Page 42 of Interning For A Billionaire

“Who is he?” she asked.

I had to think fast. “Someone… I met in class,” I whispered.

“Kick boxing?” Samira hardly ever showed up and I’d noticed that there were always different people in the class.

“How long has this been going on?”

“Not long,” I said with a little smile. “The thing is… we kind of, have to keep it quiet.”

“Why? Is he married?”

The thing with Samira was that she had an overactive imagination. But it came in helpfully now.

“No… but…” I couldn’t come up with another solution quickly enough.

“He has a girlfriend?” she supplied, again.

“Yes,” I nodded, relieved. “I told him, he needs to break up with her first, but he says he can’t.” I couldn’t think quickly enough why not. I thought I’d leave it to Samira to supply the answer and again, she didn’t disappoint.

“Why? Is she bipolar? Schizophrenic? Depressed? My brother dated a girl once who threatened to commit suicide every time he wanted to leave her. It was a nightmare. He almost married her!”

“It’s something like that,” I said, nodding seriously, trying not to laugh. The whole situation was ludicrous.

Behind me, there was a ping from the computer, which meant I’d received another message. I was scared it would pop up on the screen and quickly switched the whole computer off.

“God, I wish he would stop,” I said, pretending to be annoyed. “I’ve told him I won’t see him anymore until he breaks up with her, but he keeps saying he needs more time.”

Samira nodded sympathetically.

“Let’s get coffee,” she said. The kitchen was downstairs, and we had to walk across the top floor to reach the escalator. We passed Michael’s office and I casually glanced over to see him leaning forward on his desk, watching me with a smile.

My heart beat faster as I followed Samira down the escalator. She was telling me about her romance with Piotr.

I couldn’t wait to get back to my computer to see what Michael had sent me. The past two weeks had been a blur of seeing him and coming to work and pretending not to know him at all. We chatted all the time online, and found ways of seeing each other at the office.

It started with meeting each other in the copy room, but that was situated close to the kitchen and people were always going in there to make coffee and gossip. Another possibility was the disabled toilets, but we had to be careful here too, because there were a few pregnant women who used this bathroom, even though expecting a baby could hardly qualify as a disability.

Sneaking around the office also opened my eyes to what was really going on at work.

For instance, the stairwell was not used by most people. People mostly used the escalator and there was also an elevator for the other two floors above and the parking garage.

We’d met up on the stairs once and as we came down, almost stumbled on two designers who were busy doing cocaine off a tea tray. They looked up and we quickly stepped against the wall.

“Anyone there?” they called up and obviously spooked, they left, but not before quickly doing a line each. Another time, as I waited for Michael to join me, another developer stormed in, hissing into the phone to what sounded like, some sort of debt collector.

“I told you… I’ll get the money!” He listened for a bit then interrupted the caller. “Don’t call me at work and don’t come to my house. I’ll have the cash for you… No! Tomorrow is too soon, give me until the end of the week, please!”

I realized how many people led secret lives, hiding stuff from each other, from their colleagues and bosses. It made me notice the way people would behave around the office too when no one knew they were watching. What did people really do in the bathrooms when they disappeared into them for half an hour. Was it really a burrito acting up, or something seedier?

When I switched my computer back on, the first message that popped up was from Michael:

Michael: Shall we switch back underwear. Pleeeeeez! This thong is killing me!

Me: I warned you!

I had trouble not laughing out loud.

This had been his idea. That we give each other some of our own underwear to wear to work.

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