Page 62 of Austen Persuaded

His scowl slowly turned into a grin. “Except me.”

I raised my eyebrows in challenge. “Game on?”

He laughed and linked arms with me. “This is horrid: I think I might like you. But also hate you. All right, let’s get you set up at your desk before you head to the HR snoozefest, I mean, orientation.”

I smiled and relaxed my shoulders but not my determination. One battle won, probably many to go. I could do this. I was born to do this.

“I’m taking you to brunch,” Sofia announced the next morning when she waltzed over to my desk.

“Oh, I—”

“You do not want to cross me when it comes to brunch,” she said, hands on her hips. She flipped her long black hair behind her shoulders and grinned. “Annie, I’m so excited you’re going to be my new assistant! I knew from the moment you stumbled into the interview that you were theone. I love you already. Sorry we didn’t get to chat yesterday, but my day was ridiculous, buried in calls and emails. I’d much rather be meeting a client in person, but lately it’s been a lot of phone and texts and stuff.”

“I’m the same way,” I said. “We’ll have a lot in common. So, what time for brunch?” I glanced at the schedule on my computer screen. “My HR orientation is 11–4.”

“Blah, OK. We’ll go around 9:30 then, so we have plenty of time.”

“That’s … soon. OK!”

“Are you too busy?” Sofia said, laughter in her tone as I shook my head. “I thought not. You will be soon though, so let’s take advantage of this time to chat. I’ll pretend I don’t have a mountain of messages to return and manuscripts to read today.”

I smiled in spite of myself. That—the phone calls, the emails, the manuscripts in the slush pile, the work of agenting—was what I couldn’t wait to start doing. Sofia was busy, but she lookedalive. Everyone here did. I’d never experienced that while doing freelance editing. There was nothing wrong with that job, of course, but it hadn’t been right for me. Why had I continued doing it so long? I shook my head in wonder.

Sofia was talking though, and I felt bad, realizing I hadn’t heard everything. I heard a change in Sofia’s tone as she pressed her lips together. “Right, IT guy’s here. Well, I’ll leave you to your busy Day 2 schedule for now and see you in half an hour. I can’t wait!” She smiled brightly and headed back to her office just as Annie turned to see Rainn standing a short distance away, thick arms crossed over his chest. He was glowering.

My roommate never glowered.

“Rainn? Hey, what’s up? Have you come to install the database, or … what’s wrong?” I frowned.

“Nothing,” he grunted. I stood up so he could take my chair and use the computer. As he began doing his IT magic on my computer, I noticed he was sweating a bit and frowning.

“What’s wrong?” I repeated.

“I’m working,” he snapped.

I reared back and sat in shocked silence for over a minute. Finally, he swiveled in the chair toward me with his eyes lowered. “Sorry, Annie. I don’t like her.”

“You don’t … you mean Sofia?” I asked, shocked. “You don’t like Sofia? She seems awesome.”

How could anyone not like Sofia?

“Well, not to me,” he said, turning back to the computer.

“Did she do something to you?”

He didn’t answer.

“Rainn?”

He sighed. “Just because I know you won’t ever give up …” he leaned closer, whispering, “I overheard her saying I was ‘just a muscle man’ to another agent. I can tolerate ‘IT guy,’ but ‘muscle man,’ really?”

I tilted my head. “Are you sure it was her? She seems really great. I can’t picture her saying that.”

“Of course I’m sure it was her. I have eyes.” He scowled.

I shrugged. “Is it possible she didn’t know you worked here yet? Maybe she thought you were the water cooler guy or something?”

“Is that supposed to make it OK?”

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