He wouldn’t have brought up something this specific if it wasn’t something that needs to be done. “Who’s going to do it?” Whose work will I need to review over the weekend?
“Me.” His tone says, Who else?
Awesome. That means I won’t have to review anything, but… “Don’t you ever go home and just enjoy your free time?” I blurt out before I can catch myself.
“Sure.” Emmett grins. “I do a lot of things in my free time.”
“Like dating.” I bite my tongue as soon as the words slip out. Why am I talking our conversation to something so personal? Is it his scent working on me again? Or maybe this is some kind of subconscious resentment and a need to talk to him because he shouldn’t have done any of the things he did yesterday. Admittedly, I lost my head because of fury and a lack of sleep…but he shouldn’t have responded to me. Or tried to go for a second helping when his phone kept buzzing.
He gives me a look. “Dating?”
Let’s see how long you can play dumb. “You know. I saw a picture of you with some redhead at a gala earlier this month.”
“Oh, her?” He shrugs. “We’re not dating. We just attended the event together.”
“Then why did you text me about ‘diamonds or pearls’?”
“Did I?”
The elevator finally reaches the lobby. We walk out together, crossing the marble floor to the main entrance.
When Emmett still appears nonplussed, I roll my eyes inwardly and decide to help. “Yesterday morning?”
“Oh, that’s right. No, that was for a market survey.”
“Market survey?” I wait a few beats for him to elaborate. “Shouldn’t you be delegating that sort of things to an analyst?”
“They can’t handle it.” He reaches for the huge, tinted glass door and holds it open for me.
I doubt that. I’ve never seen him talk to an analyst about a market survey, and none of the analysts have ever mentioned working on one, either. In addition, he’s been asking me to pick this or that since I started at the firm. What market survey lasts that long? Of course, he could’ve just made up a series of market surveys for “fun” and “training.”
This man needs a hobby. Something wholesome and harmless, like stamp collecting. He’s so anal and exacting, it’s precisely the kind of thing he’d enjoy. He can organize stamps by country, year, commemorative event and more. And quit asking me to pick between two different types of gemstones or vacation spots or clothes or whatever that happens to pop into his head.
As we exit the building, I open my mouth to suggest—
“I knew it! Working late, my ass!”
Rick’s shriek pierces the air like an ice pick. I start, then swivel my head.
He’s standing in front of the main door. He probably picked this location to loiter since it’s the one closest to the garage on the other side of the street. His face is so red, his neck so stiff, he looks like he’s about to pass out from hypertension.
“When did you get back from Tahoe?”
He rants like he hasn’t heard me. “Job, really? You left me for this slick piece of shit?” He gestures at Emmett, who is observing the situation with eyes that are positively sparkling.
My stomach starts to hurt. When Emmett Lasker gets that look, nothing ends well.
“Who is this, Amy?” he asks.
“An ex-boyfriend.”
Thank God I get to put Rick in the “ex” category. Still, it’s embarrassing. He’s making a scene in front of my office building. At least it’s a Saturday.
I pray that nobody else from the office is working late today. I wish I’d checked. If anybody from GrantEm witnesses this, it’ll hit gossip central faster than the speed of light. When you have no life of your own, you live vicariously through others. And nobody does that better than people in finance.
And then it happens. Valerie, a second-year analyst at the firm, walks by in a T-shirt and yoga pants. She lives in a studio apartment near the office and must have been at some fitness center nearby. Her hobby is gossip, which she claims is “networking.” She takes out a phone and holds it in front of her. Shit!
“Ooooh… The guy you didn’t get to spend time with because we were together yesterday evening…and last night,” Emmett says, totally unhelpful. Not only that, he’s painting the wrong kind of picture for Rick, which is seriously annoying. When I marched into his office, I was already through with Rick.