Page 24 of Tell Me What you Think

"Merry Christmas, Olga. Give Marina my best."

The woman shakes her hand again.

"I will. Merry Christmas to you too."

"We'll be in touch. If anything comes up or you have any questions, call me. If I don't answer, I'll call you back when I can."

"Thank you."

When Olga steps out of the building it's already completely dark, and the Christmas decorations light up the street outside the office. She tucks her hands in her pockets and walks toward the bus stop feeling renewed. The terror that had been lodged in her gut is gone, and even though it's clear this could drag on for a while, Olga is ready to stand her ground against her con-artist cousin — and as if thinking about him had summoned him, her phone starts ringing and his name, which she saved the other night, appears on the screen.

Olga hesitates about whether to answer, but curiosity wins out.

"Hey, how's it going?" he says, as if nothing has happened. "Ready for tomorrow? Christmas Eve, I mean."

Olga can't believe his nerve.

"What do you want, Marc?"

"Nothing, come on — I was just wondering if you'd thought about what I said the other day. I know I caught you off guard and I get that you panicked, but now that you've had time to cool down, maybe you've thought it over. This isn't good for either of us, Olga. Look, if we settle this before the end of the year I'll take quite a bit less than what I'm owed. We sign it, just you and me, like family. You get rid of your problem, I get rid of mine — but it has to be now, Olga, because—"

"I'm not signing anything, Marc. You can save the calls and the nice-guy routine. I just hired a lawyer, so from now on she'll be handling this, and I don't care how far it has to go. I'm not giving away my share of the inheritance, so don't call me again."

"You were always the favorite," he says before she can hang up. "Even my dad used to say it — that in our grandparents' eyes you were the one they loved more."

Olga knows he's lying, that he's just playing the victim to soften her up. She didn't see much of him at their grandparents' place growing up, but they always mentioned him to her, and whatever gift they bought for one, they bought for the other.

"Merry Christmas, Marc."

Olga hangs up and wonders for a moment whether she should call Andrea to tell her about the call, but decides it would just be bothering her over nothing.

Chapter 11

"This silence is weird," Olga says out loud, lifting her eyes from her screen to look through the open door of Marina's office.

It's almost noon on that Wednesday, December thirtieth, and the only lights on in the twenty-second floor are the ones by the elevator landing and the ones in the vice president's office.

They've both been working at Marina's desk since Monday, the only two people in the building during this Christmas break the rest of the company is taking. They've been at it nonstop, deep in the Nauta acquisition, combing through documentation and countless client contracts to get a clear picture of what they're actually buying.

Marina looks up too and takes the chance to stretch her neck, rolling her head in slow, easy circles that make Olga hold her breath. She still can't figure out how she survives sitting barely a foot away from her boss. When Marina suggested it a couple of days ago—said it was more practical than calling her every five minutes—Olga nearly fell out of her chair. Just the thought of the proximity, of being wrapped in that perfume all day, of watching those fingers move across the laptop with such focus, sent her whole body into overdrive. But to her surprise, she only feels absolutely wired for the first half hour each morning. That's when she can't focus or pick up the thread of what they're doing. Once she finds it, though, she dives straight into the work and only blushes when her boss smiles at something small, or when Marina suddenly asks her to lean over and look at something on her screen. In those moments Olga's mind goes completely blank and her thoughts drift to Marina's mouth instead of whatever she's trying to explain.

"I like it," Marina says, still scanning a column of numbers. "It's like working from home, but here, without the background chaos of a normal day in the office."

"Does the noise bother you?" Olga asks.

Marina glances away from her screen for a second and makes a small face as she thinks, pressing her lips together and then running her tongue across them—which makes Olga exhale.

"Not really. I tune it out after about ten minutes of being here, but I think it gets into your head and wears you down without you even noticing. That's why when I get home I don't turn on the TV or anything loud for at least an hour. I need that time to decompress. Although sometimes I can hear the kids from my upstairs neighbor and that's almost worse than being here."

Olga smiles, and her lips stay curved even after they've both gone back to their work, because she loves these small details about Marina's daily life that her boss lets slip every now and then. It's easy to picture her at home—walking barefoot the moment she comes in, because another thing Marina has mentioned is that she takes her heels off as soon as she's inside so she doesn't disturb the neighbors. Olga can see her heading to the bedroom while she unbuttons her shirt, getting ready to step into the shower. She always stops herself there, at those open buttons, because her mind immediately snaps back to the day she walked into the office and found Marina with her shirt off. That had been an unexpected gift and a torture all at once, because the sight of the curve of her breasts above the dark navy bra she'd been wearing that day has haunted her ever since.

"Where do I order lunch from today?" Olga asks after a while.

"Do you like Japanese food? There's a restaurant two blocks over that has sushi worth crying over. We could order from there."

"I love sushi."

Olga opens the delivery app, sets the filters, and turns her screen toward her boss to show her the options.