Page 22 of The Lessons

I sighed. “Good, but I can’t find the report Cathy gave me last week. I know I put it right here.” I motioned toward the top of my desk. “I can’t believe I lost it.”

“Oh, relax, I’m sure it will turn up. Hey, I was thinking about going across the street for lunch. You want to come?” she asked with a big smile.

I was about to invent an excuse when my subconscious hissed at me.She’s trying to be nice, Reese. Don’t be an intro-bitch.Of course, my subconscious was right. So what if I was normally inclined to take lunch at my desk each day? The West Coast was all about reinventing myself, right? And at a new job, I needed every ally I could get.

I pasted on a smile. “Sounds great. Noon?”

“Perfect!” she squealed. “I’ll swing by on my way to the elevator!”

Cathy and I had a check-in scheduled for that morning, so after an unfruitful thirty minutes of searching for that damned report, I made my way down the hallway toward her office. As luck would have it, Brad was in there with her, working on her computer. He was leaning over her shoulder as he used her mouse. Both of them looked rather excited by whatever was on the screen. I paused there waiting, until I grew perplexed by how close they were. I mean, they were this close. That was weird, right?

“This is so great, Brad. God, I love technology,” Cathy said. It was obvious they hadn’t noticed me standing in the doorway.

“Ahem,” I said, clearing my throat.

Cathy and Brad whipped their eyes over but otherwise didn't budge.

“Natalie, come in. Brad was just showing me the most wonderful thing. We’re going to be able to save thousands of dollars by hosting our demo site internally before the launch.”

I sat down in one of the leather chairs on the opposite side of her desk and leaned in to see her screen. “Really? That is awesome. Good thinking, Brad.”

He stood up from behind Cathy and shrugged. “We aim to please.” Shrugging again, he checked something on his iPhone. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, duty calls. I believe Kent has managed to lock himself out of the online database.”

“Isn’t that the second time this week?” Cathy asked.

“Third.” He smiled. “Ladies.” He nodded to us both, and as he passed me, he winked.

My stomach twisted.

Fuck.

“So, Natalie, now that you’re more settled in,” Cathy started as I desperately tried to refocus. “I wanted to talk to you about taking over the customer development project.”

I pulled out my pad of paper and started to take notes. As she spoke, I got more and more excited; the project sounded huge and had a lot of potential to influence the direction of Heaven Sent.

“Now, one last thing you should know—” She paused and appeared to consider her words before continuing. “Paulina was the project lead on this before we hired you, but she’s overloaded. Besides, the marketing team really should be taking the lead on this work anyway, so you’ll be taking over for her. She can give you all the notes on the project up to this point, but I really want you to be the one carrying it forward.”

“Sure, Cathy. Does she already know that the transfer is happening?” The last thing I wanted was have someone think I was hijacking her work. It was not my goal to make enemies the first month on the job.

“Oh, yes, of course. We talked about it last week. She’s been prepped. You’re good to go.”

“Great. This sounds really good. I can’t wait to get started.”

“Excellent. That’s what I was hoping to hear. Natalie, this is a major project, and it’s a critical time for Heaven Sent. I can’t officially make any promises, but if you do well on this, it’s going to be a great feather in your cap.”

I smiled. “Thanks, Cathy.”

Once the lunch hour rolled around, Paulina and I settled into chips and sandwiches at a deli down the street. We spent about fifteen minutes talking about the project transition before Paulina held up her hands.

“Okay, stop. Enough shop talk. It’s lunchtime. Let’s talk about you. How are you acclimating to life at Heaven Sent? Not as racy as you thought?” She grinned as she popped a chip into her mouth.

I chuckled as I chewed a bite of my sandwich. So far, the job had been anything but racy, that was for sure. For the most part, it was all about ad campaigns and ROI and audience studies. “Nah, it’s cool. I like the work. But yeah, it’s not super-glam, I guess.”

Paulina sat forward in her chair. “I know, right?” She glanced to her left and right before leaning in more. “Want a piece of advice?”

I furrowed my eyebrows and cocked my head at her. “Sure, always.”

“Whatever you do, don’t tell any guys you date that you work at a lingerie company.”

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