Page 21 of By the Fae

“I’m going to work with Goldie.”

Chapter 8.

Goldie

“What the hell was that? Me? You chose me?”

I pulled Holly, by her puny human arm, from the boardroom to my office and slammed the door behind us. Which was easier said than done. Damn infuriating soft close hinges.

“It’s always so dark in here,” she said, rubbing her bicep.

“You’ve been in my office a grand total of once before. How do you know it’s always dark in here?”

Her eyes went wide, and she shook those curls. “You’re right.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, annoyed at myself as soon as the apology slipped out. It still didn’t forgive this whole situation. “If I hurt your arm. I forget how flimsy humans are.”

“Hmmpff,” she said. I turned my back to hide my smirk.

I was still pissed at her. How dare she choose me? There I was doing everything in my possession to avoid her, and she goes and picks me to shadow. Eight weeks of being near each other. Eight weeks of talking to each other like adults. Of working towards the same goal. Of sharing ideas, staying late in the office, almost touching. Eight weeks of that violet-raspberry perfume, and those dungarees.

“I can’t work with you! You’re not shadowing me. So, you can just go right ahead and march back to August’s office and tell her you’ve chosen someone else. Lans or Greyson, or anyone.”Anyone but Seth.

I couldn’t sleep after last night’s succubus incident. As much as I tried to tell myself glamouring Holly and the reaction my body had to her image was only scratching an itch, I couldn’t seem to stop thinking about it. Not about Holly. I wasn’t thinking about Holly. Gods. But I had come to the very definite conclusion that I needed to forget she existed. By completely ignoring her at work. A plan, until ten minutes ago, I assumed would be easy to accomplish.

After all, weeks, months would go by with no interaction from the other senior designers, save for team meetings. It might sound like a long time to not see my colleagues, but time was relative. A fae and a human did not experience the same two months.

What’s more, I was convinced she’d choose Seth.

I mean, why wouldn’t she pick the guy that fulfilled every single one of her weird little tent-wearing fantasies in appearances alone?

“All the other guys want me to work with them now,” she said. She wrapped a curl around her finger and looked at her feet. “Well, they want tenure.”

No,I told myself.You are not allowed to feel guilty, or protective, or whatever the hell these new alien feelings swelling inside me were.

“So go work with one of them,” I snapped. I started pacing. She had the absolute gall to sit down on my sofa.

“I don’t want to work with them.” The way she said it had me thinking she was trying to convince herself as well as me. “I want to work with you?”

Gods, did she just phrase that as a question? “Clearly.”

She cleared her throat. “Um, my style is more closely aligned with yours than any of the Other Five.”

“There are six other designers.”

Two pops of colour appeared on her cheeks. “Yep, six, right. How silly of me.”

I definitely did not think Holly was cute with her blotchy, pink cheeks. I continued to pace.

That’s when I spotted the glamoured picture of her on the sketchpad. I tore the top sheet off, balled it up, and tossed it into the trash. Her eyes followed its trajectory, but from her position, there was no way she could have seen what was on it.

“So, what’s the real reason?” I said. “Why have you chosen to ruin my life for the next two months?”

She winced. Good. Let her suffer. “You don’t want tenure?”

Of course I wanted tenure. But this wasn’t about tenure, it wasn’t even about my job. This was about not leaping headfirst into the stupidest decision of my life.

“Flip it then. If you won’t tell me why you chose me, at least tell me why I should work with you. Why can you help me get tenure?” I said.

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