And how thehelldid he know about Dad’s thing with receptionists? It was a running joke by the time he died. They got younger, prettier, and with ever more ridiculous names. Case in point: our current receptionist is still Candy, who was Dad’s last hire. She’s younger than me, pretty as all get out, ditzy, is named Candy…but she’s a damn good receptionist, so I’ve kept her on. Dad knew what he was doing, after all.
How did he find all this out in the first two weeks on the job?
I have misjudged Thai on at least one front, it seems.
* * *
I’m usedto being the last one in the office. Dad, who had a wife and children to go home to, was often here till seven or eight and sometimes nine. I, single, with no one at all to go home to, not even a cat, am often here till atleastnine. No reason not to, right? I’d just go home and watch TV with a glass of wine, so I may as well be productive instead.
I’m going over the Karsten account, trying to find places we can cut the budget down. When Thai said it was bloated, he wasn’t kidding. I like a nice Carrera marble as much as the next girl, but does literally every surface in the whole house have to be marble? And…thirty grand on a built-in intercom and music system? Have they not heard of Alexa? Buy a couple of those and save thirty grand; it’s an older couple with no kids—what possible use will they ever have for an intercom? I appreciate upselling to pad the profit margin, but it seems Nick, the lead project manager for that account, has gone a little overboard. We want to make our clients happy with the finished project, not milk them for every last dollar and leave them broke in a house they hate because it’s overdone.
That’s not our company ethos. I make a note to have a talk with Nick later.
I don’t feel, see, or hear him, so focused am I on the account file.
“Still here, huh?” His voice is deep, rough, and intimate. Close.
I screech and leap half a foot out of my chair. “Holyshit, Thai—donotsneak up on me like that.”
He perches on the edge of my desk and toys with a tape measure that had been on my desk, flipping the end out and letting it snap back again…and again, and again.
“Working late, I see,” he says.
“I’m here till nine most nights, so no, I’m not working late. Midnight would be working late.” I take the tape measure from him before I bean him in the head with it. “What do you want, Thai?”
He taps the Karsten file I have spread out on my desk—most of our files are digital, but certain elements I prefer to print out and mark up with highlighters and pens. “What’d I tell you? Over budget, am I right?”
I sigh. “Yes, you were right. About Doug, too.” I slap the folder closed and lean back in my chair. “In fact, as much as it chaps my ass to admit it, you were right on all accounts.”
He crosses his arms over his chest, and I hate that my eyes are drawn to the thickness of his biceps and the breadth of his chest and shoulders. And how green his eyes are today. “I can help you out with that.”
“With what?”
“Me.” He smirks, but it’s sort of rueful. “Your problem with me is not that I’m incompetent. I think you know that. Really, your problem wasn’t even that I was lazy—that never had anything to do with you, except insofar as it influenced Dell.”
“Ah, and whatismy problem with you, then?”
“I’m an asshole.”
A disbelieving snort escapes me, unbidden. “You admit it then?”
He arches an eyebrow, shrugs. “I’ve never denied it.”
I think back, doing a quick scan of my memories and realize he’s right. “So you just have never bothered with trying tonotbe a dick?”
“Nope, not really.” He laughs. “Funny, this conversation is oddly similar to another one I had just recently.”
“You mean another conversation where someone told you that you were an asshole?”
“And I maintained that I knew it, that I’ve always been an asshole, and I’ve never really tried to deny it.”
“It was a woman, I imagine.”
He smirks. “Got it in one.”
I roll my eyes. “Not a difficult guess. You don’t really seem like the boyfriend type.”
He narrows his eyes. “And you’re the girlfriend type, are you?”
