk chair is empty yet swaying when I walk into my office. Frowning, I glance around the room and stroll toward my desk. I slide my messenger bag off my shoulder and set it on the chair opposite from where I sit, then round the desk, examining its surface.
I don’t leave out loose papers. My desk has very few things on it, and none of it’s been disturbed—except the framed photographs. Both of them are slightly skewed.
My jaw clenches in irritation. I reposition both frames until they’re how I left them, my thumb lingering on Kate in her headgear orthodontics, holding Puck, who’s so plump he’s as big as her entire upper body.
A double knock makes me look up and drop my hand.
Curtis, my assistant, smiles. “Good morning!”
I arch an eyebrow. “Is it?”
“It is now,” he says brightly, walking in with a steaming espresso, a mini chocolate-dipped biscotti nestled on the saucer.
“You’re a saint.” I dunk the biscotti in the espresso and bite off half of it.
“It’s self-preservation,” he tells me, adjusting his thick, black-frame glasses. “When you’re happy, I’m happy.”
“I’m happy,” I say defensively around my bite.
He snorts. “Sure you are. You’ve been a real peach the past three weeks. A pure delight.”
I drain half of my espresso and curse under my breath. It’s scalding. “It’s the end of Q4. I’m always ‘a peach’ this time of year.”
“True,” Curtis says, interlacing his hands in front of him. “However, you forget how much you rely on me to maintain your calendar and that I am thus aware of how . . . unoccupied your evenings have been the past few weeks . . .” He purses his lips meaningfully and raises his eyebrows.
I glare at him. “Did you have a point to make?”
He lifts his hands in surrender. “Nope. No point. Just plenty of thoughts that I’ll keep to myself.”
“Excellent.” I take a small sip of espresso this time, careful not to burn myself again, before draining it. “While we’re on the subject of calendars, what happened to this morning’s schedule? Everything was as it should be before I got on the train, then by the time I was walking to the office and checked again, you’d cleared the all-hands meeting and blocked us off until two.”
“When else was I supposed to update the calendar to make time for the professional photos you rescheduled to today, seeing as I found out about it from the photographer herself this morning?”
My espresso cup clatters out of my hands onto the saucer. “I . . . what? When?”
He steps forward and gingerly takes both from me. “You didn’t reschedule and move it up to today?”
Planting my palms on the desk, I tell him darkly, “No.”
“Ah.” He takes a cautionary step back. “Well, then it seems there’s been a slight misunderstanding. I’ll take care of it. Get the all-hands meeting back on everyone’s calendar, cancel the catered lunch, well, or maybe keep the catered lunch—”
“The catered lunch?”
He laughs nervously. “She said you’d guaranteed her a vegetarian catered lunch, and I just assumed you’d forgotten to mention it, like the reschedule.”
My expression must be thunderous, because Curtis gives me a chiding don’t be dramatic look. “Keep your heart rate down. I said I’ll handle it.”
“I’m sure you will. It’s Katerina who’s got my blood boiling.”
Curtis looks confused. “Who?”
“Kate,” I explain impatiently. This little rescheduling stunt has her written all over it. “Kate Wilmot, the photographer. She’s the one who told you it was rescheduled, wasn’t she?”
“Oh, yes! Well, she didn’t say ‘rescheduled,’ actually. She just showed up this morning, saying she was here for the corporate headshots,” he explains, as I lower toward my chair. “She acted like she was supposed to be here, so I assumed you two had discussed it.”
Just as he says that, a familiar-looking woman darts past my door in a streak of messy upswept hair and fire-engine red.
I miss the chair entirely and fall straight on my ass.
“Oh goodness!” Curtis yells. “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” I bark. Rolling onto my knees, I spring upright and storm past him out of the office and down the hall, a poked bull charging its red flag.