by Doyle, Mae
I just kept wondering it if was all a mistake.
It didn’t matter that he had texted me every single day to check in. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t been texting Marie. What mattered to me was that I couldn’t figure out whether or not he really liked me.
But that was a problem for later, because the look on Linda’s face told me that she was not happy with whatever I was about to do.
“What’s all this?” She frowned and stood up so that she could get a better look at whatever I was bringing into her space. “You know that you aren’t allowed to bring personal items into the office, and besides, your space is much too small for all of…that.”
“Sure it is,” I told her, putting the lightbulbs down carefully on the end of her desk. “But Nick asked me to come in here and make this place more inviting, and that’s what I’m going to do.”
She raised an eyebrow. “I hardly think that he meant you needed to come in here and make it look like the red light district. Are you trying to give the man a heart attack?”
She couldn’t be serious? Was she serious? I shot her a look to try to tell if she meant what she was saying, but it was hard to guess with all of the frowning she was doing. I couldn’t tell how old she was under all of her wrinkles.
“Have you run this by him?” She finally sat back down, pushing a fern in a bright blue pot a little closer to the edge of her desk than I would have liked as she did.
“Nope, it’s going to be a surprise,” I told her. “So I’d appreciate if you didn’t mention it, either.”
Linda grinned at me. “Oh, I won’t, don’t you worry. But when he comes back and he fires you for doing this, I’m going to make sure that I have a front row seat.”
In response, I rolled my eyes then started placing plants around the office. Immediately, it started to look nicer, the bright green adding a much needed burst of color to the space. I even went as far to put one in his office, but quickly scooted back out of there.
Could I be in there by myself? It felt strange without him around.
“Do we have a step ladder? Maybe in one of those rooms on that hall where I work?” I asked Linda, stopping back by her desk.
She stared at me and then shrugged. “You’re not going to trick me into being your accomplice on this one, Katie. When you take the fall for it, you’re going down by yourself, mark my words.”
Oh. My. God. The woman was insane, and I shrugged at her, heading down the hall to look for myself.
I already knew what was in the first room, so I didn’t bother opening the door. When the second swung open, I gasped as I turned on the light.
There were huge floor rugs that had been rolled up and stacked in the corner. A giant sofa was crammed in the room along with a bunch of throw pillows. I’d be back in there for sure, but I really needed a ladder to change out the lightbulbs for ones that didn’t make people look like the Cryptkeeper.
The next room held more furniture, chairs and a few desks packed so tightly into the room that I couldn’t even go in. I was definitely going to pull some of this stuff out when I was ready for it, but I knew what would happen if I allowed myself to get off track now.
I’d never finish the job and Nick would come back to a half-decorated office.
Just two more doors to go, and the first one I opened was the one I needed. Inside wasn’t just a ladder, but also a toolbox, extra lamps and lightbulbs, cans of paint, and brushes, and even some fresh rollers.
I could paint the entire office.
As soon as I had the thought, I tried to push it out of my mind, but it was already worming its way in.
I knew that undertaking such a huge job wasn’t a good idea, but I could do it. I could paint the office for Nick.
Wouldn’t that be a surprise?
Grunting a little as I picked up the ladder, I staggered under its weight out into the office lobby. Linda looked up from her crossword, her mouth set in a firm line, but didn’t say anything as I centered the ladder under first light.
Ignoring the fact that I was terrified of heights, I climbed quickly up it and popped off the plastic guard over the bulb. Just as I reached for it, I had a terrible thought and turned to Linda.
“Do you know where the breaker is?”
She shrugged, which was honestly what I expected from her and I rolled my eyes before climbing back down the ladder. As soon as my feet were on the floor, my phone buzzed.
Hope things are going well with my aunt this morning. I heard that she can get a little grumpy when I’m not there to lighten the mood.
A little grumpy?
Is that what her problem is? I figured that she sucked on raw lemons before coming to work.
Then I wondered if that was too harsh and I sent a smiley face as well.
At this point, nothing would surprise me. Hope you have a good day.
I grinned at my phone but then Linda’s voice cut through my thoughts.
“You know that we don’t pay you to stand around and make moon eyes at the screen in your pocket, right? Get back to work, Katie.”
I opened my mouth to remind her that she wasn’t my boss, but snapped it shut again. She was an expert at being nasty, and if I argued with her, she was just going to drag me down to her level and beat me with experience.
It wasn’t worth it.
Instead, I just gave her a nod and then went off in search of the breaker box.
* * *
Later that evening I was curled up on the sofa texting Nick. I was exhausted, my arms felt like jelly from trying to change out all of the lightbulbs before lunch, and since Linda had refused to help me move any furniture to decorate the office, I’d had to handle it all on my own.
What I really wanted was to go to bed, but not when my phone kept buzzing.
And, yeah, I mean my phone. Not the burner.
He’d texted Marie to thank her for the luncheon on Thursday but after that, had been silent.
I didn’t mind. My phone hadn’t stopped buzzing.
I think you’ll like what I’m doing to the office.
Can’t wait. I’m thinking about coming home early on Friday so I can swing by and see everything before the weekend.
I squealed and held my phone to my chest. It sounded great, but it did mean that I had a lot of work to do before he made it back.
I could handle it, though, I was pretty sure. Rolling over, I pulled the blanket up over my shoulder. It was getting late here, which meant that it had to be well into the night in Italy, and I asked Nick that.
Shouldn’t you be getting some sleep? Don’t you have a long day of meetings and classes tomorrow with the doctor?
His typing bubbles appeared for a moment and then disappeared. On and off they popped, until his message finally appeared.
You’re right, I need to sleep. Oh, and I meant to ask you — Linda told me that Tasty Foods hasn’t cashed either of the checks we gave them. Will you look into it?”
The checks. I’d forgotten about them and the fact that something would need to happen with them to keep up the farce. All of the good feelings that I’d been having about talking to Nick suddenly left me and I shivered on the sofa.
I’ll look into it. Have you reached out to Marie or do you want me to?
I knew that he hadn’t, but that seemed like something that a normal person who wasn’t knee-deep in lies would ask.
His bubbles appeared.
Disappeared.
I wanted to talk to her about it after the luncheon, so I haven’t, but I’ll shoot her a text, too. Thanks, Katie.
Sure enough, a moment later, the burner phone buzzed and I grabbed it off of the coffee table even though I knew what it was going to say.
Was it time for me to ghost Nick?
Was that even something that I could do since Marie wasn’t a real person? I didn’t know if it was the best idea, but it seemed a lot better than trying to keep up the lie. Instead of answering him, I closed the phone and put it back down.
&
nbsp; It didn’t buzz again.
“Lots of things going on out here,” Tiffany said, walking into the living room. Like me, she already had on her pajamas, but she was carrying a stack of papers in her hand that she gave me when she sat down.
“What’s all this?” I turned the top one around to look at it. On the front of the pamphlet was a gorgeous condo building surrounded by huge trees and with a sidewalk that stretched off both sides of the photo.
“You said that you wanted an exit plan from here, so I’ve been picking these up for you when I’m out and about with clients. Some of them are probably too big for what you want, but you’re a big girl, so I thought you’d want to decide.”
There was a lump in my throat and I swallowed hard to get it to go down. Tiffany was right, this was what I had wanted, and it was the best thing to do.
“I like sleeping on your sofa,” I said, but she started laughing.
“No, you don’t. You complain about it ever single morning when you can’t move because your back hurts. You like coming over here to watch movies, and that will still happen. You need to know that you can stay here as long as you like, I just know that you’ve been feeling antsy about it.”
She was right, I had been feeling antsy. As much as I loved her, it was time for me to go. Well, it would be as soon as I had a bit more money from my job and quit spending it on Tasty Foods business
And the great part? I also knew that she was telling the truth that I could stay with her as long as I needed to.
“Thanks, you’re the best,” I told her, leaning onto her shoulder. Immediately, she wrapped her arms around me and pulled me close.
“I know. And I wouldn’t have brought that stuff home if you hadn’t been talking about it,” she said.
“I just have to make sure that I don’t get fired when Nick comes back and sees what I’ve done to the office, okay?”
“Deal. But really, from what you’ve said, I’m sure he’s going to love it. It’s not like you’re doing anything crazy, and if Tasty Foods is in the past for real, you can consider it a clean slate.”
I wanted her to be right, but I wasn’t sure that she was.
Chapter 23
It wasn’t until Friday morning that my burner phone buzzed again. To be honest, I’d almost forgotten that I even had it anymore. I kept it charged, sure, and I always carried it with me on the off chance that Nick would need me, but after he asked Marie why she hadn’t cashed the checks and I didn’t respond, I didn’t hear anything from him.
My office, which had just a few days before felt like it would have fit right in in an insane asylum, now had soft green walls, plants on almost every flat surface, and I’d even swapped out my old chair for a nicer one that was in storage. This one not only swiveled and adjusted the height, but also had bright orange fabric, which was probably why Linda had banished it in the first place.
I’d found a little kitty clock that kept time by moving its eyes and its tail at a garage sale, and I’d just glanced at it to see that it was technically still too early to grab lunch when my burner vibrated.
I stared at it like it was a snake.
“What’s this then?” I asked, reaching for it and flipping it open. It had to be Nick, or someone he’d given the number to, but it never crossed my mind that it would be something bad.
Marie, please let me know why you haven’t cashed the checks. I’m coming into the office in a little bit and we can meet then if you want.
For a moment, I hesitated, debating answering him, but then I shut the phone and pushed it away from me on my desk.
A little bit? How soon was a little bit? I wanted to text him and ask him, but figured that it would seem a little obsessive for me to ask him when exactly to expect him. Besides, that would mean breaking the silence that I’d managed so far.
There wasn’t any reason for Marie to reach out to him. She didn’t exist. As far as I was concerned, she was gone forever.
I could sit and look at the different condos and apartments that Tiffany had printed out for me.
I could research dogs since I was really considering getting myself a puppy.
Or I could take one more lap around the office to make sure that Linda hadn’t done anything to ruin all of my hard work. I didn’t put it past her to try to water my plants with coffee or something to try to kill them, so I’d been crystal clear with her that I was the only one who was going to take care of them.
“You know what?” I said, pushing back from my desk, “I have better things to do than sit here.” I grabbed my personal phone and left my office, closing my door quietly behind me.
Not that it mattered if I was quiet or not, because there wasn’t anyone around for me to disturb by being loud. Me just breathing bothered Linda, but I couldn’t very well help that. Linda and I had been the only two people in the office all week long. I’d been busy decorating, but she’d just sat at her desk alternating between working on a crossword puzzle and staring at something on her computer.
Just like a little kid who was afraid of getting caught looking at something they weren’t supposed to, she minimized the internet every time I walked by her desk and gave me a glare.
Whatever. If she was looking at porn, which I highly doubted, it was a problem for Nick to deal with when he got back, not for me to worry about. And besides, a little porn might be good for her and would help her calm down some.
She needed something, because the watered down decaf green tea she drank every single day obviously wasn’t helping her relax.
To be honest, she was probably shopping for something white or beige to try to replace some of the work I’d done in the office, but I had a very good feeling that once Nick saw how amazing everything looked, he wouldn’t mind the major changes.
“You just going to stand around and wait for him or do you need work to do?” Linda asked, her voice cutting through my thoughts.
I turned around to look at her, almost forgetting to put a fake smile on my face. “I thought he’d be back pretty soon, so I thought I’d walk through once more to make sure everything looks okay.”
“It doesn’t,” she assured me, then looked back at her screen. She muttered something, and I frowned, leaning forward to try to hear what she had to say, but I figured that it was probably just something super hateful, so I left it alone.
“He’ll love it,” I told her, but I was also trying to convince myself. The office was totally different than how he had left it, but that was the point, right?
One of the main reasons why Nick had hired me in the first place was to improve his brand image and make people think highly of his company. There wasn’t any way that I could do that without overhauling everything like I had.
Besides, the fact that Linda hated it so much kinda clued me in that I was on the right track. I didn’t think that she would be so anti-everything I’d done if it wasn’t something that Nick would enjoy at least a little.
“It’s your life,” she said, then nodded at the door behind me. “And I think that we’re both about to find out who knows Nick better.”
My heart fluttered in my chest and I turned around to see Nick reaching out to grab the door handle. Cool air swept into the office as he stepped inside, his face lighting up when he looked at me.
See?
He was happy to see me.
I had to control myself to keep from running at him and throwing myself into his arms. “Hey, Nick, welcome home,” I said, trying to make my voice sound light.
He was smiling when he walked up to me, then stopped a few feet away. “It’s good to be home,” he said. Linda cleared her throat behind me, giving me a chance to look at him and really take him in.
He looked refreshed, which wasn’t what normal people looked like when they’d just gotten back from flying halfway around the world, but there wasn’t anything particularly normal about Nick.
It only made sense that he would look just as gorgeous as he did when he’d left.
In one hand he held his briefcase, the other had his keys hanging loosely from his fingers. I wanted to reach out and take his keys so that I could link our fingers together. The kiss we shared a week ago had been so amazing, so momentous, that it wasn’t fair that there wasn’t a plaque right there in the floor to commemorate what had happened.
“What do you think about all of this?” Linda asked, pushing herself up from her desk and gesturing around the office.
Nick stopped for a moment and slowly turned, taking it all in.
I didn’t believe for a minute that he hadn’t noticed right when he’d walked in the door, but maybe he hadn’t. Maybe he’d been so enamored with the fact that he got to see me again that he couldn’t really focus on anything else.
Yeah, right.
I turned with him, trying to see the office through his eyes so that I would have an idea of what he was thinking. The lighting alone was enough to make a huge change in the office. I was so glad that I had changed out the lightbulbs right away. It created a softer glow that didn’t make me look as washed out and dead.
Plants were perched on Linda’s desk, on the coffee table I’d pulled out from the back hallway, and in his office, although he couldn’t see that one yet. I’d even bought a hook and hung a huge trailing philodendron right in front of the window.
Although I hadn’t had time to paint, and now felt like I’d need to run it by him instead of just doing it on my own, I had hung up some art around the office and waiting area so that everything wasn’t just white. The rug we were standing on had bold stripes in it that matched the largest painting hanging over the sofa.
Oh, and don’t think for one minute that I forgot about the throw pillows. They were there, too, adding pops of color and ensuring that anyone who sat on the sofa would be comfortable.
Believe me, I know all about the importance of a comfortable sofa, and I wasn’t about to let that be a sacrifice that people had to make just to come see him.