Page 18 of In Love and War
For the last three months, I’d pretended that wall didn’t exist. Not only had I actively refused to look through it, but I’d strategically placed several plants to obstruct a good portion of my view into the room without making it seem obvious that’s what I was doing.
He was currently seated at his desk, typing on his computer. I watched him for a few seconds, debating whether to interrupt or not. He was wearing his glasses…
Zackary Evans
Stop staring and come here
The IM popped up on my screen before I could make a decision. He hadn’t taken his eyes off his computer the entire time I’d been looking, which had been a maximum of five seconds, I swear.
Amelia Bloom
I wasn’t staring
Zackary Evans
Not subtly you weren’t
Rolling my eyes, I grabbed my notebook and made my way over.
“Good morning,” I said politely, taking a seat in one of the black leather chairs in front of his desk, facing him.
He pointed to a chair that he’d pulled beside him. “You’ll need to be able to see my screens.”
“Right.” I got up and made my way around the desk, sitting as far away from him as possible while still being able to read what was on his monitors.
He smelled like soap mixed with his signature cologne.
I pushed my chair back a little farther.
For the next few hours, he talked me through the details of the proposal and the campaign, everything he’d worked on so far, what had been promised, what we were responsible for, and what we would be working together with Yuval on.
It was a lot.
The amount of work he’d put into this thing would have taken the average person well over a year to do; he’d managed it in four months. It was really hard not to be impressed.
Believe me, I tried.
I took extensive notes and asked questions until I was confident I had all of the information needed. I hadn’t noticed it was already past one o’clock until Andrew knocked on the door, asking us if we’d like lunch delivered.
“I actually have to leave for a client event shortly,” Zac said as he took a quick look at his watch. Apparently, he’d also lost track of time.
“I’m good too. I’ll just grab something quick from downstairs. Thank you, Andrew.”
“I’ll send you copies of all of this right now so you can get started,” Zac said once his assistant had left.
“Can’t you just add me to the shared folder?” It seemed like the obvious thing to do.
He gave me a look, his eyebrows slightly raised.
“Oh my God. You cannot actually still think I’m going to screw you over on this whole thing. Zac,I didn’t know.” I emphasized the last bit, speaking slowly as if to a toddler.
“Guilty until proven innocent when it comes to you, Amelia,” he said, dragging the files into an email and sending them to me.
“You are so cynical.” I gathered my notes and stood up. “But fine. It’ll be a pain in your ass, not mine, to have to then save all my work in there.”
“I’ll need to review your work before it gets saved anyway. I learned that lesson during your internship,” he said bitterly. “This little stunt of your old boss’s added a bunch of work to my plate. So, tell me, which do you think is the bigger pain in my ass?” He tapped his pen on the table, actually looking at me as if he were expecting a response.
Dick.
