I head to the kitchen to help them with the dishes, so confused at the different turns of the day, I don’t know what to feel.
CHAPTERNINE
ZACH
I only getone glimpse at Lilac the following day at school before I have to leave for an unavoidable appointment. She’s curled into a seat in the common room, frowning at her English textbook like it did something gravely wrong.
Trent lounges against the wall nearby, failing to look like anything except what he is, her guard. An appointment he takes seriously, even though it’s a position dreamt up in his own head.
On the opposite side of the city, I reach my ‘job interview’ feeling hollow and angsty. Even if all I’d be doing at school is mooning over her while she barely notices I’m there, it’s better than not being around her at all.
Even to myself, I sound like a lovesick teenager. The thought infuriates me worst of all. When I’m called into an upstairs office, it’s a relief to have something to jolt me out of my brain.
By the end of the job interview, I feel like I’m the one deciding whether Mark Ingot will get the position as CEO of my company, rather than him appointing me to a junior spot in the mailroom. He smirks and shifts around in his chair, bending forward to place his hand near mine before sitting up straight and nodding after every sentence I utter.
He’s certainly paying more attention to the story than I am, and I’m the one halfway through telling it.
“And then it all worked out,” I say, having lost track entirely. But that’s always a good comeback, isn’t it? Because when your dad is as rich as mine is, everything works out in the end. The only variable is the price.
“I’m glad to welcome you aboard, young man,” Ingot says, standing to bring this excruciating appointment to an end. “Once we have your application packet completed and signed, we’ll work out the rest of the details.”
Like hell we will. I wouldn’t work here if you paid me.
Halfway to the executive lift, I excuse myself to the bathroom and lock myself in a stall. There’s a weird fragrance in here, perhaps the rotting stench of corporate greed, and within a few breaths, it triggers a sliver of pain in my right temple.
Goddamn headaches. I had them under control last year and now everything’s gone to shit.
I unhook the executive visitor swipe card from the lanyard and attach a blank one instead, tucking the real thing inside my sleeve so the machine will read it when I swipe the fake. The last thing I want to do is get stuck in this steel and glass box. Not until someone punches airholes in the lid. The damn place is suffocating.
Once the toilet’s flushed, I run my hands under the sink, staring at my reflection. I can’t believe they make the lights so bright in here. From what I’ve seen, executives don’t have the type of face you’d want to see in a mirror. Maybe it’s for the benefit of their secretaries.
I exit into Ingot’s glad-handing company again, stifling an inward groan when he accompanies me down in the lift. If I ever ran a company, my office would be on the ground floor behind a range of security doors that you’d have to be a supermodel to breach. Not this taking ten minutes to get to your office. And it’s certainly not for the views. I don’t think Ingot’s even looked out the windows before.
Outside, I fetch my car and drive into the hills. The long winding roads help to calm my nerves and soon my headache is left back in the city where it belongs. I park near the Sign of the Kiwi, and stare over the Christchurch streets until the lights blink on, signalling the end of the day.
My phone is blowing up in my pocket and I pull it out, scanning the messages for anything unexpected. I still haven’t got used to the new model, even after synching it with my old phone. Keep hitting buttons that do the wrong thing but aren’t annoying enough to prompt me to change.
They’re mostly from Em. Checking in on arrangements for a party I don’t want. I expected her to back off after yesterday, especially when I didn’t bother to stay at school today, but she’s twice as eager.
She’s sent a picture of a butt plug, spangly pink, and I’m more interested in how she got the photo than its contents. I don’t like anal enough to chase it; the only reason I pester her is because I know she hates it.
At eleven, I drive back to town, picking up Caylon on the way. “You ready?” with a grunt in return is the only conversation until we arrive back at the building where I interviewed earlier in the day.
One perk of the executive swipe card—even the visitor ones—is that they open any door in the complex. With a few quick checks to ensure nobody is still at work when they shouldn’t be, we exit the lift on the top floor.
There’s no CCTV up here. Privacy is synonymous with money. Besides which, Mark Ingot might be the world’s most boring potential employer, but he’s also got a finger in many not-quite-legitimate pies.
I don’t know what he did to piss off Stefan Kovac, my actual employer, and I’m not about to ask. He wants leverage and I’m here to get it.
Caylon sits at the computer, wiring in devices to decode passwords, infiltrate security systems, and dig into every nasty bit of trash that Mark Ingot thinks he’s deleted.
I take the walls, lifting so-called art and moving aside gleaming awards on shelves in the search for a hidden safe.
They always have one. It takes me twenty minutes to find it hidden in a corner. The tile of carpet lifts easily once I move aside the disguising chair.
“Holy crap, this guy,” Caylon says, shaking his head. “He watches porn like he’s trying to get a virus.”
“Anything good?”
