Page 12 of Black Ties and White Lies

Margo spins on her heels immediately, her puffy lips parting when her eyes land on me. When she looks me up and down, I can’t help but wonder if she likes what she sees.

“Beck?” she gasps. Her green eyes are wide as they travel over my features. It’s like she’s trying to figure out if I’m actually here or just a figment of her imagination.

“Thisis Beck?” The girl attempts to whisper, but it comes out more as a yell. “You didn’t tell me our new boss looked likethat!”

Margo aims a dirty look in the girl’s direction. “Shut up, Emma. He’s not that special to look at.”

Someone busts out laughing from a few cubicles away. They quickly try to hide the laughter with a cough, but it’s too late. Margo gives them a dirty look, muttering something incoherent under her breath.

“Stop lying to yourself,” the coworker—Emma—mumbles. “That’s the best looking man I’ve ever seen.” She bites into an apple I just now notice she’s holding. She chews on it loudly, not shy about looking me up and down.

“I think I hate you,” Margo snaps, shoving what must be her friend from the cubicle space. Her friend fights her by digging her heels into the ground. Margo is smaller than Emma, but still manages to move her a few feet.

I reach out to tap the bobblehead she’d been swinging around minutes before. As the head bobbles up and down, I look at her with a bored expression. “Working hard?” I ask sarcastically.

She scoffs, looking over her shoulder to her computer screen. “Emma and I were going over a new design before you walked in.”

“Is that so?”

“Yep,” she answers confidently.

Emma smacks her palm to her forehead, groaning dramatically.

My eyes flick to the computer monitor, to the flashing login screen, the evidence clear as day that Margo hasn’t even logged in for the morning, let alone looked over a design.

“You’re not even logged in, Mar.” Emma grabs Margo by the shoulders, turning her until she’s face to face with the proof of her lie.

“Oh…” I can only see her profile, but her wince is obvious.

Margo tucks her hand into the back pocket of her jeans as she spins to face me again. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m just going to go get to work,” Emma mumbles. Her fingers wiggle with a goodbye as she rushes to her own desk.

“You’ve been ignoring me,” I state, pinning her with a scowl. This is the second time the woman has had the nerve to disregard me. It’s something that won’t happen again.

“To ignore someone, they first have to call.”

“I gave you my business card. Something I rarely hand out, might I add. You not calling is as good as ignoring me.” I let my eyes roam over her work space. For someone who's worked here for some time, her space is pretty boring. It’s not like I can talk. The only things on the walls of my office are my framed diplomas. But that’s the way I like things—clean and simple.

Margo doesn’t strike me as the clean and simple type. She seems wild and chaotic, someone who likes things unhinged and messy. I’d imagined her desk being unkept, her artwork hung with mismatched thumbtacks. The only signs anyone works at the desk are the coffee mugs that are haphazardly placed.

She shrugs. “I figured if you wanted to talk, you’d call.”

I fight the urge to roll my eyes at her. She gets under my skin more than I care to admit. It shouldn’t bother me she didn’t call me, yet I’ve lost sleep wondering why my phone hasn’t rung with her voice on the other line.

Taking a deep breath, I point to the purse she has sitting underneath her desk. “Grab your things. We’re leaving.”

Her arms cross her chest as she tries to make herself look tough. It doesn't work. If anything, she looks annoyingly adorable with the pose, her eyebrows pinched together in what’s supposed to look like a mean expression. “I have to work.”

One of my eyebrows raise. “You work for me now, remember, Miss Moretti?”

“I’m well aware,” she spits back.

I smile, taking a step closer to her. We’re still a healthy distance apart. Noticing all of the eyes that are focused on us, I lower my voice as I speak next to her ear. “As my new assistant, you have places to be.”

“It’s not Monday yet,” she aggravatingly points out.

My eyes turn into slits as I drink in the smug look on her face. “I changed my mind. You’re needed today. Right now.”

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