Page 9 of All the Right Words
‘So, how long have you worked at Parker?’ Harper asked.
OK, polite conversation time with Harper. That was fine. Gina could do that. ‘Six years.’
‘Wow,’ Harper said. ‘Long time.’
‘I guess.’
‘And you were always Michael’s assistant?’
‘Yes.’ There was a story to how she’d ended up in the job, but she wouldn’t go into all that.
‘What about before then? Were you at one of the others?’ Harper said, digging, working those big green eyes on her.
‘I was doing data entry for an insurance place,’ Gina said reluctantly.
‘But you ended up working for Michael? Quite a jump. How did that happen?’
‘The data entry was to support myself while I wrote a book,’ Gina muttered quickly.
‘You’re an author!’ Harper exclaimed.
Gina felt angry now about how this conversation was going. She hated talking about this. ‘No, just an assistant now. But it did lead me to getting into publishing.’
‘Sure. But…’
Gina sighed, deciding to get this over with. ‘I had a deal with them. Almost. I had a lot of meetings and got to know Michael. I got very close. But then, before I signed, they shut it down. They decided there was no audience for the book.’
‘That sucks,’ Harper said. It sounded genuine, but Gina didn’t buy it. She was just being polite.
‘I guess,’ Gina shrugged. ‘But Michael took pity on me and hired me to work for him. He said I could learn the business while I wrote my next book. But when you see how things work, well…’
Harper nodded sagely. ‘You got discouraged.’
Even if that was accurate, Gina didn’t want Harper to think she knew her. ‘People look at certain successful authors and think, yeah, that could be me. But it’s such a small number that make a living at it. I just decided to save myself a life of disappointment.’ That was quite a thing to say to someone she didn’t know, and she felt a disturbing warmth spreading up her neck. She took a very long drink of coffee while she collected herself.
Harper didn’t seem to be put off. ‘I’d be interested to read your book.’
Gina promptly knocked her coffee over. A bit got on Harper. ‘Shit. Sorry.’
Harper only laughed, dabbing her silky sleeve. ‘Don’t worry about it.’
Gina wanted to die right there and then. That was weird because it didn’t matter if she’d embarrassed herself in front of Harper, did it? Gina was above that type of crap. She didn’t care what anyone thought.
Harper checked her watch. ‘Well, I guess I better get back up there. Just in case Brenda pulled a gun on Olivia,’ she said. She swallowed the last of her coffee and stood. Gina necked her remaining drink and stood too, glad this was over. The whole thing had been thoroughly awkward. This was why Harper didn’t socialise at work. People always wanted to know things about you—nosy bastards.
***
Gina was back in her tiny office. It adjoined Olivia’s larger, fancier one and the difference couldn’t have been starker. Gina supposed the difference was that her office wasn’t furnished with ill-gotten gains. It was basic Ikea. Still, it was all Gina’s, which had its benefits. She didn’t have to make small talk with people like Vincent. Whenever she got near the guy, she could feel her IQ dropping from contact stupidity.
Gina’s connecting door was closed, so she couldn’t hear much from the meeting. Harper was in there now, with Brenda and Olivia. The muttering was low, the tone hard to read. But then an easy laugh rang out. Gina recognised it as Harper’s. Something had turned around in there.
Gina heard Olivia’s main door open. Gina’s hall door was ajar, so she could listen in full HD now.
‘I’m so glad you came in today, Brenda. I really wanted to talk to you in person about all this. It was just unfortunate timing with Harper being away.’
‘Well, it’s sorted now,’ Brenda said snarkily. She sounded a lot less ready to kill everyone in the building than she had half an hour ago, which was something. But, as Gina was starting to realise, that was Olivia’s gift. She was better at the business side than even Michael, schmoozer extraordinaire.
‘Oh, lemme just say bye to Gina,’ Harper said, and Gina had about a second and a half to panic before Harper popped her head around the door and said, ‘I’m just heading off now, but just wanted to thank you for the coffee and the chat.’
