Page 43 of Tell Me What you Think

She ends the call and sits there a few seconds without moving. Until a few days ago, she'd felt like there was a safety net beneath her — that her grandmother would have done things right, that the will would surface somewhere — but that possibility has vanished, and all that's left is her and a pile of boxes that make her sigh with exhaustion just at the thought of opening them.

"Everything okay?"

She spins around and holds her breath. Marina is in the office doorway, arms crossed, watching her. She looks particularly beautiful today — not because she's put in more effort than usual, but because she's just on, one of those days when you could skip the mirror entirely and still look amazing. On top of that, there's been a problem with the heating that the maintenance guys are still working on, and in the meantime the temperature across the whole floor has climbed, so Marina has stripped off her sweater and rolled her shirtsleeves below the elbows, one button more than necessary undone at the collar.

"My cousin's lawyer got back to us." Olga tries not to stare at her neck, but it's hard to pull her eyes off that collarbone. "They're saying the whole agreement thing is something we invented, and if I don't pay by the end of the month, he'll file the lawsuit."

"What a gentleman, your cousin," Marina mutters. "What does Andrea say?"

"That it's theater, that they're pushing that angle because they've got nothing else." She glances down at her hands — the cold sweat is still settled all through her body. "But I have to find that damn document from the notary's office. Without it, I could be in real trouble. Tomorrow I'm locking myself in that room and I'm not coming out until I find it, or until I figure out it's not there — in which case I'm jumping out the window."

Marina's smile appears out of nowhere, crooked and unsettling.

"I'll help you, if you want."

"What?" Olga's head snaps up.

The vice president goes completely still, still processing what she's clearly just let slip without thinking — betrayed by that brain of hers that's been acting without her permission lately.

"I'll help you. Two sets of eyes are better than one," she says, because she can't take it back now.

"Are you sure?" Olga's heart is beating everywhere at once. "I don't want to bother you if you've got things to do."

She does have things to do. On Saturday mornings she usually does her grocery run for the week, and she'd been thinking about hitting a mall afterward to buy a coat, grabbing lunch somewhere, and spending the afternoon on the couch — trying not to think about a certain rosy-cheeked assistant with brown hair who watches her with wide eyes. But apparently her mind has decided that helping the woman responsible for her sexual frustration is a better plan than any of that.

"It's Saturday, Olga. My plans don't go much beyond cleaning my place and watching a movie," she lies, smooth as anything. "I can do that Sunday, so if you want, I'm all yours."

Olga's mouth falls open, and Marina realizes she maybe didn't pick the best way to phrase that — but she's been doing things she normally wouldn't for days now, so she lets it stand.

"Um—" Olga knows the right answer is to thank her and say no. She can't be cooped up in her apartment all day with the woman she's in love with. Her body won't survive it, and she might do something stupid — like kiss her again for no reason. "Yeah, okay," she says, flushed. "I could really use the help. There are a lot of boxes."

"Great." Marina runs a quick mental calculation — she can scratch everything except the weekly grocery run, but if she goes first thing it'll be fine. "Would around ten work for you?"

"Yes, of course, whenever you want. I'll make plenty of coffee for both of us," she says, nervous.

Marina smiles. She finds Olga absolutely endearing like this — flustered and hesitant — but the smile cuts short the moment Olga lifts her arms to sweep her hair up into a ponytail, and a strange flutter drops low in her stomach at the sight of that bare neck.

"Okay, I'll get back to it. Try not to overthink this — the paper will turn up, you'll see. Oh, find me a slot on Monday to meet with Jordi, and set up a call with Duarte for the afternoon. I've got some questions I've been meaning to ask him."

She doesn't wait for an answer. She turns and heads straight to her desk. She's unsettled, and the urge to snap at someone is rising, but she forces herself to breathe slowly and take a few seconds to think. She doesn't understand what's happening to her. She doesn't go around staring at women's necks. She doesn't get turned on thinking about a kiss that was barely a brush of lips. Her pupils dilate and her lips part when she realizes that damn kiss is behind all of it.

"God," she breathes, inhaling sharply.

"Are you serious?" Silvia asks, sliding a paper napkin under her beer.

Obviously, Olga couldn't hold it in. The second Marina left her alone, she opened the internal chat and messaged her friend that she had an emergency. And now here they are, Silvia fighting back a laugh while Olga tells her Marina is coming to her apartment.

"I'm not going to survive this. Her in my place, leaving the scent of her perfume on my walls. I'll die, Silvia."

She buries her face in her hands, dramatic, and her friend lets out the laugh she's been choking on.

"This whole thing is so weird," Silvia says once she's settled down.

"Of course it's weird. My hands are going to shake so bad I won't be able to read a single paper without the words dancing around, and she's going to see it and figure out I'm an idiot."

Silvia wants to laugh again but swallows it and leans in.

"You'll be nervous at first — that's normal, and you know it'll pass. Just treat it like work. At the end of the day, you've already spent countless hours alone with her during the holiday shifts."