Page 40 of How to Get Even

Chase sat at his desk, rolling his chair forwards and backwards. Something was off, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. And it wasn’t helping his mood at all.

Ever since yesterday when somehow instead of sugar, there had been salt in his coffee, actuallyinthe sugar wrapper, which could only have been a mix up at the factory, he’d started dabbing his finger into the white substance, and it made Chase feel like an addict.

He checked his watch. He’d scheduled a team meeting for 10a.m., hoping that everyone would have suitably recovered from the night before. Chase barely recognised himself. Twelve months ago he would never have imagined that he’d not only be arranging team meetings, but doing so, cruelly, the morning after a night out. But Bella had been right. He needed to let the team know about Zadzisai. It wasn’t fair to keep them in the dark.

Chase rolled back in his chair, still feeling like something was off as Bella knocked on his door looking alarmingly fresh at the head of the rest of the team.

He gestured for them to come in. Ali entered clutching her tablet, a notepad and the biggest can of energy drink he’d ever seen. Maurice looked as if he should have been wearing sunglasses.

‘Morning boss,’ Ye-Joon said brightly, bringing up the rear.

The kid was a fucking ray of sunshine and as much as Chase wanted to hate that, he really didn’t.

‘Ye-Joon. You’ve met our new comms director?’

‘Yeah, just now. She’s cool,’ he said, bobbing his head on his lanky frame.

Bella smiled at the compliment as if it really meant something to her and he felt a thump in his chest.

Ali could barely take her eyes off Ye-Joon and wasn’t being subtle about it either. Bella’s gaze tracked back and forth between the two. Ali might as well have had hearts in her eyes for how obvious it was. And Ye-Joon might as well have been hit over the head with a hammer for how oblivious he was.

As people got settled, he watched Bella retrieve something from her bag and pass it to Maurice beneath the line of the table. He mouthed, ‘Thank you,’ back before reaching for his water and swallowing what was presumably painkillers.

They were little things. Small gestures between them, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that they’d become a little unit. A little unit that he was about to put under a huge amount of pressure.

He took a breath.

‘Oh!’ Ali exclaimed, reaching into her bag, and pulling out a cardboard box with pastries.

‘Thank you, Jesus,’ Maurice whispered, not so much under his breath as on it as he reached for the nearest and quickest way of loading his body full of sugar, fats and just a little salt.

Salt.

He grimaced and eyed the coffee station on the side table with suspicion.

He looked back to find Bella’s eyes on him before she looked back down to her coffee.

‘Bella?’ Ali offered.

‘No, thank you.’

No. Chase didn’t think that a good girl like Bella would consume more than half her daily calories before 10.30 in the morning and as if in challenge, he purposefully leaned forward and picked out the one doughnut covered in the most sugar and took a huge bite, and he felt her gaze on him the entire time. She bit her lip and he nearly choked, and that was enough to remind him where they were and what he thought he was playing at.

He’d like to blame the hangover, but he didn’t have one. He took a mouthful of coffee to wash down the sugar and cleared his throat.

‘Okay. So, now that I have you all here, I’ve got some news.’

‘You’re leaving?’ Ali accused.

‘You’re closing the gallery for the day and we can all go home?’ Ye-Joon offered.

‘Bella’s pregnant?’ Maurice said, causing Ali to squeal, Chase to laugh and Bella to gasp in horror.

‘None of those things.’ Chase was quick to recover in time to see Bella looking at him in accusation as if what Maurice had said washisfault. ‘At least?—’

‘No. Not pregnant,’ Bella replied firmly. ‘And I swear that if one,one, newspaper headline remotely even suggests?—’

A chorus of ‘no’s filled the room without Bella having to finish the threat.

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