She sighs again, holding the bridge of her nose as though this conversation is another ink blot on her day. “As I’ve said before, pitching new apps and high-concept ideas... it’s just a little bit out of your depth, don’t you think?”
My stomach drops three floors. “Well, I—”
“That’s more for someone in aseniorposition to be concerning themselves with, no?” She blinks. My skin crawls, trying to come up with an answer that isn’t throwing the lamp on my desk against the wall.
“I guess, it’s because...” I swallow. “... you once told me I should be working for the job I want, not the one I have. I thought bringing new ideas was part of that.” The repressed rage turns liquid behind my eyes.Do not cry.
“Yes, but only if the ideas are good.”
My stomach drops another flight, the coffee immediately souring as I wring my hands together under the desk.
“Right.” I mindlessly nod, eyes going in and out of focus like a broken camera lens.
“Please take it off your company computer, immediately. And don’t bring it up again.” Susie’s lips curve into a sweet smile. “How about you carry on with the things that you were actually hired to do, like doing that expansion report for me?”
“OK.”
She turns to leave as I start blinking furiously. “Darling, one more thing?”
“Yes?”
“I need you to stay to supervise the intern packing up the influencer gift boxes tonight—I don’t trust anyone else to do it correctly.” She scans me up and down again, sucking her teeth. “Do you think you’ll be able to manage that?”
14
“What are you doing, Hastings?” Bancroft looms in the merchandise cupboard’s doorway, the light from the main office oozing around his angles and trickling into the room.
“Considering strangling myself with a tote bag,” I reply from the floor, scanning over the piles of Fate-branded reusable coffee cups, T-shirts, giant foam fingers, baseball caps and fabric totes littered in a circle around me. “How is Iris? I saw theSocieteurpost.”
He clears his throat and stares at the paraphernalia scattered around me. “She’s OK. How did you like your fifteen seconds of fame?” His blue eyes lance into me.
“Loved it. The back of my head has already been offered a laxative-tea sponsorship.”
He huffs a laugh and crosses his arms. “Don’t the interns usually handle this sort of thing?”
I tuck a stray hair behind my ear and sigh. “I sent her home thirty minutes ago, I felt bad that this was taking so long.” My eyes travel up his body until they meet his face. “What’s your excuse for being here so late?”
“Struggling to write the evaluation form for Saturday.How does one sum up molding half a vase then having to track down your sister while avoiding predatory bar managers and obsessive photographers?”
“Ah. Maybe start with some light commentary on how once you touch wet clay it gets literally everywhere. I found a smear on the sole of my foot yesterday morning, and I was wearing shoes the entire time!”
He laughs and squats down in front of me, the fractured overhead lighting dividing his face into sharp angles. He picks up a baseball cap, inspecting its logo embroidery, and then flops it back onto the pile.
His bemused blue eyes flick up to meet me. “Need some help?”
“I can’t subject you to this—it’s going to take hours.”
“Well, I kind of owe you one and I need to run some Ditto project stuff by you anyway, so I might as well help with whatever it is you’ve got going on here.”
I shake my head. “You don’t owe me anything. Seriously, it’s fine. I don’t want you to suffer too.”
He tilts his head and smirks at me. “If I tell you a secret will you let me help you?”
He must be desperate to talk about his plans. My eyebrow crease deepens. “You’re really keen to sit on the hard floor with the weird lighting that makes you go cross-eyed and pack boxes of merchandise with me?”
He takes my question as acceptance of the deal. “My parents used to travel a lot for work, and when I was eleven they sent me to boarding school in Hampshire... to provide me with ‘childhood stability,’” he says withfinger-quotes. “For a while I was the only new kid, so naturally I was the bottom of the pecking order and became the resident punching bag for the other kids in my dormitory.”
Continuing to pack while he talks, I add, “I’m finding it hard to imagine you being bullied. You seem unbullyable.”
