DEFENSE (24 page)

“Hello?” I winced at my own voice. I sounded like a frightened child.

“How many goddamn rings does it take for you to answer the fucking phone?” Roland exclaimed, his voice deep, ever so slightly hoarse, and very, very angry. “And is that the best you can manage for a professional greeting? Hello?”

My face had to have been scarlet. “I’m so…I’m so sorry,” I stuttered. “I was…this is my first day, and Myra stepped away from the desk, and I wasn’t sure…”

“Wasn’t sure about what?” he barked.

“I wasn’t sure what to do,” I was forced to squeak.

“You weren’t sure what to do when a phone rang?” he demanded.

“Um, I wasn’t sure what to do when it was the president of a big company calling,” I whispered.

“You answer it!” The bellow made me jump and nearly drop the phone, which I was sure wouldn’t have gone well either.

“Okay.” I doubted he could hear me over his angry breathing.

“If you think you’re competent enough to do so, bring me a copy of the Times and a cup of coffee,” he snapped and slammed down the phone.

I was all too eager to replace my own receiver, standing quickly and looking around. Times. Coffee. A newspaper and a cup of coffee. I could do that. And coffee was where Myra was. She could help me figure this all out, help allay my unreasonable fucking fear of a billionaire on a telephone.

I reached the break room easily enough without too much delay, but Myra was nowhere in sight. Had she gone back to our desk? I craned my neck to check, but didn’t see her there. Where had she gone?

With shaking hands, I poured a large cup of coffee, slopping it over the sides and onto the counter. Dammit! Couldn’t I do anything right? I mopped up the spill with a paper towel and looked around. Would they…would they maybe keep the newspaper in here? There were snacks galore, reminding me that I was hungry, and plenty of community drinks in the refrigerator, but not a single sheet of newsprint.

Wasn’t this company working toward going completely digital? Couldn’t Roland Shepard turn on a computer to read the day’s news?

I carried the coffee out of the break room, the hot liquid sloshing around, jumping out and dotting the carpet from time to time, and hunted for Myra. Where in the hell was she? Did she leave me on purpose? Was this some twisted part of the training? I didn’t see the old woman anywhere, but, then again, she was awfully short. It would be easy to overlook her in my panicked scan around the office.

No Myra, no newspaper, and a rapidly decreasing mug of coffee from spilling so much of it. I was not doing very well on my first day.

I finally approached the receptionist at the front of the office, a woman sitting at a desk by the elevator I’d come up here on.

“Excuse me,” I said, forcing myself to smile and pretend like everything was just fine. “Have you happened to see Myra Tuttle around?”

“Oh, she had to go down to one of the other companies in the building to hash some things out for Shepard Shipments,” she said, then leaned close and lowered her voice conspiratorially. “That old beast is going to work her as hard as he can, up until the day she leaves.”

That old beast? Did she mean Roland? She had to have meant it. Roland Shepard was probably the only one around here who could tell Myra what to do, and he’d certainly been a beast to me over the telephone. Now that I thought about it, he could’ve just said, in a friendly voice, “No need to be nervous, Beauty, I know it’s your first day.” That simple statement would’ve done wonders to assuage my anxiety, but instead, here I was, out of breath for no good reason, on the end of my rope after not much more than an hour in this place.

“Could you tell me where to get that old beast—I mean Roland—I mean Mr. Shepard! Ugh! Could you tell me where to get his paper for him?” How could I be so flustered? Is this what an office setting did to me?

“There’s a kiosk if you just go down to the lobby and right across the street,” the receptionist said, giving me a sympathetic smile.

“Shit!” I exploded, spilling even more coffee as I jerked my hand upward to cover my mouth. “Sorry! I mean, thank you!”

I took refuge in the elevator, still holding that damned coffee mug, which was now missing more than an inch of the beverage, thanks to my clumsiness. I’d never been so flustered in a work setting before, and I used to strip down to nothing but a thong in front of people I didn’t know. How had getting a man a coffee and newspaper reduced me to such a bumbling mess?

I emerged from the elevator at a dead run, my flats clattering across the floor, people ducking out of the way. I was looking for a newspaper kiosk. Pushing the building doors open, my eyes darted all around until I spotted it.

Just an hour ago, I was standing out here, staring at the unfamiliar reflection of myself in the glass. Would I have gone inside if I’d known what torture awaited me there? Hell, no. I would’ve marched my ass back to my car and driven clear to Canada.

I dashed across the street, unwilling to wait for the correct traffic signals, and earned myself some well-deserved honks and shouted insults. Sorry, folks, but I was trying to get a billionaire his newspaper before he fired me or murdered me or berated me until I curled up and died. I was just trying to save my own hide, here.

“I need to get a copy of the Times, please,” I told the cashier, excited that I’d at least found the place. Now I could sprint back up to the office and prove to Roland Shepard that I wasn’t a complete idiot.

“Here ya go,” the man said, flipping a fat paper toward me. “That’ll be a buck fifty.”

I froze in my tracks, having been ready to wheel back around and run for it.

“Excuse me?” I asked, clutching the paper and the coffee mug.

“I said, that’ll be a buck fifty,” the cashier repeated, staring at me.

“I don’t have any money,” I said, patting the sides of my pocketless skirt just to be sure that some benevolent being hadn’t graciously bestowed a pocket with a dollar fifty to save the day. Nope.

“Then you can’t have any news,” the cashier said, reaching for the paper.

“Um, wait a second,” I said, dodging away. “This paper. It’s for the man in charge across the street…there at the Shepard Shipments building. Roland Shepard. The president. Doesn’t he have some kind of credit here? He probably asks for a paper every day.”

“Nobody has credit here, lady,” the cashier said. “The paper’s a buck fifty for presidents and pissants both.”

“Fuck,” I moaned. How long had I been on this stupid errand? Ten minutes? Twenty? If I was incapable of something so mundane, how could I be expected to be Roland’s eyes and ears and hands and brains in the office, as Myra told me I would be?

“A buck fifty,” the cashier repeated, holding out his hand. “Or you give the paper back right now.”

“I’ll pay you back later, thanks!” I yelled, spinning around him and galloping away at full tilt.

“You’re stealing that paper!” the cashier yelled after me, making me grimace as people stared at me run by, bewildered. “You’re stealing that paper, lady! I don’t give a shit if it’s for the Pope! You’re stealing that paper!”

The only thing on my mind was getting this paper and coffee up to Roland as fast as my legs—and the elevator—would take me.

I slowed my pace to a trot as soon as I got back up to the office, giving the receptionist a small smile as I fought to regain control of my breathing. Everything was fine, now. I had the paper, and I had the coffee. All I had to do was deliver it to a man I was apparently terrified of and all would be well. I could cower back down at the desk, continuing to scan the box full of papers that needed to be digitized before the end of the day.

With Myra still doing Roland’s bidding elsewhere, I set my shoulders and plunged forward. Pulling the door to his office open, wrinkling the paper a little in the process, I abruptly stopped.

The light inside the office was so dim that it was hard to see, and I didn’t want to run into anything. I had to stand still as the door closed behind me and wait for my eyes to adjust.

One dim lamp illuminated a desk, in the far corner, and the outside light was trying to creep in through the same large windows the rest of the office had, but these were obscured with heavy curtains.

“Well?”

I jumped at the voice, which came from the direction of the light on the desk, and peered over there. I should’ve been able to see him by now, my eyes having gotten used to the dimness, but I didn’t see anyone.

“I have…your, um…”

“Speak up!”

That sharp command made me want to do the opposite of speaking; it made me want to disappear forever. And then something else rose inside of me, an indignation about how I was being treated. It overwhelmed everything. Why was this man being so foul to me? Did he think he could treat everyone like this just because he had so much more money than the rest of us? It wasn’t fair that I’d been running around like a chicken with its head cut off just because he’d been so mean to me over the phone. It was my first day, after all. I was bound to make some mistakes simply because I didn’t understand how this place worked yet.

“I have your coffee and your paper,” I said, proud that my voice only quavered a little.

“Well, bring it here.”

Here? Where was that? I tiptoed carefully toward the light, in the direction of a voice whose owner I still couldn’t see, until I could gradually make out that the chair at the desk had been spun around, the man sitting in it hidden from my view.

What was wrong with him? Did he think me so beneath him that he wouldn’t even deign to gaze upon me? I let the paper fall to the desk with a loud slap in indignation, but as I was moving to slam the coffee mug down beside it with equal rancor, my elbow caught the edge of the lampshade, sending a large wave of the liquid to splash over the front page of the Times. The lampshade crashed to the floor, and I could see now, better than ever, just how nice the office was.

There was a large leather couch and two low-slung chairs to match at the far side. The office floor space alone was probably at least a quarter of the size of the rest of the floor. Beyond that, a spiral staircase spun to a door set near the top of the high ceiling. Where could that possibly go? Everything in this already nice space would be so much better, of course, if someone would just throw those heavy curtains back and illuminate the room with the morning light from outside.

The chair spun around, and I wasn’t quick enough to stifle a gasp. The naked light bulb on the lamp, which had revealed the contents of this office to me, revealed equally the occupant of the room.

His face cast in sharp relief, equally in shadow and light, was hideously disfigured by a twisting scar that traveled from his temple, past his cheek, across his mouth—splitting the bottom lip—and on down his chin and neck, vanishing beneath the collar of his shirt.

He stared at me, eyes dark in spite of the light, for a few brief moments before redirecting his gaze to the coffee mug and his sopping paper.

“And just what the fuck is this?” he asked, sweeping his hand over the front page. “How am I supposed to read this now?”

“Well,” I said, clearing my throat. “You could turn a few more lights on.”

He made a sound of disbelief in his throat, as he examined the coffee mug, going so far as to stick a finger into the liquid.

“And this,” he said, showing me the inside of the mug. “A cold, half-empty cup of coffee? Did you think this was what I wanted?”

“Some people would say it was half full,” I countered then jumped again as he slammed his fist down against his desk.

“Do you think this is funny?” he demanded, pushing himself up from the chair, towering over me even in my heels. “Do you think working here is a joke?”

I had to fight the urge to turn and run away. Standing my ground, even as my knees shook, I stared at that furious scar marring his face, distracting myself from my urge to flee.

“I don’t think that,” I said. “I’m new here, though, so if that actually is the office culture, you’ll have to tell me.”

I was saved from the next verbal assault by the soft beep of the phone on the desk. How was his ringer so soft but the ringer on the phone on my desk so loud, jangling my nerves with its pompous tone?

He held up a finger—he was apparently saving more rage for me after he dealt with this pressing business matter—and answered the phone.

“Roland Shepard.” He looked at me as he listened into the receiver, and I finally had to glance away, studying my feet. That scar was just too difficult to ogle. I took the opportunity to retrieve the lampshade I’d knocked over, replacing it back over the bare light bulb and feeling instantly uneasy at the darkness. The darkness seemed to be where Roland Shepard thrived. I was out of my element.

After what felt like five minutes of just standing there, listening to him listen to whoever was on the other end of that line, Roland cleared his throat.

“Thank you, Myra.” Myra? What the hell? When did she get back and why was she only just now launching a campaign to save me from the president of this company? I strained my eyes to see in the darkness as Roland replaced the receiver to the phone.

“So,” he began, picking up the wet paper and dumping it in the garbage. “Not only do the simplest of requests challenge you, but you also steal newspapers in my name and my company’s name?”