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"And she hasn't gotten back to me."
Elias snickers again, louder this time. I'd swear he could hear our conversation, if it weren't for the mortification spreading across Doris' features, like a giant billboard of my incompetence, staining her cheeks angrily. "You didn't think to call?"
Now she wants me to call all twenty-three Katies? Well, that doesn't sound very efficient to me.
"I did," I lie. "Went to voicemail."
Her eyes narrow into slits. "Really?"
I nod, humming confidently. Only for the color to drain from my face when she picks up her phone and starts dialing. Shit. "Actually, I meant—"
Doris swivels in her chair, pinning me on the spot. "Why hello, Katie... Oh, nothing, just making sure your phone's working." She smiles at me. "My new intern said he couldn't reach you. Seems he has a lot to learn... Mhmm, I know... Sorry to be a bother. Goodbye now." She slaps the phone back on its cradle roughly, her mouth agape on what's surely a promise of endless paperwork and scut, until Elias' door creaks open.
"... and be sure to include a section about their quarterly budget variances. We're encroaching into their market space, so double check everything."
"Yes, Mr. Kingston." A soft voice drifts our way. Doris holds her tongue and swings back toward her desk, plopping a pair of headphones on, before a young woman walks out in tall heels, clad in a matching skirt-blazer combo. "I'll have that report back to you next week."
Elias leans against the doorframe, the spitting image of industry royalty. "I need it by Monday."
Unashamed, his eyes crawl down her body, then flick back up. His appearance is so similar to mine yet colder, harder, and suddenly it's like I'm outside of my own skin, watching me drink in Juliana's presence for the first time and the last.
A nervous chuckle passes her ruby lips as she sweeps a bang behind her ear. "Of course, Mr. Kingston. I'll get it done."
"Good." He smirks, dismissing her with a nod.
After a shy goodbye, her heels eat up the carpet past my desk, rendering me invisible once again. Annoyance crackles across my skin as I catch the blush staining her cheeks and the devilish fire raging in Elias's eyes.
I scoff and cross my arms.
"Do you have something you'd like to say, Hayden?" he drawls, fixating on her long legs.
"Seems like we're not so different, are we?"
"Don't answer a question with a question."
Power-tripping maniac.
"Sorry, your highness." I stifle a laugh when his jaw ticks. Finally, his head turns to me. Down to me, more like. "Let me rephrase. After watching that, I almost forgot you're engaged."
"Oh, please, like you're one to lecture about monogamy." He gives me a bored look. "If you really care to know, Andrea and I's engagement is strictly business. We opened the relationship up a long time ago. She can mess with whomever she pleases, and same goes with me. As long as we don't end up on some gossip tabloid, there's no problem."
Hmph. That actually makes... an awful lot of sense.
I nearly let him off the hook, until I remember the whole reason for starting this pointless mind game in the first place. He's a hypocrite, who never misses an opportunity to bad mouth my promiscuous nature. Yet here he is, surveying the landscape in his own place of work.
"What happened to not shitting where you eat?"
His smile is brash. "She's an intern. She won't be here long."
Gross. What a fantastic loophole.
"Bet the report you assigned her is actually useful," I grumble beneath my breath.
Sure, I haven't put forth an ounce of effort and I'm actively avoiding my own report, but that's because it's pointless. Truly pointless. No one in this company, least of all my brother, will find a use for it, seeing as this particular quarter-one revenue analysis is from three years back and already exists. I'm replicating it for absolutely no reason.
Like I said. I'm a little kid who can't touch anything.
Sensing my irritation, Elias creeps toward me, a lion stalking a gazelle. His eyes flick over my shoulder to my monitor, and as he draws closer, the redness in them becomes increasingly noticeable, his pupils dilated to an unnatural size.
