Other than my mother and my brother, Sebastian, I trust Emily the most out of anyone. But I can tell by the way she studies me that she doesn’t believe I’m telling her the whole truth.
“I just feel like if I was a man in this situation it wouldn’t even need addressing. I would ignore it and keep working hard. I’d let my results speak for themselves.”
“Except,” Emily says quietly, “you’re not a man.”
I’m aware of that, thanks, I want to snap at her. But she doesn’t deserve that.
“So, Mark says this about you—not realizing whoyouwere in the elevator. And Wesley laughs and now you’re...making him answer phones instead of working on ad copy?”
I nod. “Why? You think it’s petty?” I ask.
“No, no!” Emily shakes her head quickly. “Barring, you know, actually getting Mark fired...” She stares pointedly at me again. “I guess. I’m just surprised.”
“Why?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know him very well and obviously I wasn’t in that elevator and you were but...there was something so...so...” Emily pauses, smiling to herself. “Good, about Wes.”
She wiggles in her chair, a satisfied little smile on her face.
“He seemed a little disappointed when I told him he’d be your assistant, but he shook it off and got invested in the training right away.”
Doubt for my plan creeps up my spine so I shove it back down with the easiest explanation I can think of. “He probably doesn’t want to do a bad job and get himself fired.”
“Well, yes, that, too,” she concedes. “But I don’t know. There’s something about him. I’d call him an overeager puppy if it didn’t make him sound like a total dink. I just never took him to bethatkind of guy.”
When I frown, she elaborates. “The asshole kind.”
A wave of defensiveness crashes over me. “I know what I heard, Emily.”
She nods, her hands placating. “I’m not saying you didn’t.”
“Well, that’s why I’m making Mr. Chambers get my coffee today,” I say and from the look on Emily’s face she knows that this conversation is over. “But at least my intern is just an asshole and not an idiot, too,” I say pointedly.
She sighs. “Yeah. And he’s kind of cute.”
I press my lips together. “He is objectively attractive. But that’s irrelevant at this point.”
Even saying that feels like too many words in my mouth. Bosses aren’t supposed to find their interns attractive, and considering the bullshit I’ve had to deal with from Richard lately, I mentally scrub any thoughts of Mr. Chambers’s appearance from my brain. It’s best if I only think of him as an asshole, anyway.
She pouts.
“Good morning, girls!” Richard calls from down the hallway. We blink at each other with wide eyes for a beat before turning to him with plastic smiles.
I am thirty and Emily is twenty-seven and we are definitelynotgirls. Richard stops beside me, squeezing my shoulder. His hand lingers like an anchor, weighting me to the ocean floor.
“I see you’ve hooked Phil Grimes for a meeting. Good work.”
I do my best to hide my smile. We’ve been working on landing this new client for weeks and he’s finally said yes to sit down and talk to us. Regardless of Richard’s sometimes questionable behavior, I’ll always be happy to make him proud.
He wraps his arm around me tighter.
And there he goes ruining it.
“I’d like to speak to you privately when you have a second, Corrine.”
Emily catches my eye again and I duck out from under his palm. I fill my lungs with air now that I’m not pinned down by him. I need to speak with him, too, but I’d rather do it now when Emily is here.
“Actually, I wanted to let you know. My mom is...” My brain stalls on the right word.Sickis what she is. My mom is sick but we don’t know from what or why yet. The not knowing is terrible. Maybe the only thing worse is saying it out loud. “Her health has not been well lately.”
