The elevator doors open, and I walk into the CreativEdge office with a refreshed mindset. After tossing and turning half the night, I decided to do what Holly said and rebuild my walls. What happened between me and Damian was fun, but it’s in the past, not to be revisited again. I’m not going to give it another thought, just like I’m sure he isn’t either.
My eyes automatically flick to his corner office, but they don’t linger. I don’t wait to see if he sees me walking by. I don’t make eye contact like we’re in on some private joke together.
Okay, maybe I glance into his office, but it’s quick. And I only find it empty anyway. Damian isn’t sitting behind his desk like he usually is, but that’s not my concern. I’m not here to wonder where he is. Not. My. Business.
I get to my desk and pop my earbuds in so I can finish the podcast I was listening to on my walk to work this morning. People start filing in over the next twenty minutes while I get to work.
“Morning. How was your weekend?” Erica asks as she comes in and puts her bag down.
Images of Damian flit through my brain. I can still feel his hand around the base of my throat, his mouth on mine. Heat rises to my cheeks, but I shake it away as I shut down memory lane.
“Good. Uneventful. How about you?”
“I tried this restaurant down by the harbor. It was delicious…” Erica keeps talking about what she did over the weekend, Rui joining us a few minutes later and jumping into the conversation as well.
This is good. This is exactly what I need. Life is back to normal; regular conversations that don’t involve me having to put on a show or play a part.
“Well, better get started before Satan starts freaking out,” Rui says.
“Seriously,” Erica agrees.
Words of his defense are on the tip of my tongue, but I stay silent, offering them a small smile.
I get back to what I was doing before they came in, time moving at a snail’s pace on this Monday morning.
The sound of footsteps padding down the hall makes my breath quicken. I know those footsteps, the cadence of his walk. I can tell it’s Damian—Mr. Edgerton—before he gets to our shared office. He turns into the researchers’ office across the hall, asking for their weekly report on the key accounts.
“That report needs to be in my inbox before 10:00 a.m. This isn’t new information. Every week, we go over this. Is there a reason you can’t seem to hit this deadline?”
“No, Mr. Edgerton. No excuse. You’ll have it in five minutes, I promise,” Devin says with a pleading tone.
I nearly roll my eyes at the dramatics. He sounds like someone is holding his child hostage instead of being talked to about his inability to workwithin a deadline.
“Good.” His firm voice reverberates off the walls. “Next week, I don’t want to have to ask for it. 10:00 a.m., Devin.”
Damian turns from the office, his head shaking with quiet disappointment, and walks back down the hallway. Not even the quickest of glances my way.
Which is good, really. I don’t need him glancing my way. Don’t want it. We have no shared experiences, no secret knowledge about each other, because it never happened.
“There he goes again,” Rui says quietly.
“At least Satan’s taking it out on the research team this time instead of us,” Erica counters.
Without thinking, I open my mouth.
“Why do you all call him Satan? I didn’t think there was anything wrong with what he asked of them. It sounded like it was a known assignment and established deadline that Devin failed to meet.”
“He has access to all of the information. He could just run the report himself, but instead, he wants his minions to do all his work for him,” Rui complains.
“But is that really the best use of his time? And isn’t it kind of our job?”
“You haven’t been here long enough. Just wait. He’s going to come in here at the end of the month, yelling about why we haven’t closed out the books for the month and how we need to properly code every single expense.”
We just closed the books on February last week, and he never once came into our office yelling and screaming. As a matter of fact, I didn’t hear him yelling and screaming at anyone from any department.
“It just seems to me like he’s getting a bad rap when he’s just trying to run a business and has expectations that his staff will do their jobs.” I shrug. “That doesn’t sound like Satan—it sounds like a boss.” I shouldstop there, but now that I’ve started, it just keeps coming. “Not to mention the fact that he keeps everyone’s favorite foods stocked in the kitchen, Mary’s yogurts and Carl’s breakfast bars. He encourages the teams to work together, specifically the marketing and sales teams. He tells you over and over to get here on time, but despite the fact that you’re always late, he never makes a big deal out of it.” I pull in a breath, more examples on my tongue.
Rui and Erica share a look, and I realize I may have said too much. I shouldn’t be coming to Damian’s defense. I’m barely supposed to know the man. But I do. Listening to the team bad-mouth him every day was getting old last week, but now that I’ve spent real time with him, now that I know him—the real Damian—it pisses me off even more.
