Chapter 3
April
Oh shit. Shit. Goddamn. Fuck. I was screwed, so very screwed. More screwed than I was that hot night at Comic-Con. Shit. Goddamn. Fuck. The sex had been the best I’d ever had, but it had not been worth this.
The best sex in the world was not worth it if it ended up ruining your life. Now Jordan knew I was the one in that video and he could reveal that at any time. And who knew? He might do it if I screwed up badly or if he decided it was in his best interest to do so.
How had this workday degraded so quickly? This morning I’d been so eager to put the viral video craziness behind me and start my new job. I was excited and raring to go, eager to please my new boss—my very hot, young, new boss.
I’d had to remind myself several times not to stare at him when I’d first brought him his coffee. It would not do to develop a crush. In fact, it could be downright detrimental.
He’d looked up at me, kind of bleary-eyed from an obvious hangover. But he was so gorgeous even with glassy eyes and a slightly greenish complexion. With his light brown hair and hazel eyes that sometimes looked green, sometimes brown, sometimes gray. I wondered if they changed color based on his mood or the clothes he wore. I spent at least an hour contemplating his eyes after I’d left him alone.
That was before all Hell had broken loose. Then he’d spoken to me like he wanted me gone yesterday.
Hours later, when I was elbow-deep in the files, I determined that I should resign on the spot while I still had my dignity. There was nothing they could do to me after the fact…right? I’d be safe if I resigned.
But if I quit this internship early, my counselor at the university wouldn’t be able to find me a new placement because I’d already graduated. I’d been placed here before finishing my studies and stayed on for the opportunity to get the coveted recommendation.
So I couldn’t quit and kiss that goodbye.
My hands trembled and I’d all but given up before I murmured my old adage to myself. WWSD? What would Scarlett O’Hara do? She’d never give up. She’d fight with her last breath. She had. Over and over.
But I wasn’t like Scarlett. I didn’t have courage. I gave in repeatedly. Because it was easier. I blinked back tears of frustration and kept at my work until Charles called over to me from his desk. “Hey, April. You’re wanted in R&D.”
Oh, shit. I glanced up at the clock. It was quarter after four. Damn it! Jordan had said to be there at four o’clock and now I was late. He’d surely fire me now. He already hated my ass. Why, really, was I even still here?
I contemplated that as I walked the route from my desk to Research and Development, which was on the other side of the complex. Somewhere along the line, Cari and Ingrid, another intern, fell into step alongside me.
“Hey, superstar,” Cari said with an obnoxious wink. “How’s your first day in the big leagues going?”
I shrugged. “Okay.” I stepped up my pace, glancing at my watch. Damn. I was so late.
“Where’re you off to in such a hurry?” Cari asked, speeding to keep up.
“I’m supposed to be at R&D right now. Jordan is meeting with other officers about some new equipment that just arrived—”
“Other officers?” Cari perked up. “You mean like Adam? Is Adam going to be there?”
I suppressed a sigh. While I agreed with her that the company’s CEO was ridiculously good-looking, I was starting to get weirded out by her constant fixation on him. It used to be all in fun. We’d make comments about what clothes he was wearing or how great his ass looked in jeans on casual Friday, but it started feeling wrong when I found out he had a girlfriend—and that that girlfriend was someone we had all worked with for months, Mia Strong.
Cari had refused to accept this because she’d always felt entitled to him in some bizarre way. I’d thought it was an innocent crush at first, but after his relationship with Mia had been revealed, she’d become enraged that Mia had swooped in and “stolen him right out from under” her.
I doubt it had actually happened that way, but Cari had become progressively unstable in the last year since I’d met her. I assumed this was due to the loss of her brother mere months before she’d started her internship, but it was hard to say because I didn’t know her that well to begin with. Either way, her fixation on Adam was growing into a determined hatred of Mia.
While we’d worked with her, Mia always kept to herself, but I never disliked her. Then she got sick—really sick—and I opened my big mouth at a party and said some stupid stuff. Cari had been nitpicking Mia’s appearance and I’d agreed with her. Mia had heard what I said and I felt mortified, but she handled it with grace and strength. When that happened, I’d wanted the ground to open up and swallow me on the spot. Not unlike the events of today, to be honest.
In answer to Cari’s question, I shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t even know if Adam’s in today.”
Her head jerked toward me in obvious shock. “You mean you work right in front of his office and you haven’t seen him? I’d be stalking his ass constantly if I worked up there.”
I wasn’t surprised by that admission.
“Nope. I’ve had too much to do. I’m there to work, not scope out the men.” Besides, personally I found Jordan hotter than Adam. There was something about his smolder, the gleam in those hazel eyes. The man oozed sex appeal. When he stood close to me today, though I’d been terrified, naturally, of the information he’d been conveying, I was also incredibly aware of him on every level. The smell of his subtle cologne. The feel of his hot breath on the back of my neck. His imposing height and solid build towering over me. I’d almost dropped to my knees to beg for mercy for reasons other than my job. I swallowed, wondering what was going on with me. My libido was in overdrive, and I had no one to thank for it but the hot mystery man of Comic-Con.
Alas, I personally hoped that wouldn’t be the best sex I’d ever have in my life or I’d have to box up all my sexy lingerie. Maybe I’d have to resort to running through the convention next year with a Falco helmet, trying it on every guy like Prince Charming had done for Cinderella with her glass slipper.
“I’m coming with you,” Cari squeaked.
“Me too!” Ingrid echoed, clapping her hands together.
“I’m not sure this is something you guys are allowed to come to.”
Cari shot me an unreadable look and then shrugged. “They can throw me out then. Better to ask forgiveness than permission!”
We walked through the double doors into R&D, which was set up like a giant warehouse with various terminals and stations. This area was used for testing new software and hardware. Since there had been talk of prototype equipment, I guessed in this case it was hardware.
A group of people huddled at the other side of the warehouse, and I spotted Jordan’s tall form among them. I rushed along while at the same time trying to walk so that my heeled boots wouldn’t echo loudly across the floor. When I’d almost reached the group, he turned, speared a look at me and glanced pointedly at his watch, scowling, before turning his attention back to the demonstration in front of us.
Adam Drake was standing in front of a giant screen in what was called command central—a huge video monitor that allowed a number of people to watch what was going on. The video game displayed was, of course, Dragon Epoch.
Near Adam, two play testers were perched atop circular platforms, wired into some strange-looking equipment with harnesses around their waists. Each woman wore goggles and matching tennis shoes with, as Adam pointed out, special sensors on them to track their every movement in the virtual world. I recognized one of the play testers as Adam’s fiancée, Mia. The other one was shorter, with a red braid dangling down her back.
Behind them, their characters were displayed on the screen. As the women walked, ran, or gestured on their platforms, their characters mirrored them in real-time. When Mia would swing her arm in a giant arc to the right, her character, Eloisa—so the name said above her head—would do the same thing on the screen before us with an almost undetectable delay.
Adam explained to the small crowd. “These sensors allow the game to interpret signals from the player’s body language to give commands to the character in the game, so that instead of using a keyboard or game controller, the player can use this equipment and their own gestures. What the players see on their goggle display is a three-dimensional depiction of the game environment. In this particular scenario, Mia is a spell caster and Katya plays a healer so their spells are different.” He turned to Mia. “Cast a fire blaze,” he said.
She made a wide-circled gesture with her right arm and then flicked her wrist. On the large screen in front of them, the character did the same thing and a giant ball of fire appeared between her hands. She hurled it, like a beach ball, out in front of her.
“Katya, as a healer, will use that same gesture to get a different effect.” Katya was the girl with the braid who kind of reminded me of a red-haired version of Katniss from The Hunger Games. She made the exact same gesture as Mia, and her character’s hands started to glow with pure green energy (I presumed meant to heal). Mia’s character became bathed in that energy. A sentence appeared in the dialogue box at the bottom of the screen: Eloisa has been completely healed!
The group murmured, summarily impressed. Even I was impressed and I wasn’t a gamer. To imagine people being able to communicate their intentions through movement in an online gaming forum was amazing. It held stunning implications for the future of gaming.
Adam held up a set of goggles much like the ones the women were wearing. “While we are watching the action on a two-dimensional surface, eventually, once the prototype equipment is universally implemented, players will see the in-game environment around them as three-dimensional. Players of melee classes—like warriors and mercenaries—will have representations of their weapons to carry and wield as they fight. As with spell casting, certain moves and gestures will equate to special fighting moves for those characters.”
We continued to watch as Eloisa and Persephone—Katya’s character—proceeded to duel each other. Adam explained that these two had been gaming together for over two years, since they’d met in the beta version of the original game. It had never occurred to me that Mia was a gamer.
I watched her as the demo played out. She seemed healthy and happy, swinging her hands and gesticulating while she kicked the crap—virtually—out of her friend. In the end, she ended up winning the duel.
The group clapped. Mia and Katya pulled off their goggles, appearing as if they’d gotten a bit of a workout. The crowd started to either disperse or talk among themselves, but I was too interested in what was happening in front of that video screen. Mia was grinning up at Adam and he smiled back, watching her with a look I could not describe as anything other than sheer adoration. There was this gleam in his dark eyes and he never took them off of her. She said something, cocking an eyebrow and tilting her head cheekily, and he laughed, curling an arm around her waist and whispering in her ear. Whatever his reply had been, it had made her both laugh and blush furiously.
This was like the last time I’d watched them together—at that same party where I’d made the awful remarks. The way they looked at each other was as if no one else in the world existed but the two of them. Like the entire world could pass them by, and as long as they had each other, they would be fine. They would be happy.
My heart pinched in my chest. Someday, I wanted a man to look at me like that. And when I looked at him back, I’d have those same feelings in my heart. My throat tightened.
Cari leaned in conspiratorially and muttered, “Ugh, she makes me sick.”
I straightened, leaning away from her. I knew exactly who she was talking about. On a regular basis, she picked apart Mia’s clothes and looks, though it was ridiculous because it was obvious that Mia was a beautiful woman, even while she’d been ill.
Cari’s mockery had grown since they got engaged. She’d spent hours raging to me about the size of Mia’s engagement ring. “It’s at least three carats; it has to be. Shit, why do the brown-haired mousy girls get all the luck? I want a gazillionaire. I want that gazillionaire,” she’d ranted.
“She looks happy. Healthy,” I replied neutrally, reminding her that, up until a few months ago, Mia had been sick with a life-threatening illness. But she’d pulled through and Adam had stood by her through it all. He appeared to be a top-notch guy and it seemed like she deserved him. Apparently, others didn’t see it that way.
Ingrid was agreeing with every word out of Cari’s mouth, just like the rest of the herd did. Just like I’d often feigned to do. I wondered how many of them really agreed with her or how many of them, like me, were too chicken to speak up and disagree, lest she turn her wrath on one of us.
“What’s so special about her, though? Why would he pick her?” Cari whined.
I fought rolling my eyes and Ingrid leaned in. “She’s not so great. She’s tall and thin and pretty, I guess, but she’s so flat-chested.”
My mouth dropped and I felt ill. The poor woman had survived breast cancer. Who knew what surgeries she’d had to endure, and they were taking pot shots at her figure? Women were so cruel to each other sometimes, and these two were gross. And I was gross for having gone along with them as long as I had.
“Excuse me, I’d better check with the boss and find out if he wants me to do anything,” I lied.
To be honest, approaching Jordan at this moment was extremely low on my list of things I wanted to do, considering our previous confrontation and his revelation that he knew I was the person in the wretched video. But I needed some excuse to get away from this conversation that was now making me feel icky.
Cari’s eyes narrowed and I suspected she’d figured out I was getting bothered. I sent her my trademark hide-everything grin, hoping that would cover for me, and then I crept up to Jordan’s side.
He hadn’t noticed me, as he was having a discussion with someone next to him. Cari was watching me, so I figured I’d better at least appear as if I were talking to Jordan. I cleared my throat. “Excuse me.”
Jordan glanced over his shoulder at me and then turned and continued his conversation. I raised my eyebrows and gritted my teeth. I’d stand here until he acknowledged me, then, damn it all.
He spun suddenly and said, “Weiss, take some pictures of Mia and Kat wearing the equipment. I got video of Adam’s demo, but I need still shots. Go up there and ask them to put it on again and model it for you.”
“Uh. Okay…”
“You’ve got your smart phone on you, I presume? You seem to be a big fan of your smart phone…” he said with extra meaning layering his voice. My face and neck heated and I avoided his eyes.
Then he raised his hand and snapped his fingers inches in front of my face. “Quick, get up there before they leave! And email me the photos. Then get back to your filing job.”
Did he just snap his fingers at me? I was so mortified—and, to be truthful, terrified—that I couldn’t speak, even when I opened my mouth. He’d already turned back to his companion, who happened to be a very beautiful woman—designer suit, Jimmy Choos, expensive highlights and lowlights in her blond hair. She was all decked out. Who was she? I’d never seen her before. Maybe his girlfriend du jour?
I fumed, pulled out my cell phone—the very one that I’d used to tape mystery-man and myself having sex—and walked toward the big screens and the trio standing in front of them, still joking around.
They stopped their conversation, then turned and looked at me when I appeared. “Uh, hi.”
“Hey, April,” Adam said.
Mia glanced at me and then away, clearly remembering my offensive words about her a few months ago at the party. “Hey,” she muttered.
Adam pointed to the red-haired girl. “April, this is Kat. She works in playtesting. April is Jordan’s assistant now.”
Mia turned back to me, her thin brows raised. “Oh really? You’re working for Jordan? God be with you,” she said, making a mock sign of the cross as if she were a priest, blessing me.
Kat sputtered a laugh. “Yeah, how’d you screw up to get that position?” I bit my lip. So apparently I hadn’t gotten the memo that Jordan had a rep for being a hardass at the office. Kat and Mia seemed to know a lot that I didn’t.
Adam gave them both warning looks. “I worked with April’s dad at Sony for a little while. She’s been in marketing for so long, I figured she could use a change of scenery.”
My mouth opened, shocked. I had no idea. And now I realized why I was working in the CFO’s office. Not through my own merit. I’d been deluding myself to assume it had been my own hard work that had gotten me here.
I wondered if my dad had something to do with this—maybe asked Adam to move me up. I knew that he felt guilty nowadays. Maybe he didn’t feel his generous monthly allowance was enough to absolve him of it.
Dad and I hadn’t connected in any meaningful way in a long time. He was lost in his work, and what little time he had left was spent with his new family. It always seemed like I was an afterthought. So instead of attention, he lavished me with money. And now, I guessed, pulling strings.
I glanced quickly over my shoulder, hoping that Cari hadn’t heard Adam’s comment. But no, she was carefully watching this interaction and appeared to have heard everything. I was uneasy with her knowing any more of my weak spots. She already knew more than enough to sink me.
“Uh, Jordan wanted some photos of you two wearing the equipment, if that’s okay?” I held up my cell phone. “I promise to get only your good sides.”
Adam turned to them and quietly explained something that I couldn’t hear. Both of them nodded and pulled on their goggles before once again stepping onto the platforms. Kat posed like a comic book super heroine, doing arm curls and hulk-like poses. Mia laughed and teased her, dancing in front of her with her dukes up like a boxer while I snapped photos.
“Okay, look up, please, and smile.”
They posed, their arms around each other’s shoulders. Mia raised her fist and said, “Girl Power!”
“Word,” Kat agreed.
Jordan and the blonde approached our group. Adam turned to Jordan’s lovely companion and smiled. “Hey, Lindsay, glad you could make it.”
“That’s some pretty impressive stuff you were just flashing there, Drake. I’ve got my checkbook out. Where do I sign on to invest?” she laughed. “And you’re looking gorgeous today, Mia. How are you doing?”
Adam, Mia and Lindsay continued to chat briefly. They all seemed to know each other so well that I really did wonder if this Lindsay woman was Jordan’s girlfriend. She looked older than him by about five to seven years. Maybe the bad boy was settling down. They appeared to make an attractive couple, though that thought irritated me so I didn’t dwell on it.
After a few minutes, Adam said something to Mia, kissing her on the cheek, and then he, Jordan and Lindsay moved away to talk to a couple of guys from developing.
I turned back to Mia. She was a very pretty woman, tall and thin with short dark hair and brown eyes. Those eyes suddenly fixed on me as she seemed to realize that I was still there, waiting.
“Hey, Mia,” I started nervously, tucking my phone into my pocket. “Could I—um…”
“Hello, Mia…” Cari said, bumping up against me. She threw an arm around my shoulder and I stiffened. “April and I were just talking about you.”
Mia’s lips thinned. “Funny, I didn’t feel my ears burning.”
“I think—” I began.
“Yeah, we were saying that you look so good, considering. I mean, you are looking a lot better than you were.”
My face burned, and Mia and Kat exchanged a long look.
“Also, I wanted to get a close-up glance of your gorgeous ring. You are so lucky. Can I?” She reached out her hand.
Mia paused and then hesitantly held it out so Cari could get a closer look. “Wow, Mia. Just wow. You sure are living the dream.”
I stared at Cari, mouth open, and pulled away from her. Mia was already turned toward Katya, and they began to walk away with their heads close together as they talked. I took a step forward and Cari put a hand on my arm. “Hey, April. We should hang out. Maybe tonight…”
“I have the project from hell to work on—for the boss from hell.” I glanced in Jordan’s direction. He and the blonde were leaving the warehouse, and Adam was going off in a different direction with the developers.
I grasped at that in order to get rid of Cari. “Oh, look at that, Adam’s leaving…”
Cari spun and waved for Ingrid to join her. “Gotta go! See ya.” She and Ingrid fell into step behind Adam and his group, as I suspected she would.
I watched her go and my heart sank. I’d let Cari spoil my opportunity to apologize to Mia. And I’d thought up all the things I wanted to say, too. About how I shouldn’t have said what I had, how I was so sorry I’d hurt her feelings. I clenched my teeth in frustration and turned, dejectedly making my way back out of the warehouse.
Taking responsibility for my bad behavior toward her would have felt good, even if it was scary. I had no idea if Mia would reject my apology or laugh at it or whatever. But I was angry that I’d allowed Cari to railroad my attempt so easily. I also knew that, deep down, I was too chicken to stand up for myself. I didn’t make waves. It had always been like that.
Having to go from one reluctant parent to the other every other week while growing up had taught me that if I wanted to fit in, I’d have to tell them what they wanted to hear and show them a smile while doing it.
What was worse was that this might have been my only chance to apologize to Mia, since my job future was extremely uncertain. It occurred to me that I owed Jordan an apology, too. Maybe this was one I could find the courage for.
During the entire walk back to his office, I rehearsed what I was going to say to him. By the time I arrived there, I had a beautiful speech all planned in my head. It sounded poetic and perfect, like another of my favorite book heroines, Anne Shirley from Anne of Green Gables.
When she’d practiced her lovely apologies, she’d charmed the old town gossip, Rachel Lynde, who had been prejudiced against the new orphan girl in town. I could do that. My words, like Anne’s, would need to be heartfelt. I could definitely do that.
It was only with a slightly shaky hand that I raised my fist and knocked on Jordan’s closed office door. He grunted for me to come in.
Anne liked to get down on one knee to profess her apology. I wouldn’t go that far, but I made sure to stand front and center before his desk. Luckily, this time he was sitting down—he was much less intimidating that way. I clasped my hands in front of me.
“Well? Did you get the photos?”
“Yes, they’re already in your inbox. I just—”
“And the files? What about those?”
“About halfway done. I’ll stay late and finish them, but—”
“Then what are you standing here for? Get back to them. It’s five, for Chrissakes.”
“Um, I wanted to say something first, please. If you’ll let me get a word in.”
He stood, narrowing his eyes and clenching his teeth. He slowly came around the front of his desk, sat on it and folded powerful arms across his wide chest. So much for not feeling intimidated. I literally gulped.
He raised a brow and then held out his wrist to look at his watch. “You have three minutes. Starting now.”
I blinked. Had Rachel Lynde timed Anne during her speech? In a panic, the words came rushing out of my mouth in no particular order at all. “I just wanted to say that I know you don’t know me at all, but I’ve always tried to do the right thing. I’ve…um…I’ve had some judgment lapses lately and made some serious mistakes that I deeply regret, but I want to do the right thing and that includes this video situation.”
I was rambling, I knew, but I couldn’t stop myself. I took a deep breath to continue on. “I never do stuff like that. I’d never done anything like that. I mean, it was amazing sex—no idea it could be that good—but with all this trouble it’s caused...” My voice faded out for a moment at the cocky smirk that hovered on his lips. Oh God, I couldn’t believe I said that. I sounded so pathetic.
“I—I never set out to hurt anyone or the company. But I was in a pretty dark place at the convention. There was this thing—I don’t want to get into it, but my family is kind of screwed up and I let it mess with my head and I did a really stupid thing. And I feel terrible that the company has been dragged into it so—”
“Time!” he said, cutting me off. He hadn’t taken his eyes off his watch the entire time I’d been speaking. I swallowed.
“Weiss, you just said absolutely nothing to me. All I heard was ‘blah, blah, blah.’” He held up his hand, opened and closed it like a quacking duck. “Get back to work.”
I sucked in a painful breath. It had taken a lot to say all that. I’d spent twenty minutes summoning up my courage to get it out.
My cheeks heated. “I resign,” I said.
His handsome features did not change in the least. “What?”
“I said that I’m resigning.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes. I’m giving you my resignation, and all I ask is that you keep my identity secret as long as possible. So I might be able to find another position to intern somewhere else.”
He stood and now towered over me. I was on the shorter side of medium height—okay, five-four. And he was at least six feet tall, probably taller.
“You’re not interning somewhere else because you’re not resigning.”
“I just did.”
“No, you said ‘blah, blah, blah.’” He opened his hand again. I wanted to slap that damn hand. “Now get out here and finish my goddamn files.”
“But—”
“And you are not allowed to talk to anyone about that video. Ignore that it exists.”
I opened and closed my mouth several times, positive I looked exactly like a carp. He stepped up to me, standing less than a foot away. Then he bent and got in my face. He could have been saying anything to me, but all I could do was reel from how good he smelled. His scent was warm, like cinnamon, and dry like the white sage that grew in the Southern California coastal hills. My nostrils twitched.
His eyes narrowed. “Knock off the fish face and get the files done.”
I closed my mouth, pivoted and walked out of the office. What the what?
He left an hour after our talk, not even saying goodbye, simply nodding in my direction as he walked by. I sat in a daze for several more hours as I finished my pain-in-the-ass task.
So, that was interesting. My Anne Shirley apology didn’t work on him…or did it? Maybe he would have fired me otherwise? I wasn’t quite sure. All I knew was that I’d divulged way too much information—information that it bugged me he now knew.
Maybe my apology had been so pathetic that he’d taken pity on me and decided against firing me for that very reason. Well, whatever it was, I still had my job though I’d likely never find out why.