Jonah caught himself staring and returned his gaze to his computer screen. “Your boss said you’d brief us, but unless you have more than we got from your development team there’s probably no point.”
“Who do you think is my boss?”
“The executive who came to see me this morning, maybe?”
“He is not my boss.” Sacha ventured further into Jonah’s office. “He is a marketing man with no brain.”
“What brings you to that conclusion?”
“He cancelled space with the regular agency. He thought we’d never be ready before I even got here.”
Jonah forced himself to look up again. “What about you? What do you think?”
Sacha shrugged, flickering his gaze over Winona as if he wished she wasn’t there. “I think we can be ready if we do not waste time on other things. The website is built. It will hold if the app functions well enough to handle most traffic through the host platform.”
“And will it?”
“Maybe. I need more time.”
“How much?”
“Two weeks.”
“From today?”
“If you say so, Jonah Gray.”
Forgetting Winona’s silent presence beside him, Jonah frowned.Don’t whole-name me if we’re not friends. You don’t get to do that.
Sacha met his glare with blank eyes. “Blutecc shuts down the day before Christmas Eve. I will have a functioning app by then that we can soft launch and upload for pre-order through a product page.”
“We can build that for you within a few days. We just need your boss—whoever that is—to sign off on the graphics. If we get you some concepts by the end of the week does that work for you?”
“Of course. We are not in a position to be difficult.”
“I’m sure that wouldn’t stop you,” Jonah retorted, then regretted it. This wasn’t about them—whatever that was—and Sacha had the right to do his job in peace without passive aggressive smites. “Anyway, leave it with us. We’ll do our best to create something that reflects what you’ve put into the project.”
“Vodka and black coffee? Maybe not.”
Sacha backed up and disappeared before Jonah could respond, hidden by the closed blinds of Jonah’s office windows.
Jonah sighed, wishing he could track him across the floor and see where he went for no reason more than he wanted Sacha in view for as long as humanly possible.
He was wrong about me. I am greedy.
Greedy for him.
I can’t get enough.
Considering how badly their day had begun, it was a scary thought.
13
Sacha received the email from Jonah’s office at the same time as the rest of his team. It came through during their morning meeting, four hours earlier than they were expecting it.
A hush fell on the room as those with devices to hand scrolled through the content.
Sacha had an iPad. He retreated to the alcove with it, hiding away in the one place he was fairly sure Jonah couldn’t see him from the FG side of the floor.
