Page 2 of Tell Me What you Think

Marina nods, and when she blinks those long, thick lashes, something flutters in Olga's chest like a wave crashing through her. She drops her gaze, because holding it in those eyes risks losing herself completely in them, and she only realizes she's let it land on Marina's full lips when those lips start to move.

"Can you send it to my email before this afternoon's meeting?"

"Yes, of course. I thought Ricard had already sent it to you," she says, quietly proud that the whole sentence came out intact.

Marina moistens her lips just then, right before the left corner curves up ever so slightly — and Olga's underwear is done for. That smile is something of an office legend, and for good reason. The regional director has a scar on her upper lip, close to the left corner — a thin line that starts right at the edge and disappears inside her mouth. It doesn't distort her lip, but it pulls her smile to that side in a way that, rather than being a flaw, makes it infuriatingly sexy and utterly devastating.

"Ricard tends to send me everything I didn't ask for and forget exactly what I actually need," Marina says — not as a criticism, just a wry observation, since everyone on the floor knows the vice president is the most absentminded person in the building.

Olga lets out a laugh that comes out strangled with nerves, and when Marina moves on and she watches that ass she would very much love to have in her hands, she wants to smack herself in the forehead. Something always goes sideways around the regional director — if she's not cracking her voice, she's saying something idiotic because her nerves never fail to betray her. It's ridiculous and she knows it. She's a thirty-eight-year-old woman with a solid career behind her, and she loses her breath because a senior executive remembers her name and stops to talk to her every once in a while.

"Great," she whispers under her breath, forcing herself to move and praying she won't spend the entire meeting staring.

Two years of this is a slow kind of torture. Sometimes she wishes she could wake up and discover it's all just a fantasy, a dream that leaves her warm and wanting, but she knows it's nothing of the sort — Marina Cardona is real, and she is far too attractive and far too sharp to ignore. Add to that the fact that she's a good boss who doesn't take credit for other people's work but calls it out and praises it in front of everyone, and the result is that Olga still hasn't found a single thing about her she doesn't like. She'd love to. Something truly damning, ideally — like that she's a serial killer, or eats small animals for breakfast — but honestly, even then, she's not sure it would help.

"Hey, what a morning," Silvia says, catching up with her just before they reach the conference room.

"Crazy? It's barely ten," Olga replies, puzzled.

"Try managing a team and then get back to me," her friend huffs.

Silvia heads the development team, and sometimes she ends the day so wound up that she drags Olga to a bar nearby for a couple of beers to take the edge off.

"What's going on with you? You're as red as a tomato," Silvia asks, noticing her friend's expression.

A cold trickle runs down Olga's spine and she reaches up to touch her own cheeks.

"Is it that obvious?" Her eyes go wide. "On a scale of one to ten, how red am I?"

Silvia bursts out laughing, grabs her by the arm, and pulls her away from the door.

"You ran into Cardona, didn't you?" she says, though she already knows the answer — Olga's reaction to the regional director is always automatic, her cheeks and chest flushing from their usual pale tone to a deep red she can never hide.

"About a minute ago," Olga admits. "God, she must think I'm a total idiot."

"A coward is what I'd call you, but not an idiot," Silvia teases, giving her a nudge. "Seriously, Olga — don't you think two years is long enough?"

"It could be twenty and it wouldn't matter. Have you ever stopped to think about how awkward that would be? Hey, Marina, I was wondering if you're, like, a little bit into women," she says in a mock voice, drawing another laugh from her friend.

"You're so dramatic. And kind of extreme, if you don't mind me saying."

"I do mind," she tries to cut her off, unsuccessfully.

"Doesn't matter, I'm saying it anyway. You don't have to be that direct. Just feel it out — invite her for coffee first, then another coffee, then lunch, and if she finally says yes to drinks, you've got her."

"Since when do you know so much about dating women?" Olga asks, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, it can't be that different from flirting with a guy, can it?"

Olga decides not to answer, tilts her face up toward the ceiling as if begging for patience, and this time it's she who takes her friend by the arm.

"Come on. The meeting's about to start."

She walks through the door with all the composure she can fake, as if she'd momentarily forgotten that somewhere among the thirty white chairs arranged around the table, Marina is sitting.

The regional director is between Ricard and Jordi Puig — the latter being the director of business development and, from what Olga has picked up over time, a pretty close friend of Marina's. Occasionally it's driven her a little crazy wondering if they might be something more.

"Stop staring and sit down," Silvia murmurs, pulling out two chairs at the far end of the table, where Olga will take notes for her boss without participating — while trying not to get lost in the sound of Marina's voice whenever she speaks.