Page 4 of Keep Your Friends Close and Your… Work Enemy Closer?

Annalise

"So it takes exactly zero point six four seconds to say the name Cordelia," I said as I passed by jerk face.

He didn't reply, just got out his phone and said the word, "Dee." Looking at me triumphantly, his lips curved into a smile. "Dee takes point one six."

I rolled my eyes at him. "Point four eight seconds of a difference. Big fucking deal."

"That's nearly half a second. And time is money, baby."

"Don't you dare baby me. And what doyouknow about money anyway?" I eyed his ill-fitting, rumpled suit and scuffed up shoes with obvious disdain, ignoring the fact that I had just asked an extremely condescending question. Usually, I would never go there, ever, but this guy seriously got under my skin and brought out the absolute worst in me.

But instead of getting mad or rightfully upset at me suggesting he had no money, he arched a brow at me. "Wouldn't you like to know? Because I'm secretly a billionaire going undercover, slumming it with the plebeians."

His words left me breathless because, oh my fucking God,did he know? I certainly wasn't a billionaire, but I did have plenty of money, courtesy of my late grandmother's trust fund, and I was indeed undercover. "Ha ha," I managed to say. "Very funny."

With a low laugh, he turned back to his paperwork and got busy, clicking his pen over and over and over in the most obnoxious rhythm. I tried my best to ignore him, going through the daily slog of emails, sorting them, replying to a few, making notes here and there.

Click, click, click. Clickety, clickety, click.

Click, click, click. Clickety, clickety, click.

Stifling the exasperated sigh I was desperate to sigh, I looked over the to-do list I'd left myself from yesterday, creating a new one with jerk face in mind, his training, what I could possibly pass on to him.

Click, click, click. Clickety, clickety, click.

Click, click, click. Clickety, clickety, click.

That was it. I whirled my chair around to face him. "Do you mind?"

"Mind what?" His face, his eyes behind his glasses, looked bewildered.

Glasses. Shit. All this chaos with Jared had made me forget to don my fake reading glasses. It'd be too obvious if I put them on now.

"Mind what?" he repeated.

"Do you mind not clicking your pen every split second?"

"Oh. I didn't even realize I was doing that. Have a song stuck in my head." He reached out an arm and clicked the offending pen right in front of me. "Can you tell what it is?"

"Whatwhatis?"

"The song. Duh."

Click, click, click. Clickety, clickety, click.

Click, click, click. Clickety, clickety, click.

"No. And I don't want to know."

"Well, you obviously have no musical taste."

"Just because I don't enjoy yourpen musicdoes not mean I have no musical taste. If you could please stop, I would actuallylike to get some work done today." I shoved my chair away from him, sick to death of this day already and it was only nine o'clock.

"Sheesh. Fine. And it was INXS by the way. 'Need You Tonight.'"

"Never heard of them," I said, just to annoy him.

"Never heard of them?" His stupid mouth hung open. "Are you for real?"

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