Читать книгу Her Intern / Double Dare You - Anne Marsh - Страница 16

Lola

MAPLE AND I are having sad desk salads for lunch. She’s on some sort of mason jar salad kick this month, so she’s brought us each a glass jar crammed with more fiber and vegetables than I usually face in a week. Nellie flops by my feet, disappointed that it’s not bacon cheeseburger day.

Frankly, I’m voting with Nellie. When Maple hands me my jar, my first thought is ooh, super pretty. The greens and vegetables are layered inside like a healthy version of three-bean party dip. I unscrew the lid and poke my fork inside.

Maple aims hers at me. “How is Pretty Boy?”

She thinks it’s hilarious that my summer intern is none other than Hot Lap Guy. She asked how he took finding out I’d be his boss for the summer, but I wasn’t sure what to tell her. I tried to apologize, he announced he wasn’t pro second chances, and then he stayed anyhow. I think that means he’s decided we can work together. Yes, I’ve felt his penis up through his pants and he’s had his hand on my knee, but no one has seen anyone naked and there’s been no tongue (which is slightly disappointing, if I’m being honest).

I chew before confessing. “He’s a grumpy bastard.”

“A grumpy, gorgeous bastard?” Maple beams at me.

“He thinks I’m an idiot.” I wrestle with a cherry tomato that’s gotten wedged beneath a chunk of walnut.

“You’re crushing on him.” Maple doesn’t bother making it a question. I’m always crushing on someone, probably because it’s the safe kind of fun—I don’t have to actually do anything besides lurk on the sidelines and watch. This makes me sound like a creepy voyeur, when it’s more that if I ever actually had a real-life relationship, I’d want it to be a spectacular success. I hate failing.

“I’m not discussing my intern with you.” I shovel far too much salad into my mouth just in case she wears me down. Anything I say now will be garbled by arugula.

“So there’s something to discuss?”

“No!” I choke-swallow.

“But you wish there was.” She daintily spears her own cherry tomato. “You’ve imagined it.”

“It wouldn’t be professional.”

She sighs and screws the top back onto her mason jar. “You should go for it.”

“I don’t think we’re compatible. He’s gorgeous, but he insists on talking. Or barking orders. You’d think he was the company founder. I gave him a Burger King crown last week and he recycled it.”

“So not Prince Charming?”

I make a face. “Think troll living under the bridge. He’s cranky and he likes to jump out at people when they’re least expecting it and make ridiculous demands.”

“So shut him down.” Maple waves her hand for emphasis. Unfortunately, it’s the hand holding her fork and a piece of spinach crash-lands on my shirt.

“He’s useful.” I pick the spinach off my shirt, consider eating it, but opt for the mature route and instead deposit it in the trash can. “He organized the kitchen last week. He owns a label maker—do you think he qualifies as a psychopath?”

He’d tackled the kitchen because he was bored. Unfortunately, he had good reason to be. I’d code-checked the code he’d written for Calla and he could have sold it on the open market. He’d also finished in forty-three hours. When I’d questioned how he’d found the time, he’d yawned and said he had chronic insomnia and therefore more than enough spare time to knock out my stupid project. Then he’d proceeded to explain—in unnecessary detail—why my original request was flawed, which had led to yet another flaming row between us.

Maple groans. “Neither of you is crazy, okay? He’s just super organized and you’re—not.”

“I could learn to be.” My jaw is sending distress signals to my brain, demanding we go on chewing strike. I give up on the salad and make a mental note to hit the taco truck.

Maple snorts. “Or you could just keep driving him nuts.”

I eye her doubtfully. “I either babble or go mute when he shows up. I don’t think he’s exactly struck dumb with lust by my sexy person.”

Maple pats my shoulder. “Just sit on his lap again and it’ll all work out.”

Dev

Two weeks into my “internship,” I have a workable morning routine. I get up at the crack of dawn and power through whatever King Me requires before heading over to Calla. I’ve been putting out feelers, doing the social engineering thing, but so far none of my new office mates seem aware that their e-commerce software is pirated. And since their network is lamentably unsecure, I’ve had a few opportunities to poke around in their files—and yet I’ve turned up nothing. No clues. No answers. I suspect I need to get my hands on Lola’s laptop to uncover the truth.

Frankly, anyone who knows me as the billionaire boy genius would be horrified that I’m presently an administrative assistant and low-level code monkey, fetching coffee and contributing the odd line of entirely redundant code. Lola mumbled something about bikes and training wheels before darting off when I demanded better job opportunities, but she just doesn’t want anyone else touching her code.

I get it.

I suck at sharing, too, but after five years running King Me, I’ve learned some important lessons. As much as I hate giving up control, I also can’t do everything myself—and there are some tasks (accounting, payroll and cleaning the restrooms come to mind) that I refuse outright to do. I pay people well to do what I won’t. Lola, however, is everywhere at Calla, doing everything. She’s here constantly.

I sort of envy her her passion. I’ve considered selling King Me at the end of the year because I’m bored. Which probably explains why I’m here undercover at Calla rather than working in my posh office in downtown San Francisco. Yes, I named my company after the first game I ever won. I demolished my brothers at checkers and this way they can’t ever forget. It was too easy after a while, rather like King Me. I’m still not sure what I’ll do next. Sitting around on the beach and surfing all day isn’t enough.

Today, I stick to what I’ve dubbed The Routine. I chat briefly with the receptionist because establishing goodwill with Cerberus is smart. You never know when you might need to escape hell quickly. After a minute of witty repartee, I hole up with my laptop and check email. Next, I fetch coffee. I’ve coded a coffee app that lets my temporary office mates weigh in and change their minds a half dozen times without my having to kill them.

Lola has yet to use the app since her phone is always buried at the bottom of the ginormous tote bag she hauls around. I’ve already suggested using a tile, a pocket, or her bra strap to keep track of her phone, but she shot me down on all three counts.

I step into Lola’s office without knocking. Since her office has no doors and the wall between her and the main floor is glass, knocking is superfluous. Plus, her fat white dog makes a teakettle noise whenever I approach. She’s sitting on top of her yoga ball, half staring off into space, half frowning at her screen. She puffs her cheeks out and exhales. In an instant, I’m imagining what that small breath would feel like skating over my skin. It’s a stupid thought. It’s not like she’s even noticed that I’m here. Based on previous encounters, she’ll ignore me unless she’s decided to give me shit.

I saunter toward her, coffee tray expertly balanced in one hand. Time to effect some changes. This time when I slide her drink in front of her, I slide her laptop away at the same time. It’s a well-timed move, rather like turning the TV off on one of Max’s nephews. Her eyes widen in outrage, and like the nephews, she’s seconds away from vocal protests unless I provide her with a better option or break out the voice of God.

I squat down beside her yoga ball, pop the top off the cup and make a show of wafting cardamom and cinnamon-scented fumes toward her. The dog materializes seemingly out of nowhere, waddling toward me. As the bearer of treats, I’m allowed temporary access to her domain.

“You know you want it.”

Work inappropriate? Sure, but watch this. Lola just nods her head and grabs the cup. She’s challenged in the dirty innuendo department. Pretty much everyone here at Calla has a Lola story about some spectacularly funny moment where our boss failed to grasp the subtext. But those same people really like her. Lola might be annoyingly vague and slow to get a joke, but she’s painstakingly fair. She goes out of her way to be helpful, and where other people grant second chances, she’s willing to go up to imaginary numbers. Last week Lola hired a random old lady from the Chinese market down the street to translate when the twenty-two-year-old director of shipping lost Calla’s entire product inventory somewhere on the Chinese mainland.

Which makes it harder and harder to believe that Lola knowingly pirated my software.

After two weeks in her office, I’ve also learned that Lola needs more people time. While she might be introverted, she chats the ear off everyone she encounters, oversharing an unintentionally blunt stream of consciousness series of observations. Rideshare drivers are scared to come near our building. I appear to be the one exception to her nonstop talk fest because she promptly clams up whenever she sees me.

I wink at her. “Reporting for duty, sir.”

After my “interview” at Calla, I haven’t worn a suit again. I switched to jeans, a leather jacket, boots and a crisp button-up shirt. And a tie. I never forget the tie. A tie guarantees you attention.

Watch.

I adjust the knot, stroking my hand down the silky length, straightening it out. It’s a 1920s-style brown-and-blue-checked tie.

My boss’s hazel eyes zero in on my hands. It’s like waving a string in front of a kitten.

“Nice tie.” She drags her eyes back up to my face with remarkable willpower and I bite back a smile. Still got it.

A small frown crinkles her forehead. “Exactly how many ties do you own? You’ve been here two weeks and I’ve never seen the same one twice.”

See? She notices me.

“Last Monday—plum with pink dots. Tuesday—yellow polka dots. Wednesday—gray silk. Thursday and Friday—skinny black tie, navy blue black tie. That’s five ties in one week.”

She ticks my tie wardrobe off on her fingers. Lola likes to count.

“Maybe I’m a tie model in my spare time and get paid in ties.” I lean in. Her hair smells amazing.

Oblivious as always to my proximity, Lola sets her cup down and starts fixing her hair. The twisty-thing she does with it rarely lasts more than a few hours, necessitating repairs right about when I deliver her coffee. She wriggles and stretches, forcing her hair into an updo that looks like a double-scoop ice cream cone. Her arm brushes my shoulder. “You’re what, twenty? What normal college guy owns an entire business wardrobe?”

Danger.

“Wait.” She holds up a hand. She has a thinking pose like Rodin. “Don’t answer that. I’m pretty sure it’s an HR violation.”

Saved by the rule book. “Are you sexually harassing me?”

“What?” Her face turns a fabulous shade of bright pink.

Has she thought about me in HR-inappropriate ways?

“Feel free to lie to me if it’ll make me feel better.” When the pink deepens, I help her out and change the topic. “I do have an awesome tie collection.”

She frowns. “I’m not good with jokes. Is there an allusion hidden in there?”

“Do you want there to be?” I’m not ashamed to admit (to myself only and never to Jack or Max) that I’ve replayed our conversations in my head more than once over the last few weeks. I’ve also had more than one porn-worthy fantasy starring my boss, so I can’t help noticing that she’s staring at my mouth.

Does she...have a crush on me?

She sounds distracted, her eyes a little dreamy as she looks through me—again. I’m finding it hard to focus, too. I’ve never really noticed how pretty she is. We don’t spend much time together like this—usually she drops by my desk, we fight over my interpretation of my most recent assignment and then she flits off to do whatever it is she does. I’ve looked at her ass, her tits and all my other favorite parts, but it’s like I’ve never really seen the whole Lola.

I lean toward her without conscious thought, one hand resting on the side of her yoga ball. For balance. Not because it puts my fingers closer to her ass. Her leg brushes my hand.

She takes a hasty sip of her drink and chokes on it, spraying chai everywhere. I feel a small smile tug at my mouth, which I quickly hide as I whip out a handkerchief from my back pocket and start mopping up the mess.

Lola waves me off, producing a wad of paper towels from her bag. “Are you eighty? Who owns a handkerchief?”

“No, and this guy.” I touch my handkerchief to the corner of her mouth. “You have a spot right here.”

I don’t miss the way her lips part.

I think she does like me.

Or parts of me.

She abruptly rolls her yoga ball backward, putting some space between us. “We need to discuss the rebrand of our packaging.”

Right. She’d given me some dumb-ass to-do about researching “cute little pouches women can tuck a spare tampon in.” I pull out my phone and look at her.

“You realize I’m a software engineer and not a graphic designer, right?”

She raises a brow. “Scared?”

I text her the list of options I’ve come up with. Hazel suggested I look on Pinterest for inspiration, and she’s a genius.

Drawstring bag (pineapples, llamas, dogs)

Velvet pouch (crazy cats)

Anything with pom-poms

Bag with stupid inspiration quote

Anything Kate Spade

I also have a spreadsheet, product cost per piece and production times. I nailed it. Packaging isn’t hard—it’s mostly point, click, shop.

She sets her phone down. “Wow.”

“Fuzzy bunnies, puppies, baby seals—cute sells to women. You can’t help yourself. Big eyes, chubby cheeks and squishy bodies activate your mesocorticolimbic system and give you a major high. The more that high gets triggered, the more you seek it out.”

“You think our tampon packaging should be addictive,” she says dryly and then ostentatiously taps the trash can icon on her screen. “You need a do-over. The African artisans creating our pouches encountered technical issues ordering supplies. They have two thousand units of pink beads we have to incorporate.”

“So now we have to redo the packaging to match. It’s like making the drapes match the carpet.”

Her face colors. “You’re disgusting.”

Okay, false alert.

My boss does pick up on some innuendos—and she doesn’t like me.

At all.