Page 83 of Company Ink

My phone vibrates in my pocket.Monique."Uh—I have to take this call, but I'll see you later, okay?"

"At lunch," Adrian says, scanning my face with an intense gaze. "On Thursday."

"Sounds good. Until then I guess," I say, heading out the kitchen. I answer Monique's call. Thank you buffer queen. "Hi, Mon, what's up?"

"It's three pounds now!" she shrieks.

Dear God.

When will this end?

twenty-eight

safety net

"Wait, say that again," I probe Kitty as we fix our make-up in the bathroom mirror. "The retreat is at BlakeIsland? Seriously?"How did I miss that?

This morning we received the itinerary for the retreat this weekend. The coach bus will be at the firm to pick us up at noon sharp (Nadine underlined and highlighted the wordsharpin red, kinda aggro but I guess people tend to be late), then we head to the ferry terminal, and after an hour we arrive at the resort. The next two days are stacked with team building activities, the first one starting only thirty minutes after we arrive. So much for downtime.

Kitty opens her mouth wide and applies another coat of mascara. "Yeah, kind of funny, right? I wonder if Mr. Pearson owns the island."

I blink at my colleague. "He doesn'townan island, Kit. He's a lawyer, not a Saudi prince."

Kitty shrugs, her eye twitching. She definitely just poked herself with her mascara wand. Rookie mistake. "I wish there was an island named after me," she muses to herself. "Kitty Island, has a nice ring to it, don't you think?"

"There's an island in Japan called Aoshima, its nickname is Cat Island. There are like 20 residents and over one hundred and twenty cats. That's kind of like a kitty island."

Kitty tosses her makeup back into her purse and faces me. "I love cats! That sounds like heaven!"

"Yeah, totally," I lie, not wanting to have the cats versus dogs, argument with yet another feline fanatic.

"You wanna grab some lunch now?" Kitty asks as we exit the bathroom. "I'm not likesuperhungry but I could go for a salad or something."

"Oh, I can't. I'm supposed to have lunch with Adrian." I instantly wince. Fuck. Shouldn't have said that.

"Adrian?" Kitty wiggles her eyebrows. "On a first name basis, are you? What's going on there, Cass?"

Bless full coverage foundation, without which, Kitty might see me blushing. "Nothing's going on, I just—I just call him Adrian sometimes."

"Hmm, is that so?" Kitty hums. "I call him Adrian sometimes too."

I blanch. "Wait, what? Why doyoucall him Adrian? Did you guys…I mean, have you—" Oh my God, my heart is beating way too fast right now.

Kitty laughs, waving me off. "No, Cassie, relax. I've never slept with him. Mr. Cav interned under my dad when he was an undergrad. That's actually how I got this job."

"Oh," I sigh with relief.She totally got me."Your dad's a lawyer too?"

"He was yeah, but he retired and closed his practice just before I graduated," she explains quickly as we stop by my desk. "So, seeing as you practically fainted at the idea of me possibly having a thing with Mr. Cav, I wanna say that there's something going on there?"

I shake my head vigorously. "Nope, I was just concerned...for your safety." What the fu—Lie better.

"My safety? Right..." Kitty says, not believing a word I'm saying. "Well, if you ever wanna talk boys, I'm here."

"Okay," I peep. "But we won't, 'cause there's nothing going on."

Kitty taps her nails melodically on my desk. "Lunch with Mr. Pearson on Tuesday, lunch with Mr. Cav today," she sings. "Interesting."

"Kitty..." I warn her in a strained tone. This is not appropriate work talk. "Don't."

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